I used to enjoy sharing a bed with my partner. I loved to share a little snuggle, then go to our separate sides of the bed. It was easy for me to drift off to sleep with him lying next to me; I’m a heavy sleeper, after all.
But there’s one thing that keeps me awake at night and I’m about to lose my shit over it: My partner’s snoring.
The sounds that leak from his mouth and nose are now affecting our relationship. I’m often not getting the sleep I need and I am cranky as hell the next day. He’ll ask me how I slept and I give him the look. You know, the look that screams, You kept me awake again even though we were in separate rooms. And he — unsarcastically — says, “I didn’t sleep well either.”
This wasn’t the case when we met. He never snored unless he’d had a few drinks at night. Even then, it wasn’t the earth-shaking sounds that come out of his body now. I’ve tried it all: snore tape, ear plugs, nasal strips, telling him to get an extra pillow to prop himself up, giving him a nudge when he does snore (per his request) and now, we’ve started sleeping in separate bedrooms because I’m afraid I might try to hurt him in his sleep.
The thing is, I can still hear him when we are in separate rooms and I’m sick and tired of being the one to move. I’ve tried to wake him up during his noisy slumber (again, per his request) and he’ll ask me to give him another chance. It’s just easier at that point if I move to another room.
And then there’s how he sleeps: He’s a stomach sleeper and snores out of his mouth and nose at the same time. I’m not a doctor, but sometimes it sounds like he’s not breathing for a few seconds every so often, and his body jerks around. I’ve heard that’s a classic case of sleep apnea, but he swears he “doesn’t have that.”
So what am I to do? I guess I’ll read one of the approximately zillions of articles on the internet about helping him stop. Until then, I’ll just be over here… awake.
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