My grandmother’s aunt fled to Australia after half her family died of dysentery. It was a very sad story for a very long time in the family and the town. Her husband moved the whole family across the Atlantic Ocean to Canada away from her immediate relatives in England because of a good job and land prospects. But their household was stricken with a bloody flux a few months later and sadly only the women survived, alone in a foreign country with nothing. It was just a sad and dark part of our family history growing up, we were taught to respect our great great aunt because she’d “been through a lot and faced it bravely” with watching her family die. As a teenager I could tell there was more going on by the way the older adults glanced at each other, but never knew what.

I was 30 when mum told me that my great great uncle was an abusive pick who moved his wife overseas to isolate her so he could get away with more, and it wasn’t a coincidence that he and his “apple that never fell off the tree” son both shit themselves to death after eating a family dinner, but his wife was fine.

You also couldn’t get a divorce for incompatible differences, you had to prove your husband was at fault for some kind of marital crime like adultery or physical abuse. He could leave you with a single penny to your name, lock you out of your shared bank account, and go live with his mistress in another state, but if you couldn’t prove he’d put his dick in her, no divorce for you. Which means you can’t re-marry someone who will let you have access to a bank account, and depending on the exact year you couldn’t even travel alone to chase him down.

The “Bail out Bed” was a flawed idea because no one wants to get up and relocate in the middle of the night and interrupt their sleep cycles.

He snores, he always snores, tonight won’t be any different, so why don’t I just start in the bail out bed so once I fall asleep I stay asleep and the human freight train I shacked up with doesn’t wake me up.

He finally got a Cpap last year for his obstructive sleep apnoea.

but we’d slept in separate beds for 5 years, and I was used to sleeping alone and having full control over my temperature and I’m a fidgety sleeper, so we couldn’t get used to sharing a bed again.

I think both of us being well rested and refreshed each day is more important to the health of our relationship than sharing a bed. If we’re not fatigued, headachey and cranky, we can spend quality time together outside of bed.