Kelsey Thompson tells PEOPLE about the unique stipulation she made to her matchmaker when looking for her husband

NEED TO KNOW

• Kelsey Thompson turned to a luxury matchmaking service after struggling to find quality connections on dating apps
• Thompson and her husband bonded over their shared preference for separate bedrooms to improve their sleep quality
• Her TikTok videos showcasing their luxurious separate suites have garnered over 37 million views, sparking widespread interest

Kelsey Thompson tells PEOPLE she was over the dating app circuit when she decided to seek out the services of a luxury matchmaker.

“I had hit a wall with the online dating,” she says. “I looked around and I was like, ‘I’ve never met a quality person on these things.’”

She discovered the matchmaking service while she was working in luxury retail. The team hosted an event at the store she was working at in order to meet new people. While there, Thompson chatted with the ladies behind the servies who offered to set her up with someone.

Thompson also shares with PEOPLE that, at that point, she was freshly into her recovery from alcoholism, and she says she wanted to “get her head right” before entering into her next relationship.

Before hiring and signing on with the matchmakers, Thompson wrote down on a piece of paper all the things she was looking for in a partner. On it, she wrote one very specific thing that she was looking for: open to sleeping in separate rooms.

“I knew I’ve always just been a person. If you’re ever on a girls’ trip or staying with somebody or even in the dating in the past, I had never lived with anybody,” she says. “I had been on my own since the time that I got my first place and I had established my nighttime routine, how I like things, how I like the temperature and all that kind of stuff.”

After calling the matchmakers, Thompson says that she was set up on three dates — but not before she went through the service’s rigorous vetting and interview process to determine if she was a good fit for the service. On her third date, Thompson met Chad Thompson — a forensic accountant and her now-husband.

As their relationship progressed, the pair began, as many couples do, to talk about living together. “The conversation came up, and I was like, ‘I don’t know how I feel about sharing a room,’” she says.

“I think the wave of relief that came over my husband was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s been my fear about marriage forever. It was the thing that made him realize, ‘Okay, this is my girl.’ Because we had very similar [backgrounds]; he struggled with sleep so much.” The pair, Thompson says, was very particular about their sleeping environments.

“He has to have it perfectly quiet,” she says. “He doesn’t sleep well with somebody else in the bed and I don’t sleep well with somebody else in the bed. So both of us felt like that was going to be a big sacrifice that we were going to have to make.”

Thompson took her unique living scenario to social media. Now, over 46 million users on TikTok have seen her video showing off her and her husband’s separate bedrooms.

However, Thompson and her husband Chad’s (who were featured on an episode of A&E’s Million Dollar Mountain Homes for a separate home that they own together in the mountains) bedrooms go beyond the typical definitions of bedrooms.

In two videos on her TikTok account, the creator shows off her and her husband’s luxurious rooms — which are really more like suites, as they include both include large bedrooms, a walk-in closet and large bathrooms. Her husband even has a laundry room and wet bar included in the layout of his bedroom.

Thompson’s room is on the main level of the couple’s house in the Atlanta area, while her husband’s is up the stairs. In a video comparing the two spaces posted to her TikTok, Thompson quipped: “If you’re a girl, do you know how many times you have to go in and out of your room every day?”

Both rooms feature seating areas, king-size beds, dressers, chandeliers and more. Each have their own en-suite bathroom and walk-in closet. “We both have soaking tubs. We both have heated floors and soaking tub heated floors,” she added.

“However, mine have a cooler pattern, but he does have a fireplace, which I live in Georgia, you can really only use it a couple of times a year. And the wet bar. The wet bar would be wasted on me because I only drink room temperature drinks, and I drink my coffee downstairs.”

Thompson goes more in depth, telling PEOPLE about her and her husband’s reasoning for their slightly unique sleeping arrangement.

“We’re really into health and wellness,” she says. “And for us, my journey in getting sober, I had to really prioritize my health. And one of the biggest parts of that is sleep. And then for my husband, who I would say is a retired workaholic, when he was really going on a health journey, he realized how important sleep was.”

She adds, “If you don’t sleep, they say it’s the fastest way to kill somebody.”

She goes on sharing some of the responses she’s gotten from individuals responding to her and her husband’s journey online.

“We’ve had a lot of friends through the years who have actually come back and thanked us and said, ‘Hey, you inspired us to sleep in separate rooms and we feel so much better.’ And we realized in our personal life that talking about it really helped people. So for us, we just knew that it’s kind of something that a lot of people are scared to talk about because they’re afraid that other people would judge them based on their relationship.”

“But if you can get past that, it’s so beneficial to your health, especially if you need to sleep alone,” she continues.

Many of the individuals in her comments assume that she and her husband do not have a quality relationship.

“We usually just explain that it’s actually completely opposite, that because we met later in life, it was something that we just knew going into our relationship that we needed to sleep in separate rooms.”

In fact, many people who reach out to Kelsey as a result of her videos tell her that, since trying sleeping in separate bedrooms, they’ve found a new found intimacy in their relationship. “They’re like, ‘It’s actually been really nice because my husband kind of courts me again,’” she tells PEOPLE. It’s the same for her and Chad: “We’re still dating in our marriage.”

She admits that its slightly easier for the pair of them, who work from home and don’t have children together as they spend most of the day together anyway. “Throughout the day, sometimes we’ll eat all three meals together,” she adds. Nighttime is their “protected” time of day, when phones go away and they connect with each other (especially during meals) before bed. They also love walks.

“Actually on our second date, me and my husband did the cooking dinner and went for a walk together. And it was in that moment that I was like, ‘I could do this for the rest of my life.’ And it has turned into what we do every single night,” she shares.

She calls it a “really cute little giddy high school thing” that she has with her husband.

“We are fortunate that we get to do that every single day. I think a lot of people don’t have that luxury. And so that is another reason why people are scared about the bedroom thing, is that maybe they have a partner who travels a lot, and it is the only time that they really get to connect. So for us, we make sure that we spend time together when our eyes are open.”

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