How important is to share a bed?

There are thousands of studies on sleep and even more on marriage and relationships, but only a handful on couples sleeping together.Some of the common and often humorous issues couples face when sharing a bed are spooning, sheet-stealing and snoring.
It has been estimates that 61 percent of the population share their bed with a significant other. And while the very presence of another person in bed increases the chance of sleep disruption, 62 percent of those polled prefer to bed down with their partner. Even though many couples say they sleep better alone, they still share a bed. Most are married heterosexual couples but some were unmarried hetero- or homosexual couples. Intimacy and comfort are the primary reasons couples gave for sleeping together. The bed is where they find privacy and are able to leave behind the distractions and separate interests that keep them apart during the day. There’s also something about late night that allows them to open up and connect. Difficulty sleeping together or sleeping apart can lead to the dissolution of marriages and is essential to maintaining the relationships.
Partners have to adjust to sleeping together. Many face conflicts over bedroom temperature, where to locate the bed and how to make the bed. Watching television, reading and eating in bed were other contentious issues, as it's sleeping in the nude. There were quarrels over the alarm clock and whether to allow children or pets into the bed. Therefore couples developed their own systems. These systems usually became comforting routines of how people prepared for bed, got into bed, behaved once in the bed, fell asleep and woke up.
And even though we may take sleeping with our partner for granted, it’s through these kinds of shared social systems that we build and nurture our relationships, and perhaps uncover the underlying meaning of our lives.