A shared bedroom, a shared bed even, is the hardest thing about any relationship. If I ever divorce, I’m sure it will be on grounds of irreconcilable differences in sleeping arrangements.

In our starter one-bedroom flat, hubby and me slept on a trundle bed. Then we moved in a house large enough to accommodate not only a queen size bed, but even the shocking luxury of a separate room for sleeping. This brought new difficulties grave enough to have us wish for separate bedrooms — for the good of our marriage. Sadly, our house won’t allow for two bedrooms unless we choose to abolish the kitchen or the office. Or the bathroom, maybe.

Hubby and me always had differences concerning conditions best suited to sustain human life. Hubby must have been a prisoner in a Soviet gulag in his previous life, because he keeps the room temperature as low as to turn my steaming cup into iced coffee. This is, of course, intolerable, and when home alone, I make sure the temperature is at the point of turning the aquarium into fish soup.

Another issue is keeping the windows open for no reason at all. I don’t even need windows: I hide away in the darkest corner of the house and I’m perfectly fine with ventilation and a USB lamp. I disapprove to the point of murder of sleeping with the bedroom window open. This is a slow and painful process that hubby chose in order to kill me, hoping that I won’t notice. How would I not notice when the so-called fresh air invariably gives me colds and a stiff neck?

If you ever lived in the countryside, you’ll know that in the night, wilderness closes up on your home. Dogs are howling, cats are meowing and birds are screaming intolerably. The call of the wild is keeping me awake; I even spent one night running an online report of the sounds:

00:45 I was napping when the automated village church bell stroke quarter to full hour.

01:16 The neighbours’ dog announces to all dogs within a one-mile perimeter that he spotted a cat. Half a dozen more dogs bark back.

01:41 This sounds like an owl. I’m terribly scared and I irrationally fear it might be a werewolf in disguise.

01:58 My cat announces to my other cat that she’s brought her a rat for snack.

02:13 My cat realises that the other cat isn’t interested in the snack. Her summoning cry turns into a war cry as she snaps the rat’s bones and starts devouring it.

??:?? I think I’ve had a cat nap.

03:26 The birds are back with vengeance. They’re screaming orgasmically like they’re on crack.

03:51 In the utmost depths of despair, I shut the window. This wakes hubby up, though the previously described sounds didn’t. We fight. Hubby gets up, annoyed, and I fall asleep, finally.

A shared bed on top of a shared bedroom brought about territorial disputes. I’m a firm believer in that queen beds were made for queens, not their husbands. If we had a king bed, I’d understand that hubby wants to claim it. But this is not happening. I like to sleep on my side, but I have stability issues and tend to toss over when not properly braced by my outstretched limbs. This disability requires me to sleep diagonally across the bed, so I naturally need for my handicap to be accommodated.

Hubby’s sleeping behaviour tends to be immoderately and health-threateningly expansive: more than once did I end up with his outstretched arm planted on my face. I was even considering setting up a barb wire division to keep hubby on his quarter of the bed and prevent him from colonising the three quarters that I vitally need. I abandoned the plan due to concerns for my safety. I’m now at loss as to what measure to adopt to ensure bedroom ceasefire and decent sleep. Help?