I've started thinking about our relationship in terms of a particular metaphor--the body pillow metaphor. To explain, I need to go back a little bit in time, and by a little bit, I mean about 25 years. When I was little, I would try to trick myself into falling asleep on those nights when sleep remained elusive by telling myself that there was a bad man right outside my window, and if I was awake, he would know that I saw him, and he would get me. But, if he thought I was asleep, he would leave me in peace. Of course, this concept was scary to a five year old child (or a 30 year old woman, come to that), so I began to also camouflage myself. I did that by getting my stuffed animals and dolls and lining them all the way down my bed on either side of my body, under the covers. Then, I would curl up as small as possible in the middle and try to look like just another doll, so that the bad man would not even see me.
After a while, I started to need the feeling of something on either side of me in order to fall asleep. As I got older, the stuffed animals were replaced by pillows. Then, when I got married, I tried to abandon this habit, but it didn't last long. I just always felt unprotected and naked on the side where Barney was not. So, I re-implemented pillows, but on one side only. It took some adjusting for Barney and I to figure things out with this third occupancy in the bed, but we did eventually come to find it routine. And then, during my pregnancy with George, I discovered the wonders of the body pillow--one long pillow that I can curl up with--just amazing. At some point, Barney began to want to share the body pillow, so we often snuggle at night with the Barney holding me on one side, and me holding the body pillow on the other, with the body pillow in a fish hook shape.
The problem is that because of my strong attachment to the body pillow, I cannot sleep holding Barney because I cannot wrap myself around him like I do the body pillow without bringing out his minor claustrophobia really quickly. So, we can either cuddle in exactly one position, or we generally face the opposite way from one another. If I want to turn onto my left side where Barney is, that entails putting a pillow between us, which I avoid doing as much as possible--it just doesn't feel right.
The point is that we only have one comfortable position in which we can sleep as a couple. Otherwise, we may be co-sleeping, but there is no intimacy or bonding in the experience. This post is not about trying to change our sleeping habits--it's about how our sleeping habits are something of a metaphor for our relationship. We have established patterns and routines for what we do as a couple and for ways that we bond. We rarely step outside of these patterns, and as such, it is easy to become stagnant as a couple without any real growth. We've found what's comfortable and thus have no incentive to continue to push relationship, but a relationship that doesn't grow will eventually wither. I want to take what is healthy and continue to make it better, rather than allowing it to become weak and frail and having to nurture it back to the state where we are now.
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