Why Sunrise star Edwina Bartholomew and her husband ‘live separately’ during the week… and it works

She made headlines last year for revealing she and her husband sleep in separate bedrooms, now Edwina Bartholomew has gone one step further.

My husband lives three hours away, and it’s fantastic. We are not just talking about separate bedrooms here, but separate houses in entirely different postcodes.

We are a drive-in, drive-out family and, surprisingly, it really works.

I suppose it’s a form of extreme “sleep divorce”, an idea popularised by actor Cameron Diaz late last year. She confessed that she and her rock-star husband Benji Madden sleep separately (with a bedroom in the middle for communal activities, so to speak).

Suddenly, the floodgates opened and couples all over the world admitted to the same nocturnal divisions.

We have been sleeping in separate rooms for about 10 years, long before we were married and long before we had kids.

Sunrise star Edwina Bartholomew, far left (with Natalie Barr and David Koch) has opened up about her living arrangements – and why it works. Picture: Seven

I go to bed early and sleep like a log before my alarm goes off at 3am. My husband likes to go to bed late, is a light sleeper and could never get back to sleep after the early rude awakening.

Initially, I hated the idea. It felt like it wasn’t the “done thing”. Perhaps OK for the likes of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip or actor Helena Bonham Carter and her ex, film director

Tim Burton, but not for normal people who live in normal houses without east and west wings.

We first tried it during the week and then slowly the weekends crept in. Eventually, he found a spot for his tidy things on his bedside, and I found a spot for all my mess on my chair-for-a-closet next door. It worked on many levels.

Yes, that level, too. We do have two kids, remember.

I have only spoken about it publicly once and the reaction was extraordinary. Hundreds of women slid into my DMs admitting they do the same. (Some men slid in, too – but that’s a conversation for another time.)

Read Edwina’s full column in Stellar on Sunday. Picture: Damian Bennett

Edwina Bartholomew.

For some women, snoring sent them packing; others wanted a sanctuary filled with throw cushions, their partners did not.

Now our family has taken things to the next level.

My husband lives in the country with the dog and I live in the city with the kids. Each weekend, we traipse back and forth between the two or meet somewhere in the middle, Cameron Diaz-style.

It feels like a Love Actually airport reunion every time we come together with a slow-motion embrace and those newlywed feels.

Was it Shakespeare or maybe Hallmark that coined the phrase Absence makes the heart grow fonder? Regardless, they were onto something.

Edwina has channelled Hollywood star Cameron Diaz’s sleeping arrangements. Picture: Getty Images

There are miners, remote medical workers, flight attendants and members of the defence force all living the fly-in fly-out life and maintaining successful long-distance relationships.

I think it works in our case because you are forced to pick your battles.

We don’t have daily arguments over who did or didn’t take the bins out, who is responsible for picking up the

dog poo or putting the kids to bed. When we are together, we are fully committed to 48 hours of quality couple time and when we are apart, we are better communicators, too.

We use a messaging app to keep up with the boring day-to-day so it doesn’t clog up our IRL conversation.

It also works because it’s not forever. Eventually, he will move back in. Not to my bedroom – that sleep ship has sailed – but back into the family home.

And when he does, I look forward to texting him from the room next door, reminding him it’s his turn to take out the bins.

Edwina Bartholomew is a presenter on Sunrise on the Seven Network.