Men’s Health magazine reviews how a sleep divorce could improve marriages.

“It’s really important that couples recognize that we spend about one-third of our lives asleep,” says Wendy Troxel, Ph.D., senior behavioral and social scientist at the RAND Corporation and author of Sharing the Covers: Every Couples Guide to Better Sleep, out in April. “That’s a major proportion of your coupled existence.”

If you and your significant other doze off easily side by side, kudos. Not everyone is so lucky. If your partner’s sleep habits disrupt your rest, you might consider the so-called sleep divorce. The idea is simple: You and your partner retreat to different beds or rooms overnight.

Dr. Troxel supports the concept, but not its name. “The word divorce has such negative connotations,” she says. “I like couples to think about forging a sleep alliance and to move away from the idea that it represents the death of a relationship.”

Get the full story at menshealth.com.