“After Fifty, Side by Side Can Mean Separate Sheets—Why Growing Old Together Often Starts with Sleeping Apart”

Somewhere around the fifth decade the nighttime script flips: love is still shared, but blankets are not. Snoring becomes a freight train, knees ache against unfamiliar calves, and one person’s 3 a.m. bathroom tour turns into a duet of groans and stubbed toes. Doctors call it “environmental sleep fragmentation”; couples simply call it tired. Sleep apnea machines hum like small aircraft, restless legs twitch to their own rhythm, and hot flashes roll through like summer storms, leaving sheets damp and tempers short. Sharing a bed begins to feel less like intimacy and more like a nightly obstacle course.