Thank goodness, I am not alone (although I wish I was).

Almost half of people quizzed in a survey admitted that when it comes to sleeping, they are totally incompatible. Two-thirds complained their other half kept them awake by snoring and more than 35 per cent said their partner hogging the duvet was the biggest irritant.

For a third of couples the problem is so bad that they confessed they would get a better night's sleep if they could go to bed alone.

I know only too well where they are coming from. Rarely do I feel I have had a good night's sleep. Seven, eight, sometimes nine or ten hours under the duvet, yet I'm still left feeling like I've been on a cross-country hike with the SAS, followed by three hours of headbanging at a Motorhead concert and an early-hours rave in a deserted barn.

I firmly believe that unless you have a king-size (preferably Henry VIII) bed and enough room to spread out in your own 'runway at Heathrow' -like space, there is no hope.

Young, unmarried couples fare best, said the research by a sleep scientist at the University of West of England in Bristol. They tend to be more content when sharing a bed with their lover and 38 per cent opt to sleep close to each other in the spoons position, with one partner's stomach against the other's back.

In contrast, older couples preferred to sleep further apart, with 38 per cent using the poles apart position and often back-to-back.

I think the key word in the two scenarios is 'lover'. Older couples, who have been together since time began, would seldom describe their other half as 'lover'. More likely 'him', 'her' or 'it'.

Their idea of sleep is just that: sleep. Sharing a bed doesn't involve anything else - heaven forbid, life is just too exhausting. It is heartening that more than half those interviewed said they preferred to read a book or watch television to having sex or talking to their partners in bed. I assume that the 50 per cent who made this choice were aged 40-plus.

It is bad enough when you are incompatible during the day - what with toilet seats being left up and dirty laundry left on the bedroom floor - but when it becomes 24-hour it's time to move on. I have in mind a Colin Firth lookalike with no children, no emotional baggage and a gorgeous country house.

But I know that in the real world that is never going to happen, so I am knuckling down and, in the hope of improving relations, am checking out the king-sized beds in our local MFI.

The future, unfortunately, does not look rosy. Couples aged between 45 and 54 are the most dissatisfied with their partner's sleeping patterns, with around 52 per cent opting to sleep poles apart - on opposite sides of the bed.

I will soon be 44. I don't need it spelling out, I can see the future only too clearly - separate rooms.

Updated: 12:07 Tuesday, December 07, 2004