discussion keeps the world turning this is roundtable you're listening to
roundtable myself a young I'm joined by ding-hung and Steve Hatherley in the
studio coming up these days more married couples are skipping the whole two bodies
one mattress thing and instead sleeping in separate bedrooms not like it's any
of my business but we will talk about why for American Millennials mostly it
seems sleeping apart might be the new sleeping together and we share with you
what's brought us sheer delight this week join us for a dose of positivity
laughter and all things that make our hearts saying it roundtable's happy
place your voice matters and we would love to hear it in our heart to heart
segment got a question something you're itching to share fire up that voice
memo and hit us up at roundtable podcast at qq.com our podcast listeners
can find us at roundtable china on apple podcast now let's strip switch it up and
explore another intriguing topic so you found the one the rings are on and the
honeymoon phase is all bliss until nighttime comes and you had to wait for
it separate beds is this a red flag or are you onto something genius believe it
or not it's a growing trend in North America and couples seem to be doing okay
I feel like I'm probing over other people's business like you're nervous
for these couples it's all very strange to me so what is this trend of married
couple sleeping in separate beds and why are people doing it yeah I mean just
hearing it seems weird perhaps for a lot of people couples sleeping in
separate beds or separate bedrooms might be surprising but there was a survey done
in the United States last year 2023 they asked 2,200 people married people and
they found this one in five couples sleep in separate rooms and among that
one in five two-thirds of those do it every single night so 20% if we can take
this survey result as a cross-section of all of American society 20% of
American couples sleep in in different rooms or different beds and within that
statistic so 66% do it every day well so I guess there is a term called sleep
they call it sleep divorce yeah that sounds so ominous yeah it's way more
common than people realize dr. Mark Boulis he's a neurologist at Sunnybrook
Health Sciences Center and he says that sleep loss is the number one reason that
couples choose to sleep separately this is what he said it all comes down to
your partner's sleep habits disruptions like snoring or restlessness or
bathroom breaks and different sleep schedules all of those can add up to as
much of an hour as an hour of lost sleep so it can have a major impact on sleep
and it can have a snowball effect impact on the relationship to on that I would
totally agree if you don't sleep well then they'll a bunch of issues will pop
up like health problems to say the least and difficulties in in terms of
how to manage your daily mood yeah you might be cranky if you don't sleep well
at night right and maybe a lower threshold in terms of tolerating
oh yeah and physical discomfort this kind of stuff so and to tolerate people
around you know the impacts could be really negative yeah it's true I mean
though those things you're right but those things are the things that happen
in general when you don't sleep well that doesn't really talk about not
sleeping next to your partner if you just have sleep problems in general then
those things will happen to you on a daily basis but if we talk about like
snoring that can be really you know irritating and annoying I guess I am the
the issue is like when you snore when you are in asleep you don't realize well
you don't somebody else what it reminds you stop snoring but this works for for
people let's take Lindsay Dimitio for example Lindsay is a 40 year old mother
she's from Toronto and in 2020 she and her husband started sleeping separately
because her pregnancy snoring she was pregnant at the time and apparently she
was snoring every single night that was disturbing her husband's sleep so they
talked about it and they made an agreement hey listen my pregnancy
snoring is bothering you and it's affecting your daily schedule so go
ahead sleep in a different bedroom they agreed on that so after that they both
got better quality sleep and then she said this we believe that our sleeping
arrangement now has been a big factor in the success of our happy relationship
I wonder what happens after the pregnancy though after the pregnancy they
decided to keep their arrangement permanent yes they made they made it
permanent well that's bad idea sorry first of all if you've got the baby I
know how cute and angelic the baby is supposed to be but if you're gonna look
after the baby you better bring the men the man in to in my opinion so you guys
should be you know at least for the first year of the baby sleep in the same
room let him do some of the hard work to get him at least involved and anyway and
then you guys would be like you're a close family unit and isn't isn't
sleeping in the same room a big part of it and that's what Jenna Comrie says is
that there are downsides to this as well the the upside or the positives is that
you're you're bound to have a better night's sleep because you have more
space if you snore you're not waking anybody up they're not going to kick you
to stop snoring you're not interrupted by bathroom breaks and things like that
but you're missing out on the opportunity for spontaneous connection
the experts say and that spontaneous connection can be a conversation that
turns into a deep conversation or something like that but if you're
sleeping in different bedrooms you're not even gonna know if your partner is
awake or not or if they're struggling to go to sleep or not you're gonna miss out
on all of that yeah so I feel like the actual situation actually varies from
one individual to another individual for some people they would enjoy sleeping
alone which will guarantee them with better sleep equality but for some
people probably they would more depend upon the an opportunity for this kind of
intimacy when two spouses are sleeping together and they are very much
reliant on that kind of intimacy this this whole thing kicked off because of
Cameron Diaz by the way you know Cameron Diaz the American actress she was in
films like Charlie's Angels for example the previous version yeah yeah exactly
yeah she was a Hollywood A-list actress for a while and then retired to start a
family take care of her family well she did an interview and she was talking
