i posted a question the other day on facebook what do you prefer queen or king? talking bed size folks, not whether you prefer to be a king or queen. the responses from women was overwhelmingly king, but the men primarily said queen. this of course got me thinking. i have slept in a double, queen and king with a man. looking back at my marriage i can track my "connection" with my ex depending on the size of bed we shared. so here is my new thought, can the size of your bed impact your connection with your partner?
when i first started dating my ex he had a double bed. sleeping in that bed was kind of comical. there is really only two ways you can sleep in a double bed with another person. either you are connected from shoulder to rump and both of you are facing towards the outside of the bed, this is a real bummer if one side is up against a wall because you never get a fresh breath of air seeing as how every exhale you re-inhale because it has just bounced off the wall back into your lungs. or you are spooning and you have to utilize your synchronized sleeping skills to turn over in unison. this is definitely an art form that i have not mastered nor do i care to master.
at the time when we shared a double bed (this was only at his house, i had a queen but i lived with mom and he never stayed there), our relationship was new, we were excited by each other, we wanted to be close to each other.
eventually my ex and i graduated to a queen size bed. this bed felt huge! we could turn over whenever we wanted without running into each other. with our new found expanse of cotton our sleeping habits changed. i took on a sleeping position that resembled being in a coffin, flat on my back often with my arms folded across my chest. the way i slept was because he took up the rest of the bed, dominating all the available space. it was like he was sleeping solo in the double bed and i got the edge. my presence in our queen bed became small, i stayed out of the way. whereas he stretched each limb to fill all the space establishing ownership.
two kids later an upgrade to a king bed and our cozy beginnings turned into dont' touch me, i'm sleeping. i still slept in my coffin sized space on my side, he still owned the majority of the bed and occasionally we had a munchkin in between. being an unhappy, wiped out stay at home mom of two i valued my rest more than anything, i had no time for a spontaneous late night romp. having a vast expanse of cool cotton between us insured that there wouldn't be an accidental touching of feet or any other body part and it suited me just fine.
it saddens me to recall the destruction of our union. obviously our connection to each other was not directly caused by the size of our bed, but if we had been forced to reconnect nightly through the intimacy of touch would we have drifted apart so quickly? you may be thinking that 15 years is not quick, but if you go into something, in this case marriage, thinking it is going to be the rest of your life, 15 years is just a snapshot of what your life together should have been.
i am back in a queen bed and plan to stay in this size bed. i miss the weight of someone on the other side of the bed. i miss the heat that is emanated from a man (why do they run so hot? i have no idea, but my bed was definitely warmer with a man in it). to combat the emptiness of my bed i started piling my folded laundry on the other side, there is a way to stack the laundry to simulate a human being, it doesn't put off any heat, but it is something.
occasionally i share my bed with a man, as of late it is the same man. he is much better to sleep next to then my laundry, not only is there the weight of a man, but he is really warm (i am often cold). we sleep in the middle legs tangled, arms draped over the other, toes mingling. this is a far cry from my coffin position, but it is comfortable and i seriously can't get enough.
so here is my take, i don't think it really matters what size bed you sleep in as long as you keep that connection with your partner. as for me, i will stick to a queen size bed, the cozier the better.
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