How Your Bedroom Impacts Your Relationship

A new mattress may sound expensive, but have you ever stopped to consider the real cost of keeping your old one? Prioritizing a good night’s rest isn’t just a wellness trend; insufficient sleep is simply bad for our health. And when we don’t get the sleep we need to keep our moods in check, the quality of our relationships can be impacted, not to mention our overall happiness.

For this study, we surveyed 1,023 people currently in a relationship about their beds and satisfaction to see how much bedroom quality impacted their relationships. Read on to see what our findings revealed about the bedroom effect.

Deciding to hold onto your old mattress while entering a new relationship may seem like a financially practical decision but one that may sacrifice sleep quality as well as the approval of your new partner. For 41% of people who decided to share their old mattress with their new partner, less than half were happy with the decision. Our study also found these old mattresses were likely to have seen previous sexual partners, which may not be a great start to living together as a couple.

That being said, 59% of people who moved in together for the first time as a couple purchased a new mattress together, and experienced much better sleep overall compared to those who held onto an old mattress. That’s reason enough to consider replacing that mattress you’ve been holding onto, despite your relationship status. According to experts, a mattress should be replaced every seven years or sooner if you are dissatisfied with your quality of sleep.

Life seemed to improve in a few key areas for couples who bought a new mattress together. Sleep quality, relationship satisfaction, and sex improved for 83%, 59%, and 54% of new mattress owners, respectively.

Ultimately, staying with an old mattress may cost couples something big: happiness in the relationship. Studies show that sleep quality can affect a person’s overall happiness. It’s no wonder, then, that a huge improvement in sleep comes with an improvement in the relationship. If that weren’t incentive enough to ditch your old mattress, that happiness also translates into more and/or better sex.

Beyond mattresses, bedroom items and decor also seemed to have an impact on relationship happiness. By exploring what the happy and the less happy couples had in their bedroom, we were able to find some key items that made a difference.

First, we noticed how much more likely happy couples were to have a picture of them together in the bedroom. It’s not hard to imagine that a celebration of happy times together can have a positive impact on mood and your overall relationship satisfaction. These couples were also much more likely to have art in their room than unhappy couples, an item that extends far beyond just interior decor according to science.

Research has shown that engaging with art can enhance mood, self-reflection and self-expression – all important to personal holistic health as well as relationships with others. Desk- and work-related items were more likely in the bedrooms of unhappy couples, but TVs actually weren’t so problematic and were more often owned by happy couples.

Those who owned memory foam mattresses had sex more frequently than those who had innerspring mattresses or hybrid innerspring and memory foam mattresses.

Although memory foam may not seem like the most responsive material, there are plenty of brands to choose from, specifically ones that provide the best conditions for sex. Those with a memory foam mattress had sex with their partner an average of eight times each month, and those with silk bedding beat that number by two!

Egyptian cotton also seemed to provide conditions conducive to sex, with those respondents reportedly having sex nine times each month, on average.

Memory foam (thus far associated with more frequent sex) was also more common for younger participants. Those in their 20s and 30s were more likely than those in their 40s and older to purchase a memory foam mattress. However, hybrid innerspring and memory foam mattresses were more common among these older age groups, as were innerspring mattresses.

Money doesn’t always buy happiness, but it probably does affect the comfort of your bed, and when you share a mattress in a relationship, this could impact your happiness as a couple. On average, people spent $835 on a new mattress, but people who spent less were also less happy in their relationships. These less than happy couples were the most likely to opt for cheaper mattresses.

Relationship satisfaction also went up when a couple got the chance to purchase the mattress in-store, compared to those who acquired their mattress from a family member or friend.

Not everyone can opt for the most luxurious and expensive mattress. While mattresses can be a considerable purchase to make as a couple, there are plenty of brands and mattress types to choose from in each price range.

In this part of the study, we analyzed the mattresses of those who reported the best sleep, as well as what each respondent paid for their mattress. For mattresses under $500, respondents typically had a hybrid innerspring and memory foam mattress. When respondents paid between $500 and $800, memory foam was the most popular. Finally, for those who had a little extra money to spend, memory foam mattresses came out on top yet again.

The following statistics should make you believe in the adage of quality over quantity. Even without knowing the results of this study, 37% of respondents were aware that the quality of their beds contributed to the quality of their relationship. And our study’s results backed them up: 57% of couples in a comfortable bed were “extremely satisfied” with their relationship, compared to just 40% of couples in uncomfortable beds. This number jumped to 78% when a couple was able to get excellent sleep quality but dropped to 36% if the sleep quality was just fair.

Our study also dove into the choices made by those who reported the best sleep and the highest relationship satisfaction. Previously, our study established that memory foam mattresses were the top pick for those who reported high sleep quality, and that is reiterated here, along with cotton bedding and a queen-sized bed.

And if better sleep wasn’t the only incentive for trying out a memory foam mattress and some new sheets, these bed specifications were also popular among the happiest couples.

The data makes it abundantly clear: A new, quality mattress can change your relationship and life. Even sex was shown to improve with a better mattress and bedding. Beyond the benefits of a good night’s sleep, buying a new mattress together can also show your partner how much you value your health as a couple.

Methodology and Limitations

We surveyed 1,023 people in a relationship to explore how beds impact relationship happiness and sex. Survey respondents ranged in age from 19 to 75, with 55% being female and 45% being male. The average age of our participants was 39 with a standard deviation of 12 years. We created our own scales of relationship and sexual satisfaction using 1 to 5, with 1 being “not at all satisfied” and 5 being “very satisfied.” Sleep quality was measured using a five-point scale from “excellent” to “poor.” For mattress types, we only included the analysis on memory foam, hybrid innerspring and foam, and innerspring due to those groups having the most robust sample sizes (407, 358, and 216 respondents, respectively).

Limitations with survey data stem from self-reporting. Some of these limitations include telescoping, selective memory, and exaggeration. We did not statistically test our hypothesis: This was an exploratory look at bedroom impacts on relationships.

Fair Use Statement

Perhaps you weren’t aware of just how important a quality mattress is for you and your romantic relationships. There are probably others just like you! So, feel free to share this information with them for noncommercial purposes, but just be sure you link back to this page to provide proper credit.