about how her and her rock star husband decided to sleep in separate bedrooms
and after that the millennial generation went oh really celebrities are doing
this it must be okay for us there was a March 2023 survey from the American
Academy of Sleep Medicine and they found that 35% of Millennials sleep in
separate rooms occasionally or consistently millennial couples who were
actually the most likely to sleep apart at 43% compared to baby boomers the
older generation at just 22% older couples in the West and here in China
and in many countries around the world they don't do this well actually I have
your question regarding this first of all let's check out how long the
marriages will last for Millennials since they're still relatively young so
we don't really know right let's check again maybe five years later ten years
later and see if their marriage is lasting second of all maybe there could
be a slight difference here in between cultures okay I couldn't find any
concrete figures unlike what Steve has brought to the table for the Chinese
couples sleeping arrangement here in China but I've heard this from the vine
I suppose that in China sometimes maybe it's the older couples that might
consider this arrangement a bit more hmm so you know you've been married for 20
30 years or whatnot you're maybe empty nesters or whatever it is and then folks
are like you know I'm kind of done putting up with him snoring for the last
20 years and you know what I might want a little bit more freedom about what I'm
gonna do before going to bed maybe it's doing some manicures or just painting
your nails and enjoying a little bit of soft swing music or whatnot and he's in
his own room doing his thing and your marriage relationship is stable and you
sort of just go your separate before sleep routines and sleep in separate
rooms or separate beds and that's okay but here's the misconception though and
this is from the Washington Post it's a misconception that there's something
wrong with the relationship if a couple decides to sleep in separate rooms and
according to John Hughes from the Washington Post its people aged 35 to 45
that are more open and more willing to negotiate all aspects of their
relationship in a very mature manner having a conversation about it saying
hey listen darling you don't sleep so well when I'm laying next to you in the
bed we don't have a lot of space and I don't sleep very well either hey why
don't we just sleep in separate beds then we can both have a great sleep at
night it's the 35 according to the Washington Post the age group 35 to 45
they're having these types of conversations the marriage is really
happy there's nothing wrong with the relationship at all they're just saying
can we just sleep better at night both of us and see you in the morning yeah so
I feel like this behavior of sleeping separately is nothing new right if you
take a look at the human history in ancient China or ancient Western
culture sleeping separately was a common occurrence I guess yeah and his couples
have been sleeping apart for centuries according to some historians his history
scholars and it was only after this so-called sexual revolution in the 1960s
that people viewed sleeping apart as as an indication or implication or
implication of loveless or sexless marriage before therefore we have this
stigma about sleeping separately I'm surprised to hear that because I used to
think that you know in old days when people's living conditions weren't as
good as today then maybe you only have one bedroom like even if you want to go
separate ways where do you go you can't sleep outside so I at least for I suppose
average Chinese families in the last many decades I would think that you only
have one bedroom one bed and therefore since you guys have tied the knot then
lying it together simple as that there were times when the whole family would
sleep in the same space for safety reasons right now obviously we're going
back a long time when we're talking about those times but yeah sleeping in
the same bed is in terms of human history a relatively new phenomenon and
now young people are saying we don't necessarily need to do this if our sleep
is being hurt because of it but also I still wonder you know like at the
wedding altar you guys promised each other life and death through sickness
and health for better or worse and all that good stuff and now it's just maybe I
snore a little bit and you you can't tolerate that and you know what once you
like get through that hurdle our relationship will probably go further to
a different maybe level and and also I've heard actually from older couples
that you know I gave the example of the lady saying oh I'm done after 20 years
of putting up with your snoring but some might even say that after 20 years of
listening to you snore away that becomes the the lullaby that puts me to sleep I
you hopeless romantic I have a question for you your partner uh has sleep apnea
what is that that's where you're required to wear a machine on your face at night and it's
a serious it's a serious thing um and your partner snores really really really loudly
every night and you can't sleep at all you sleep maybe an hour an hour and a half a night and then
you have to come to the station here and work all day and do a show are you are you going to
do that for 25 years well I'm thinking can we get to sort it out before getting married
what do you think what's your opinion about this good or bad or neutral no no no I I would have
preferred not to be engulfed in that kind of situation now of course usually it's the it's
the husband who tend to snore more compared to the wife side but uh it's it's I feel like
when you are when you're getting only a couple of hours of sleep every single night you are really
in engulfness in a situation where all those kinds of anxiety and mental pain what it transcends
you know love and romance um yeah and that's that's detrimental to your love and a romance
so you think this trend maybe will not last with young people or do you do you think it's a problem
in uh society this trend uh it does not necessarily to any society problem I mean
if we're talking about any problem it's the problem within this family unit right um see
I don't think it's other than that I don't think it's a problem at all yeah I think it's just a
group of people in a certain age limit that have re-prioritized their sleep where it's a really
really really important thing to them and they're willing to have a conversation and say if we're
