His elbow is in your back. Her hair is in your face.

She likes to stay up late with the light on, reading. He wants to go to bed early and can't stand it if a DVD is playing. It's an everyday struggle for most couples -- how to get comfortable when they're sharing a bed.

"You've lost your separate territory, your own personal, private place," says Paul Rosenblatt, a family social science professor at the University of Minnesota. "You can have this wonderful romantic and sexual rush and really feel like this is the right person and still lie there and think: 'My god what am I doing?' It's about giving up something that was yours in order to have something that's ours."

Rosenblatt interviewed 42 bed-sharing couples to write his book, "Two in a Bed: The Social System of Couple Bed Sharing." He found that while sharing a bed can be quite complex, it's also the place where most couples spend the majority of their time together.

"The majority of couples I interviewed, there was bedtime conversation," Rosenblatt said. "For plenty of those couples it was a pretty substantial share of the conversations they had. Finally they were together without distractions."

While some couples find a groove quickly, others struggle for years, he said.

Sheila Wray Gregoire of Belleville, Ontario, resorted to ear plugs when her husband's snoring kept her awake. He's since lost weight and it's not a problem for the couple anymore.

"I really believe the way that we learn to sleep when we're kids influences us later," Gregoire said. "Let's say you grow up in a really quiet house and you marry a guy who snores. You will never adjust."

Finding and keeping a good sleeping groove can be elusive.

"You have to learn again and again how to share a bed because your bodies change, your work situation changes," Rosenblatt said. "You have to compromise. You really struggle with what to give up."

asap asked Rosenblatt how couples can deal with these snoozy situations:

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SNORING: "Some people it sends to the couch. The snorer often doesn't know what he or she is doing. Some people wear ear plugs to bed or cover their head with a pillow. Sometimes you can get a partner to wear one of these nose strips."

BLANKET SNATCHING: "It doesn't feel like they're rolling up in them and their partner's just lost six inches of blanket and that's enough for them to be cold. Some partners just learn to yank the blankets back." Other solutions? Tuck the blanket under the mattress. Get two blankets. Keep extra blankets on the side of the bed.

SPOONING: "People differ on how much they want to touch each other or how well they can sleep while they're sleeping. There were couples who spooned when they first went to bed and they were fine about it. There was one couple who spooned all night."

DEEP VS. LIGHT SLEEPERS: "There were people who couldn't really wake up during the night. Sometimes that was OK and sometimes it was scary. The worry was this very deep sleep could cause problems in an emergency. The other side of it is light sleepers can be so bothered by lots of things. For light sleepers you can get pretty grumpy if you have enough nights of not getting enough sleep."

PUSHED TO THE EDGE: "There are people who get pushed to the edge of the bed and they're holding on to the last six inches and feeling really uncomfortable and maybe resentful." Solution? Rosenblatt says the person pushed can just get up and walk around to the other, empty, side of the bed.

SIDE OF THE BED PREFERENCE: "Sometimes it just is automatic, but sometimes they both want the side closer to the wall or the side closer to the bathroom or the side closer to the telephone. Then it's an issue and they have to work it out and it's not easy. Eventually couples always end up with their side of the bed."

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Caryn Rousseau is asap's Midwest writer, based in Kansas City, Mo.

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