I've Been Pushed To The Brink By My Husband's Incessant Snoring

I am a light sleeper. This is due in part to the fact that I have four children and I am always waiting for one of them to stumble into my bedroom in the middle of the night to tell me that they have barfed in bed. I also drink like a case of Diet Coke a day, so that doesn’t help the need to tinkle in the middle of the night. But the real reason that I can’t seem to get a full night’s sleep is because my sweet, darling husband who is lying next to me in pleasant slumber dreaming of running through a field of flowers, has nostrils that sound like he is trying to start a lawn mower over and over and over.

There is nothing endearing about snoring. I don’t look over at him at 3am and think, “Isn’t he precious over there with his mouth open, taking in gigantic breaths? Isn’t it just so sweet to watch his stomach go up and down knowing that every time it moves a perfect little lullaby is coming from somewhere in his head? Gosh, what a darling little lamb he is all snuggled up in his soft blanket.” No! The only thing I’m thinking about is how many years I’d get in the slammer if I smothered him with his ergonomic pillow.

There are many tricks that I have tried throughout the course of our 15-year marriage in an attempt to quell the snoring. Sometimes I will roll over violently, shaking the entire bed, so that he is startled but not fully awakened. He will change positions and the snores will stop for a moment or two before they rev up completely again. I have also been known to lightly nudge him until he tilts his head and stops. Sometimes I take off his covers so that he gets cold, stirs to find the blanket, and moves. And sometimes I just wallow in my own sorrows and hope that he falls off the side of the bed on his own and wakes up.

The snoring situation is only made better when our five-year-old daughter decides to join us in the middle of the night — that is basically every night. Since he hardly ever hears her sneak into our room, I try not to disturb him. I slowly roll into the middle of the bed so that she can hop in and we can all get back to sleep without too much disturbance. She likes to hold my face while she is sleeping, so we get to be really close. This is sweet and special and lovely, until she and her father start playing dueling banjos with their noses. I am lying in the middle of the king-size bed like a toddler with the two brothers from Deliverance on either side. It’s maddening.

Don’t even think about coming at me with that “take her back to her bed” bullshit. If I do that, I wake up the dog. And if the dog gets up, she will want to go out. And if she wants to go out, then I have to open the back door to our yard that backs up to woods that has definitely had a coyote spotting — and I don’t do coyotes. So guess what? She’s staying put until morning and I just start saying Hail Marys hoping the good Lord will grant me a few winks.

And before you ask, we’ve tried the strips and the patches and the tablets and all of the other shit that is on the market to make the snoring stop. It’s all a gimmick. He’s got this snoring on lock. He’s gotten so good at it, why would he quit now? Make it an Olympic sport and he’s bringing home gold in every event in which he competes. The man is all in, all the time.

Remember I said that I am a light sleeper? Well, how about this shit? If I am sleeping and I subconsciously don’t hear him snoring, then I start to have a panic attack. I worry that he is dead in the bed next to me. So what do I do? I grab my phone, turn on the flashlight and shine it on him to see if his chest is moving. If I can’t get a good look at him that way, I’ll move a little closer to see if I can hear a few breaths going in and out. Up until this point, he’s always been alive during one of my well checks, thankfully, or this story would be going in a very different direction.

But when I find out that he’s not dead, I get pissed at him for being quiet and making me worry. Which as I wife, I think is totally justified because no one should have to think that there is a stiff lying next to them at 3am.

Once I have finally moved him around enough that the snoring subsides, I will close my eyes and dream sweet dreams. Just when I have gotten to the point where the fortune teller is giving me the sixth and final winning number for this week’s lottery, the string is pulled and the mower starts again. And I completely lose my shit and start violently thrashing, kicking, and yelling, “Stop fucking snoring!” He slowly turns over, looks at me straight in the face and says, “What?”

And that, Your Honor, is why I feel that my actions were completely justified.