"Two weeks into my marriage, I found out my husband sleeps with his parents at night"

“We fought about him going to sleep in his parents’ room often. Now we have discussed it and keep it to one day a week.”

When a Tweak Tribe member Ashima* shared this as the reason for her first big fight with her partner, the comment section under our Instagram post was abuzz with questions and puzzled reactions. To answer the whys and hows of the situation and satisfy everyone’s curiosity to know more about this situation, Ashima* opened up to us. This is her story in her own words.

“When I married Shirish* in 2021, I thought I’d done my due diligence. After sifting through arranged marriage profiles for a solid 10 years, Shirish seemed perfect—or at least perfect enough for someone who’d already turned 35 and was fielding proposals from divorced and widowed men. But, as I discovered two weeks into married life, even the most thorough background checks (an important stage of navigating an arranged marriage) can’t prepare you for finding out that your 40-year-old husband still sleeps with his parents.

The first time it happened, I thought he was joking. It was late, and we’d just wrapped up dinner and retired to our bedroom. “I’m heading to mom and dad’s room to watch a movie and I might fall asleep there,” he said casually. I laughed out loud at first but then he left and didn’t come back. The reality of the situation hit me like the Shatabdi Express at full speed—my husband wasn’t joking. That’s when it struck me that most of the nights in the last two weeks, I had woken up around five in the morning and found him missing from our bed. I had assumed he had gone for a walk or something. This was the first time I found out he didn’t really enjoy sleeping in our room. And he just wanted to go back to the familiarity of sleeping with his parents.

I was quite angry and taken aback, unable to comprehend the situation (the first year of marriage is hardly ever a cakewalk) I decided to address the elephant in the room—or rather, the lack of one. Shirish explained it matter-of-factly: he was a single child, he’d never slept alone, and the shift to a new bed was uncomfortable. By that logic then, I should head back to my parents’ house and stay there, I told him. “Yeah, but you got married. So you knew you had to change houses,” he said. I was baffled. Did he not consider the fact that he would be sharing a bedroom with his wife after marriage?

That conversation ended with no solution. That night, I tossed and turned in my bed. Who could I talk to and what would I say? My 40-year-old husband sleeps with his parents at night? That’s so weird. The next morning, I turned to my mother-in-law for help, hoping she’d find this behaviour as strange as I did. But her response shocked me. “His dad and I had a word with him about this, but he’s not comfortable yet. Give him some time to adjust, he’ll come around,” she said. There was no timeline on the ‘some time,’ and this pattern continued for two more months. There were days when he would go to his parents’ room under the pretext of discussing something with them and then just not come back. I would wake up in the middle of the night to find an empty bed.

We were getting no personal time to be intimate; the nights were never ours, we only got some alone time in the morning before he went to work. After that, he would be away at work, evenings were spent with his family (we live in a joint family) or friends, and then he would retire to his parent’s room for the night. Somehow he just wasn’t getting into the groove of married life.

We had had a four-month-long courtship before we got married, and this never come up. He also showed a lot of sexual interest in me during that time, which fizzled out as soon as we were married and further added to my confusion. My brain started grasping at every possibility. Maybe the first time we were intimate, it wasn’t good enough for him? Or he wasn’t attracted to me? I questioned his sexual orientation and wondered if he was forced into the marriage, or if there was someone else in the picture. We had always respected each other’s privacy and never touched each other’s phones, but I even went so far as to check his desk and devices for any possible explanation for his behaviour. I came up empty-handed. Eventually, I even told my mom and dad what was happening, but they didn’t see it as a concern as long as our sex life wasn’t affected by it.

By the third month, I was frustrated. I couldn’t speak to my parents or friends, so I decided to speak to his chachi who lived in the house adjacent to ours. She understood my concerns and even had a word with my mother-in-law, warning her that this could jeopardise the marriage. When Shirish* found out I had confided in his chachi, he was livid and said I was blowing this out of proportion. It was a big fight. He told me he genuinely liked me and that there was no one else in his life, which was a relief. But we still had to find a solution to his habit. This time, fortunately, he was more open to the idea of finding an arrangement that worked for both of us.

We reached a compromise as bizarre as it sounds: Wednesdays would be his sleepover night with his parents, while I was free to visit my parents or plan anything else I wanted. Did I enjoy this? Not really. But I found ways to make the most of it. I started using Wednesdays to catch up with my sister and my friends who lived in different time zones. Things went on like this for a while. Some nights, I even joined him in my in-laws’ bedroom to watch a movie and sleepover. To my surprise, it didn’t feel that weird, but I would still get up very early in the morning to return to my bedroom.

This went on for a while until we went on a couple’s trip to Goa in late 2022. When we returned home, something had changed. Shirish* seemed less enthusiastic about his Wednesday plans. Eventually, his visits dwindled to once every few months. I still don’t know what caused this change. Maybe it was because I stopped making a big deal out of the situation and sometimes showed enthusiasm to accompany him, too. Or perhaps, he had simply adjusted.

By mid-2023, I became pregnant, and Shirish’s* nightly habits changed permanently. He stopped going to his parents’ room altogether. By this time, he had also opened up to me more and there was comfort and familiarity in our relationship. In fact, I had told him a couple of times that I had become used to falling asleep to the white noise of his snoring and now a completely silent room made me uncomfortable. I guess he took it as a compliment. Now that we have a baby, he has dropped his habit and the three of us sleep in our bedroom as a family.

Do I still worry that the old habit might resurface? Absolutely. Every time I visit my parents, I half-expect to hear that he’s back in his childhood comfort zone. But for now, our shared space feels like a victory. Marriage, especially in an arranged setup, comes with surprises. Some are pleasant and some are not. But he’s a good man and I’m happy I could get him to change this habit. It has been quite a long journey but we’ve reached the summit and I’m happier for it. It’s still a story I can barely believe is mine. But all’s well that ends well and for now, it truly has.”

This is a first-person account as told to Shivani Pathak. Names have been changed upon the contributor’s request for anonymity.