Editor's Note: This essay was excerpted in Cognoscenti's newsletter of ideas and opinions, delivered weekly on Sundays. To become a subscriber, sign up here.
I haven’t been sleeping well lately, and my husband Sam is partly to blame.
Sam and I have shared a bed for nearly 25 years, and I assure you, it was not always like this. In the early years, we regularly slept with our limbs in a tangle. Snoozing until 11 a.m. on the weekends was a thing we did and there was no snoring to speak of.
Fast forward to our mid-30s and the arrival of our three kids, including twins. In that era, I didn’t so much fall asleep as pass out. I slept as hard as I could, for as long as I could.
Oh how our lives have changed.
It probably will not surprise you to learn that a lot of people snore. About 25% of adults do it regularly – and it’s more common for middle-aged men and postmenopausal women. (It’s also more common among people who are overweight.) Dr. Alan Workman, a sinus surgeon at Mass Eye and Ear, who I had to visit recently for a medical issue, explained that snoring is simply the vibration of soft tissue in the upper airway. “When you sleep, your muscles relax, the soft tissues lose tension and can vibrate more easily,” Dr. Workman told me. Pretty simple.
Sometimes, when I’m lying awake in the middle of the night, it feels like he’s torturing me.
If you snore, but still feel rested upon waking, no problem. If you experience long pauses in breathing or even choking during sleep – signs of sleep apnea – you may be at greater risk for a heart attack and stroke.See AlsoWhen Snoring Is Normal and When to WorrySnoring - Symptoms and causesWhat Causes Snoring and How to Stop It7 Easy Snoring Remedies: Weight, Alcohol, Hydration, and More
Sam, thankfully, falls in the non-apnea, middle-aged man category. He snores more when he sleeps on his back (not surprising – according to Dr. Workman, sleeping on your side or stomach can decrease snoring dramatically). His snoring is much louder when he’s sick or if he’s had too much to drink.
And now, in our mid-40s, snoring has become a thing. He makes a low groaning tractor hum that occasionally crescendos into a loud snort. Sometimes, when I’m lying awake in the middle of the night, it feels like he’s torturing me.
I reached out to friends and coworkers in the process of writing this essay. One colleague told me his wife sounds, “Like a wild animal that is suffocating while trying to growl.” My friend explained that her husband’s snoring isn’t as loud as it is deep: “I can feel the vibration in the bed, so earplugs don't help.” My cousin told me her husband “sounds like a rhythmic train that’s stuck in the same place.” A teenager I know describes his dad’s snoring as “Chewbacca.”
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A person can’t really help that they’re snoring – they’re asleep – but it’s maddening just the same. Sam’s snoring reminds me that I’m not sleeping. And that drives me crazy. And then I have to resist my urge to smother him. Nevermind that I snore too sometimes, at least according to my children. (Sam wouldn’t know; he’s too busy sleeping.)See AlsoSnoring in Your Sleep: Signs, Causes, and Solutions
We, the snoring-adjacent, have honed our middle-of-the-night poking, kicking and shoving to get the offending party to stop. I’ve perfected the elbow jab. My friend Mari claps as loud as she can at her husband “to startle him out of it.” Another colleague has taken to hooking her husband’s heel with her foot and pulling up. She says it works.
Your snoring makes me murderous and I really don’t want to snuggle when we sleep, but you’re still my person and I love you
When things get really bad, those of us with space, move. (I wander the house with my pillow, in search of a soft, quiet place.) My friend Johanna pre-plans with her husband which one of them will skedaddle in the middle of the night.
In some situations the solution calls for a sleep divorce, which amounts to: “I love you, but I can’t sleep in the same room as you.” This is more common than you might imagine. According to a recent survey conducted for the New York Times, one in five couples sleep in separate bedrooms and nearly two-thirds stick to that arrangement every night.
We have big issues to worry about in the world. Isn’t worrying about snoring banal? Possibly. But it’s fraught for good reason.
For starters, I can’t control climate change or American politics, but I still have to wake up and get out of bed every day. That’s a whole lot easier when I’m well rested.
But Sam’s snoring – and my resulting sleep issues – are also a literal dead-of-night reminder of how things change. Of how we’re getting older. Of how our days of sleeping ‘til 11 a.m. in a tangled heap are long gone, and may never return.
There are some benefits to time marching on. Any pretense we had 25 years ago, about how we might need to contort ourselves to accommodate each other, has given way to understanding and a certain acceptance: Your snoring makes me murderous and I really don’t want to snuggle when we sleep, but you’re still my person and I love you. We can acknowledge the comfortable ordinariness of the life we’ve built.
We are vulnerable when we sleep. Innocent. Without intention. Sleep, like air and water, food and shelter, is essential. And all of us have to sleep — even Simone Biles, even Donald Trump.
I think of my kids in their car seats as toddlers, heads bobbing, mouths open. I think of friends napping on my couch the Sunday after a late night. There’s an intimacy inherent in letting go, in allowing our bodies to relax that much. After all, the people who hear you snore are also the people who see you before you’ve applied undereye concealer or had a cup of coffee.
During a bout with COVID my family had in early November, I set up shop in our guest room for the duration. I hadn’t slept so well in years. But once we’d all recovered, I went back to our bedroom. The undisturbed sleep was great, but I missed sharing that most intimate act of rest and silence (snoring aside).
A few nights later, while Sam was sawing away, I scrolled Instagram and impulse bought a magnetic nose strip. It’s supposed to work miracles for people who snore. I’ll let you know how it goes.
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