Sleeping together, the false good idea: “She has moans, it’s annoying”

"There are people who sleep with their mouths open in the most foolish manner. There are others who snore so loud that the floorboards tremble. Most of them resemble those young devils that Michelangelo sculpted, sticking out their tongues to mock passers-by." Based on these observations, Balzac wonders by what mystery we came to make the use of the marital bed fashionable, a practice "so fatal to self-esteem" ? ( Physiology of Marriage , 1829). Beyond this aesthetic-narcissistic question, sleeping together has other disadvantages.

How long will we have to endure this partner who rolls towards us and ends up covering us with one or two of his limbs so that we have no choice but to slide to the very edge of the mattress? Endure this wiggling leg, this icy foot, this selfish soul and its blue light screen that inhibits our melatonin?

According to IFOP and its "Study on sleep disorders and the relationship of the French to their bed," carried out for the mattress comparison site Tousaulit.com, published in 2021, 68% of cohabiting couples have already argued about bed etiquette, almost half after a burst of snoring. "My girlfriend snores loudly and a lot ," reports Jules (some witnesses requested anonymity), a 50-year-old bookseller. "She chokes, she has moans, it's annoying. It's like a dripping faucet, you're always waiting for the next one! You tell her, she gets offended. It's all the more annoying because, like all people who snore, she falls asleep in eight seconds!"

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