Literally and metaphorically, your bed is your domain.  Make it so. And make it. Embrace rituals if necessary.  Drop some coin if you can. Make your bed a great place to go.  Make it yours again. That will change things.

SAD ABOUT IT:

I had to start with some demo.  My old mattress had some stains, and it had way too many memories attached to it.  Before I could make my bedroom proper, in other words, I had to get rid of my old bedroom situation.  This meant borrowing my buddy’s junker truck. I mean, this truck couldn’t run for long periods of time.  It looked like it rolled out of a junkyard…but in a charming kind of way. Most importantly, it had a full truck bed, and I had enough bed to fill it.  I dragged out the mattress and box springs, and I threw them in the back. I found a couple other pieces of big junk that reminded me of my ex, and then I went on an adventure to the dump.  I drove up a giant mountain of trash, blaring Merle Haggard and enjoying the absurdly bumpy ride. Then I crested mount trashmore, and I threw everything into a rotten pile of stinking trash.  On the way home, I gave my metal bedframe to Goodwill. That was it: exorcised. Free. Gone. The truck barely got home and quit running at least once, but the point is I got rid of a symbol of our union, and I felt better for being unburdened.

MAD ABOUT IT:

Give her the bed or dump it. No more old scents, skin cells, or sh*tty memories of awkward nights. I think this is important. Of all the spaces in your home, I think the bed represents wedlock more than anything. Time for a new bed that is full of new possibilities. Oh yeah, and if your marital bed was usually piled up with decorative pillows, be free of that silly sh*t! I never understood the point of throw pillows just for bed display. Just seemed like an added bonus to unload these extra pillows at the Goodwill; I really enjoyed that. As for the bed itself, make it yours, and make it man-style. No more frills, or bed skirts, or throw pillows. 

SAD ABOUT IT:

Faced with no bed, I needed to find a new mattress that was affordable.  I did the research on mattresses that could function well without box springs.  I ended up getting a Casper, and that was one of the best days of my life. I dragged the box into my room, and then I opened it.  The Casper arrives in a bag in a box, and it is wadded up like a piece of paper. An amazingly big machine does this work, but the memory foam does the work of expanding the thing to fill your bedframe.  It is dope, and the mattress is very comfortable. I highly recommend Casper mattresses.  I also recommend you get a new bed too.  I had had a cheap bed, and I wanted something that was my style.  Being a 21st century bachelor, I wanted something hip but grown-up.  Here, I found a great furniture company, but I had to budget myself to get a piece at a time.  The bed was the first thing, and I was pumped. Anyway, I recommend West Elm.  This is basically IKEA for grown ups.  It is stand up in appearance and quality.  Chicks will dig it. They sell dope linen sheets too, and bedding matters.  So hook yourself up!

MAD ABOUT IT:

All great suggestions, Sad About It. During this time of upheaval, it is important to have a few aspects of your life you can control. One of the simplest, but maybe most important, things you can do is make your bed. Do it. Do it every morning. You will start your day off by accomplishing something and, while this may sound silly, that really can snowball into other areas of your life and lead you to complete and accomplish other tasks and goals. There is a lot of life that feels uncomfortable and out of hand around the time of a divorce. You need anchors and this is a surprisingly beneficial place to start in my opinion. But don’t just take my word for it.

SAD ABOUT IT:

Yes, make your bed.  Order is your friend, and creating order from the chaos in your bachelor pad will help you out.  Start with your bed. You don’t trust us or Mad About It’s random video above? Then read this super f*cking manly book about how making your bed is critically important if you live in a war zone (and otherwise).  It was written by the badass linked to in the film up above.  What? A war zone? Yes. Perhaps that is how things feel to you, like you’re in a war zone, so make your bed already.  That book is referenced in this New York Times article on bed making and bed maintenance–God bless that newspaper.  If you’re still living out of banker boxes then it is time to take care of that kind of chaos, too; start with your bedroom, and begin to create order.  Getting rid of the boxes in my bedroom took me the longest time (over a year), and that bit of ordering provided me the deepest sense of satisfaction of anything I did to make my new house into a home.  Now I make my bed–by myself–and I love it. My room is calm. My bed is mine. I go to sleep comfortable, and I wake up smiling. Considering that I live up to my handle, this is saying something. It is possible to get happy, so do it.  Waking up smiling rules. Your bed is the key.