Yesterday evening Andrew, my husband of 30 years, looked at me forlornly and said: ‘I long for you to say those words to me again.’He’d just overheard me say to Max – the other, much younger, man in my life – ‘Come on darling, bedtime’.I should explain that Max is our eight-year-old Cavapoo. But while for the past year he’s been my bedfellow at the end of the duvet, Andrew and I have been in separate rooms since 2023.Andrew is far from thrilled by this arrangement, which I instigated. He hates sleeping alone, and wishes I’d come back to the marital bed. ‘I’m sure I will one day,’ I tell him whenever he complains, which has the advantage of sounding kind – despite almost certainly being untrue.Because the truth is I love having my own room.This wonderful arrangement came about after our two adult sons moved out, creating two empty bedrooms – and a bold plan to instigate a so-called ‘sleep divorce’.Yes, the marital bedroom was plagued by Andrew’s snoring, but that wasn’t my main problem with sharing.Instead, I wanted a space completely within my control – where I could decide how long the lamps stayed on, and where drifting off to whale music could become the norm. Penny Lytham says her husband Andrew always insisted their dog slept alone in the kitchen. But now, with the freedom of having her own room, their pet can snuggle up to her each nightMy own room could also be somewhere to put my favourite things: the books, clothes and ornaments I love but Andrew considers clutter. The candles, snaps, old cards and other bits of, in his words, ‘sentimental tat’ that matter only to me.And, most precious of all, Max, who Andrew always insisted sleep in the kitchen, claiming sharing a bed with pets is unhygienic.Leaving him whimpering in his basket at night always upset me. But with my own room, it would be my rules.But how would I pull off this tactical retreat? I know Andrew would be hurt to think I no longer wanted to share. And he’s so practical that if I blamed his snoring, he would look into gadgets or even medical interventions rather than parting company each bedtime. So instead, I played the menopause card.I told Andrew I was getting horrendous night sweats and started flinging open the bedroom window (in February) before bed, and announcing I was ‘absolutely boiling’, while his nose ran with the cold. All this was a façade. At 55, I slather myself in so much oestrogen gel I haven’t had a hot flush in years. But how was Andrew to know that?He runs cold at the best of times, so after a few nights of him lying beside me in a state of frozen martyrdom, I made the suggestion I’d been working towards. Perhaps, I said, I should move into the spare room for a bit. I made it clear this was a sacrifice, and one I was making for both of us. After all, he needed his sleep as much as I needed cold air.Our marriage, I suggested, could surely withstand separate rooms better than it could him getting hypothermia.At first, to avoid suspicions, I took only the essentials: my pillow, phone charger and a book. Then I bought a new lamp, and put some clothes in the wardrobe, because going back and forth seemed silly. Aged 55, Penny played the menopause card to avoid hurting Andrew's feelings, using night sweats as an excuse to move rooms. But 'I can’t give up this blissful arrangement' she saysSoon, without drama, the room had stopped being a spare and become mine. If Andrew noticed this annexation, he was too relieved to be sleeping with the window closed to object.Besides, I had my line ready should he comment. If I was to suffer the emotional wrench of sleeping apart from my husband, surely I was entitled to a few comforting possessions? And if one of those happened to be Max, so be it. Of course, Max isn’t the perfect bedfellow. In common with Andrew, he snores and breaks wind unapologetically. So yes, perhaps sleeping with a dog is ‘unhygienic’. But, crucially, he doesn’t wake me at 3am checking cricket scores.He also doesn’t claim he’s ‘barely touching’ the duvet while removing most of it from my side. Nor does he clear his throat every 40 seconds, then act wounded when I ask if he’s planning to do that all night.Because I need a space where damp towels don’t get flung across my side of the bed, and where the only snoring belongs to a creature who doesn’t remind me my MOT is almost up as I drift off.I don’t imagine ever sharing again, despite Andrew’s pleas.We sleep together on holiday; each time he says how happy it’s made him to wake together, and that he hopes the hot flushes will end soon.As for sex, I do join him for cuddles in the marital bed on mornings when I’m not in a rush. Any intimacy happens in ‘our’ room – I want mine to remain a sanctuary – but we’ve been together long enough now that cuddles are mostly all we both need.Of course, the time will come when I’ll be so old no sane person would believe I’m still burning like a furnace. But I reckon I can stretch this out until at least my mid-sixties, by which time he’ll surely have accepted the status quo.Because I can’t give up this blissful arrangement. A room of her own is the closest a married woman can get to living alone, while still having someone who loves her, misses her and puts the bins out.Penny Lytham is a pseudonym. All names have been changed