For the partners of chronic snorers, sleep can prove elusive, no matter how many foam earplugs you test out – but sleeping separately may seem like a last resort for a relationship.
However, a leading sleep scientist has advised couples dealing with this issue to see having different bedrooms as the “beginning of a new relationship”.
Better sleep will ideally make both partners “happier, more responsive to each other, less irritable”, according to Russell Foster, a professor of circadian neuroscience at the University of Oxford.
‘We both wake up feeling happier with each other’
Mel, 34, would agree: she says sleeping apart has been a gamechanger. “After two years of frustration, resentment and tension my partner now mostly sleeps in a different room, since about three months ago. This has improved our relationship and my health massively. He comes into the shared bed in the morning,” says Mel, who is an accountant in Sussex and has been with her partner for four years.
“I’m quite a light sleeper, and before that, I just kept saying ‘roll over, wake up’ – and then I’d end up moving to the sofa. It used to keep me up all night, make me full of resentment and really affect our relationship during the day. I felt tired, irritable and snappy.”
She says that since the change, she and her partner “wake up feeling more refreshed and happier with each other”. “I wake up in a much better mood, I’m no longer stressed – I’m probably a lot nicer to him.”
The couple don’t sleep apart every night, prioritising when she knows she has a busy day on. “It’s nice to know you’re guaranteed a good night’s sleep – you just feel useless without it. I think it’s something we’ll have to do for the foreseeable future.”
‘I was worried it signified ‘the end’’
And it can be tough for the person snoring too: Thomas, 42, felt guilty for waking his husband up in the night.
He tried everything: “Nasal dilators, mouth taping, memory foam pillows – but nothing worked for long,” he says, adding that he tested negative for sleep apnoea, which can be serious.
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Despite both suffering from disrupted sleep, Thomas, who is a film-maker in Nottingham, says he initially felt “a bit horrified” when his husband of 15 years suggested sleeping in separate rooms. “I worried that it signified ‘the end’ [of the relationship]. As soon as I realised I wouldn’t feel so guilty about keeping him awake I came round to the idea.”
He adds that they are lucky: “We’ve got a house now – before we were in a small flat so it wouldn’t have been possible. There’s an element of luxury.”
Thomas says that reading about couples who had benefited from making the switch helped him get on board. “It really helped. When I thought about it, we were both getting irritable, we were both sleep deprived and irritable. I felt like I just needed that permission – I think I had to accept it really.”
‘I didn’t want to give up sleeping together’
But others, like Clare Buntic and her husband, are reluctant to sleep apart. “We’ve been married for 31 years, and my husband has snored for at least 20 of them,” she says.
“His snoring would make me really angry – murderous even. But it was not so bad that I wanted to sleep on my own, that felt like a bridge too far. We’ve never tried sleeping apart. I’d miss him – I do like being physically near him.”
Buntic, who is 61 and an international education consultant in London, has tried a variety of earplugs to block out the snoring. “I’ve had a few accidents where I shoved the foam ones right into my ear and had to go to the doctor,” she says. “Wax ones were quite effective – we’re still married after all.”
Luckily, she recently came across a handy solution, investing in a sleep mask that doubles as headphones. “It’s brilliant. I listen to the radio, podcasts or sleep music and can’t hear him snoring. Sometimes I listen to the Archers, which he doesn’t like and I do.”
“The older you get, if you don’t even have that just before bed conversation, it feels like you’re really missing something. This mask has been brilliant as I didn’t want to give that up.”
