Men Sleeping in the Kids' Beds; Kids in the Marital Bed

I heard the saddest thing on CFRB, the Bill Carroll show -- a man broke down because he wants to sleep in his own bed. His wife has insisted for 6 years that the kids sleep in their marital bed, and he's sleeping in one of their girls' beds. Carroll started this segment of the show because he'd read about a man in Michigan sleeping on his roof (did I hear that right?!) because his wife won't kick the kids into their own beds. Carroll yelled at one point for the men to get a couple of them and get back into their own beds, or to get a hotel room and a mistress. On the one hand, I agree; on the other, I don't think it's as simple as that.

Why are (mostly) women insisting the children sleep in the parents' bed for years? My take is that the women are not getting the intimacy they need -- not sex, but love, the kind that makes them feel that they're number one on the husband's priority list, that they have a soft place to land. I know someone who leaned on her toddler instead of her husband after a miscarriage. He went back to smoking as his emotional support. She even told me that she wants a mama's boy, probably because she figures only her own child will love her. As for the men, they are probably incapable of expressing themselves, whether it's asking their wives for validation or asking for what they want or need or simply to say it's my bed too. One caller is right: the women are putting the kids between themselves and their husbands for a reason.

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