I NEED MY SPACE.

More evidence emerged today that further solidifies my sinking suspicion that marriage is meant for no one.

Bruddas and sistas, we have a growing trend where married couples no longer sleep in the same bed. Sleep apnea, differing schedules, snoring, and the jimmy leg are sending hubby or wifey to the couch, the guest room, and the recliner in the den. CNN has more.

A 2001 random telephone survey of 1,004 adults conducted by the National Sleep Foundation found that 12 percent of married Americans slept alone; a similar 2005 survey of 1,506 people found that number had jumped to 23 percent.

Why is this? Are sleep conditions worse now than they were in 2001? Or are we just getting sick of each other?

Paige Barr, 35, a New York City casting director, says she sleeps apart from her husband, Daniel Craft, 37, for two reasons: his sleep apnea and what Kramer on "Seinfeld" called "the jimmy leg."

"You know when you're just about to fall asleep and you jerk yourself awake? He does that like 36 times an hour for seven hours, 200 times a night," she says. "His hand will jerk or his leg will flail, plus he snores super loud."

Barr, who's lived with her husband, an online content provider, for five years, say they've never been able to sleep together.

"If I were forced to sleep with him, I would break up with him and kill myself," she says. "I need my sleep."

Paige and Daniel clearly have deeper problems that would be better handled by a qualified divorce attorney. Life is short, Paige. Take the medication or go. And just for the record, it would be 252 times a night. Not that math is going to help you right now.

But people are fucking stupid and enjoy making life much more difficult than it really is, which justifies the existence of whiny assholes like clinical psychologist and marriage counselor William F. Harley Jr. who has this to allow:

"Whenever I see a couple wanting private time -- they want to be alone, they want their own friends, they don't want to feel like they're joined at the hip -- my immediate question is, 'What is it about being together that bothers you?'" says Harley, author of "Love Busters: Overcoming the Habits that Destroy Romantic Love."

"My feeling is that sleeping together is a very, very important part of being integrated with each other."

"Love Busters!!!!" William, your wife feels like you're suffocating her. At least, I think that's what she said right before I Busted my Love in her hair last night. I keed.

Couldn't it just be that we, as individual human beings, just need a little fucking space? Marriage is designed to stifle individuality and, after a while, if individuality isn't rediscovered, the marriage suffocates and dies.

You have to be two people. One and one make two, not one. Pete Townshend had it completely wrong.

And I haven't even told you the coolest part yet. Check this out. Build your next house with two master bedrooms.

According to the National Association of Home Builders, there's been a steady increase in the number of requests for "two-master bedroom" homes since 1990, prompting the organization to predict that by 2015, 60 percent of all custom upscale homes will be built with two "owner suites."

BRILLIANT. I wish I had thought of it, coined it, patented it, and made a fortune off it.

Luckily, the far cooler and I guarantee you better looking than that putz Harley is Stephanie Coontz, author of "Marriage: A History" and director of research and public education at the Council on Contemporary Families, a nonprofit research organization. She says:

"In the early 20th century, there was this idea that when you were married, you shouldn't have a separate existence," she says. "But in the last 30 years, we've come up with something absolutely revolutionary that says there's more than one way to do marriage. ... People are saying there are lots of ways to have a happy marriage and even a good sex life."

Fuck, isn't it so refreshing when somebody says a thing that makes sense? Not that she gets into specifics, but "marriage" as you know it? It's an endangered instituition. It's dying a slow and agonizing death. Let it go. It wants to go.

Married guys, imagine having your own "owner suite". I leave you with that thought.

One love.