Learning to go to bed on my own

For 32 years, I have been sleeping next to my wife.

When we were first married, we had a queen-sized bed, which meant we were fairly close to each other every night.

Then, when we moved into our current home in 2003, we bought a king-sized bed, which afforded us acres and acres of personal space in which to stretch out as we dozed off.

But we still went to bed at the same time, even if it meant we were no longer right next to each other.

This is the point, though, where Terry and I differ. If she is tired, she can climb into that bed by herself and fall more or less immediately to sleep.

I, on the other hand, have a really hard time falling asleep if she's not there.

More specifically, if I know she's in the living room watching TV, I will lay there with my eyes wide open until she comes into the room and turns in for the night.

I cannot, for whatever reason, easily get to sleep unless she's there.

This generally hasn't been a problem except when I need to get up early the next day, and therefore need to get to bed early the previous evening.

An early wake-up time for me is 5am. That's when I get up on days I work out at the gym, and it requires me to fall asleep at or before 10pm the previous night if I'm going to get enough rest.

Terry prefers to go to bed somewhat later than 10 o'clock (sometimes later than 11 o'clock), which leaves me in somewhat of a conundrum.

Either I learn to fall asleep without her there, or I drag my way tired and sleep-deprived through the next day.

So far, try as I might, "tired and sleep-deprived" appears to be winning.

I can't explain why I need to have my wife there if I'm going to sleep. I just do, and the harder I try to overcome it, the worse it is.

Rather than forcing Terry to turn in well before she's ready, I'm thinking what I need is a life-sized Terry robot next to me in the bed. It will be programmed to kiss me goodnight, then turn over and go to sleep like Terry does.

I would also like it to say "Yes, honey, of course you're right" in response to anything I say, but maybe that's asking too much.