not sleeping well then sleeping separately is not going to have an effect on our on our relationship
and this seems to be something that would be a foreign concept to an older generation
but for this particular generation we're talking about this isn't a foreign concept at all and for
Chinese older couples I suspect it's not a foreign um concept at all they're like huh
finally everybody else is good yeah and uh by the way um it might also you know
uh prompt you and force you to work harder to buy a bigger house or a bigger bed
a house with two bedrooms a super king and then you can sleep together no problem and everybody
gets a great sleep at night yeah that's good sorry I'm still I'm still thinking about your question
earlier just you know if you'll think about that all day now yes like if I found the one
if one day I do and he has this major deficiency how do I cope with it you know I mean if if he's
the one I think I'll I'll try my best liar liar you are definitely sleeping no he's definitely
sleeping on the sofa we'll see well the thing is um this is I don't think this is a problem for
anybody but those people who need to work it out themselves and these days you see young people
really um coming up with quite innovative ideas to sort out their private lives then it even
includes maybe only meeting up with each other on weekends and they might even not live together
yeah some married couples don't even sleep in the same house anymore just to finish up as a final
point experts do say this can be a bad thing if it's not communicated very very clearly in the
relationship and you're both not on the same page if one person wants it and the other person
doesn't this is going to lead to a real relationship problem but if both people communicate clearly
clearly and maturely it shouldn't be an issue yeah I just hope it's not a major blow on intimacy
coming up welcome to the happiest corner on the airwaves roundtables happy place
um delivery delivery delivery
what is it happiness from round table
well here's the segment where we share what's made us happy this week and dinghong what's your
well so a recent happy moment of mine is that i managed to find a book at a remote corner of my
home it is the uh the the the english version of american novel uncle tom's cabin i bought this
book some 18 years ago when i was a high school student at the official xinhua bookstore at my
uh local hometown um and since then i have experienced moving from my hometown to beijing
for university education and several relocations of my home addresses after i graduated from college
and i i once thought that i had lost this book somewhere after all those relocations and
surprisingly it is uh still with me you know this particular book this particular copy is
special to me in the sense that it was one of the earliest uh english language um reading material
or extra curriculum books that i have obtained for myself you know around the year 2005 2006
in a place like my hometown which which is a very small city a four-tier city in eastern china
but it's still xiaoxing right uh it's a prefecture oh i say prefecture a county yeah it's a beautiful
place it is it is beautiful um but in back then in a place like that uh it's very very difficult
to get access to any extra curricula english reading materials so for a teenager like me at
the time who wish to do some reading in english you can imagine the kind of excitement and all
on my mind when i saw that book uh at that particular bookstore well it was um that wouldn't
have been a common thing to find in a bookstore in your county at that time i guess yeah yeah yeah
exactly exactly and you just found this book again yeah yeah yeah i thought i have i might
have lost it somewhere but it was it is still me still with me and i made up a mind to read
through it once again how big is your house a remote area right i was thinking about that
a remote corner in the east wing yeah i mean regardless of the size of a house there is always
a remote area yeah that's true yeah thank you so much uh for sharing your happy place with uh
sting hung and steve very quickly very very very quickly it's a new show uh that i watched called
chaos kaos it's a story of zeus actually greek mythology but it's modernized it stars jeff gold
bloom who was in jurassic park a long time ago in another famous movie called the fly i just love
him as an actor and i think it's so cool because they modernized greek mythology in this kind of
very cool relatable way for people who might not be into that as a topic or might not know about it
chaos with jeff gold bloom great show oh lovely and that's a really new show brand new okay great
something we could check out yes thank you and this summer i had the absolute pleasure of seeing
sudali or soda green live at the wukusung stadium with a good friend of mine and long time listeners
of the show you'll know her from the show well she's huangshan and there's something magical
about sharing a concert experience with someone who loves the music just as much as you do and
we even had a moment trading kleenexes in the dark shedding a communal tear and it was such a
beautiful emotional experience and now for today's happy place segment i'd love to share a song out
of soda green's catalog of 20 years this song laughing and playing in the human world celebrates
living life joyfully and embracing both laughter and chaos in the world it encourages lighting up
the darkness facing lives love ups and downs with a smile and profoundly overcoming difficult moments
and by the way he's the front man and also who penned this song has grown into one of the most
talented and respected lyricists of the millennial generation his ability to combine poetic expression
with popular music in china the mandarin pop scene has earned him a dedicated following and critical
acclaim cementing his status as a top tier lyricist so i really like you to appreciate the
the writing the of the lyrics as well and this song is all about riding live's roller coaster
with a big old grin on your face i hope this song helps you spot the silver linings in every cloud
uh it's kind of like saying hey when life gives you lemons make a killer lemonade cocktail
and throw a party time to hit play for today's happy place and let the good times roll with
soda greens laughing and playing in the human world thank you so much steve hatherley and
dinghong for joining the discussion i'm ha young enjoy the music and we'll see you next time
