I'm in a similar situation. I'm a very light sleeper, and I find it very hard to share a bed with anyone. Also, my man always wanted me to sleep facing him, but the feeling of someone else's breath on my face drives me crazy!

He eventually had to learn to deal with the fact, though. I sometimes just have to get and and sleep somewhere else, or I'll be a raging maniac the next day. Your girl should understand. Good luck!

Great advice, Tennis.

puts you at a real disadvantage in this since as a male your motives and emotions will be suspect in a way they would not be for a woman. Apparently there are studies that document the sleep disruption cause by another person's presence, for everyone. Maybe you can convince her with those.

Good advice Cary. I'm another guy who, while not a light sleeper in some senses, am very sensitive to movement other than my own in the bed. As far as I'm concerned it is a fairly "hard-wired" subconscious or autonomic response. While perhaps there are ways to eventually retrain that part of the brain, it is something about myself that was easy enough for me to accept isn't typical but is nevertheless okay. Maybe the reason I'm here today is that an ancestor of mine woke up when someone else was about to kill him in his sleep, and sensing a slight movement awoke and saved himself and went on to father my great-great grandfather. It is wonderful that we are all different in so many little ways, otherwise we'd all want the same job, like and dislike the same things, and generally live in a horribly dull world.

Sleeping apart doesn't have to be a problem, unless it is a deal breaker for the other person for some deeply held reason. In my case it doesn't even have to be a different room. A separate bed in the same room isolates the movements and softens soft noises enough, and mostly people have been as understanding as about other individual quirks.

The one concern I have with the letter is the title. If the letter's author chose those I'd certainly suggest avoiding the whole "The sex is great but..." thing. Sex should never even be mentioned with this topic. Clearly when being intimate the couple will be together, and hopefully there is at least some together time after the main event is over; or perhaps times when a bed is shared for pillow talk and closeness alone prior to moving to a different location for sleep. One thing I could see a partner having a legitimate gripe with is a partner saying "I'm done; that was fun; goodnight" and immediately hopping out of bed. There is most likely a way to meet both peoples' needs that will work well, and as you said openly discussing it is the best way to start to figure that out.

Although Cary did much to comfort the letter writer and make him feel more 'normal,' he did not address why he feels the need to sleep alone only after sex with females. It sounds to me like the letter writer needs to re-evaluate his feelings about sex and women. I have heard men and women say that after having sex with certain people, they want them to leave immediately so they won't have to sleep together in the same bed. Maybe the letter writer's problem reflects sexual guilt or a lack of attraction to his partners.

My problem's not exactly the same but it's similar. I can sleep with someone else in the bed but I have to be the first one in bed sleeping. Otherwise I'm up for hours trying to find a comfortable position while trying not to disturb my partner until I finally just pass out from exhaustion. My girlfriend got used to finding me on the couch in the morning, not that she minded all that much because I was keeping her up too.

whose sleep was disrupted by the presence of a man?

I've been in the same dilemma for quite some time now -- five years to be exact. After feeling like a failure as a woman (and a fraud as a lover), I've made peace with the fact that I'm just a light sleeper.

As a matter of fact, everything wakes me up: rain, cats, the sound of neighbors arguing five houses away. I'm thin and bony. My boyfriend is thin and bony. Our knee and hip bones knock against each other. Sometimes this bothers us, sometimes not.

Unfortunately, I grew up on Hollywood images of sex. copulation without sperm or ungainly pot bellies and stale breath. Afterwards, two lovers would meld into one another and fall, like Rip, into a deep slumber. This never happened with me.

You're fine. However, if you've never had a problem until now, you might want to question whether or not this situation is an exception to the rule. Good luck!

Many people are light sleepers, and these types of situations are not unusual at all. O. hit it right on the head when she brought up the influence of movies and television in creating an unrealistically normative portrayal of couples post-coitally melding into each other for a night of uninterrupted slumber.

Unfortunately I cant recall the source, but I read an article recently on couples not sleeping together- and the usual reason was that the man was an incredibly loud snorer. The article did mention all sorts of other reasons as well- substantially different schedules, sleepwalking, irreconciliable preferences regarding the mattress, pillows, room temperature, etc.

Maybe he could try easing into it- first, sleeping in the same room, to get used to the noise. Then, he could try sleeping in bed with a full body pillow set up in between. Or you could try sleeping together on the weekends and sleeping apart during the week.

As far as the suspicions of intimacy issues go, I encourage any women to share their views if they disagree, but if the man involved is in all other respects a sensitive, concerned, caring and supportive partner, then his girlfriend should be able to trust him enough to take him at his word that this is an issue of being a light sleeper, not one of fear of intimacy.