What helps women’s insomnia? Sometimes, it’s a “sleep divorce.”

This essay was adapted from Melinda Wenner Moyer’s newsletter, Now What. Subscribe here .

Ever since I can remember, I’ve been a bad sleeper. In my 20s, I began taking sleeping pills—Benadryl at first, then trazodone. When my kids woke me up in the middle of the night, I would sometimes be up for hours, and the meds were the only thing that helped me fall back asleep.

As of a few months ago, however, I’m sleep medication–free for the first time in 20 years. At 46, I’m honestly pretty shocked by this—I’m entering perimenopause, so shouldn’t my sleep be getting worse , not better? But there is one potentially relevant factor that could help explain my sudden shift: Due to my recent separation , I’m sleeping on my own for the first time in decades.

I have always found sharing a