Recently I’ve heard about a lot of couples sleeping in separate beds for the sole purpose of them both getting a good night’s sleep. Personally, I think it’s not a bad idea and it hasn’t been implemented here primarily because we don’t have another bed and the futon in our office is covered by painting supplies and room clean-out items as we recolor the rooms on our second floor. It’s also old and not a comfortable measure no matter how desperate times may become.
I will share with you now that we have gone in the opposite direction, bringing a third entity into our marital bed. It’s not a furry creature but one made of memory foam. It was all my husband’s doing although the responsibility for finding it and its arrival on our porch falls completely on me. No, it’s not some kind of sex doll. PUH-LEASE!!!
It’s an extra pillow.
Truth be told, my husband holds and hugs it in the most intimate of ways. I am not jealous; 25 years of marriage replaces the green-eyed monster with a shrug and the statement, “Recycling goes out tonight.” But I am in the fight of my life, trying to stake my claim of at least half of our already small full size bed, now battling not only a knee or an elbow but a toddler-sized slab of polyurethane more than a third of my 5’ 2” length. I would institute the age-old demand, “Either she goes or I do!”, (yes, I see what I did there) but a quarter of a century of living together promises I would be on the short end of that stick. So I make sure to get in bed first each night, battening down the hatches for seven hours of being knocked around by my 50-year-old husband’s security blanket. Maybe it’s time to add the 2’ stuffed Mickey Mouse doll he bought me on our honeymoon in Disney World that somehow has remained in our bedroom all these years to the mix. Ours was a world of laughter and hopes back then, the tears and fears would come later. But one thing’s for sure, these days in our bed it’s a small world after all.
