Snoring: A Silent Threat to Marital Harmony
Living with a snoring partner can be more than just annoying—it can strain a marriage. You go to bed, only to be awakened by loud snoring. You nudge, kick, or even pinch your partner’s nose to stop it, but the relief is temporary. Night after night, the disruption can lead couples to sleep separately, causing intimacy to wane and emotional distance to grow. Research from The Sleep Disorders Center at Rush University Medical Center highlights a strong link between snoring and marital dissatisfaction, showing that couples dealing with snoring or sleep apnea face higher divorce rates and a reduced quality of life. The lack of sleep, stress, and diminished intimacy often breed anger and resentment between partners.
Many couples view snoring as an uncontrollable health issue, akin to a condition of marriage they must endure. However, studies suggest this perspective can be harmful. Snoring is frequently tied to manageable health problems like obesity, excessive alcohol consumption, or tobacco use, among other factors. The non-snoring partner may feel frustrated, wondering why their spouse doesn’t address these issues, especially when snoring disrupts the marital bed. Meanwhile, the snoring partner may feel helpless, unaware of the severity of the problem or its impact on their spouse.
Addressing Snoring to Save Your Relationship
Snoring affects about 40% of adults over 30, yet its impact on marriage is often understated due to feelings of helplessness. The reality is that snoring, regardless of its causes, can be a serious health issue. If your partner snores, encourage them to consult a doctor and consider a sleep study. In over half of excessive snoring cases, sleep apnea—a dangerous sleep disorder—is diagnosed, often treated with oxygen-supplying masks. Simple steps like losing weight, using nasal strips, adjusting sleep positions, or avoiding certain foods can also reduce snoring.
Couples should avoid the common but detrimental solution of sleeping separately. Instead, try earplugs or devices that provide background noise to mask snoring. While these solutions work for some, they aren’t effective for all. Psychologists emphasize that couples must treat snoring as a solvable issue, not ignore its harmful effects on both health and the relationship. The Couples Sleep Study at Rush Medical Center found snoring to be the third most common medical reason couples file for divorce. This underscores the seriousness of unaddressed snoring. Rather than enduring sleepless nights filled with resentment, encourage your partner to seek help. By addressing snoring, couples can reclaim restful sleep and strengthen their bond, ensuring the issue doesn’t silently erode their marriage.
7 Responses
Snoring is a big problem in a marriage, it can lead to divorce easily. To avoid this you can sleep in different rooms, also you may try some stop snoring mouthpieces or some natural anti snoring drops.
Please stop talking about ear plugs as a solution to a snoring partner. They are an industrial device and only block out explosively loud noise, not speech or snoring. Another problem is that long term all night use can cause tinnitus.
Hi Lou,
It’s all in vain anyhow, my wife’s snoring literally travels though the bedding. It’s like the bed is vibrating. Ear plugs don’t work for low frequency sound as you pointed out, they’re for temporary, industrial use.
It would be nice if my wife actually cared. She tried CPAP, but for a whopping 2 nights. She won’t even discuss weight loss. In fact, it’s similar for nearly any problem we have. She will find out what I would like her to do and then does the opposite, then she threatens to divorce me for being so negative….. so for months at a time I won’t say a word….. Then if I do even try to bring it up I get threatened again.
So, LD, has anything changed for your situation?
My wife never snored, until the last few years, and it’s driving me crazy! She says to wake her if she does, but it only lasts a short time. Just as I’m getting back to sleep, she starts up again! It doesn’t happen every night, but is getting more common than not. If she snores I’ll move to another room now. This happens a few times a week. She sleeps the whole night, and I get little sleep. Today, I finally asked her to please try the nasal strips! Lets see if that works and how long it will last!
If you’re going to basically state that your marriage is over because of snoring, then why didn’t you list of :all of the first line defenses? You offer no specific solution(s). Your laziness has eclipsed your idiocy.
Snoring destroyed my marriage. His snoring was so loud I had to sleep on a love seat as far away from the bedroom as possible. He refused to see a doctor. When we vacationed he told me to sleep in the closet. I traveled a lot internationally for my job and it’s the only time I had a good nights sleep. He ended up having a long term affair and leaving (with a big 6 figure check from me). Now his new relationship is in the same state. If you snore take it very seriously.
I have been with the center of my universe, my best friend for 10 years. His snoring is pretty substantial. He’s been very kind and willing to sleep on the couch about 3/4 through the night, in the early morning when he hits his REM sleep and gets *really* loud. He’s a smoker and does drink wine nightly too.
I’m in the medical field and he knows I need my rest, and we have teenagers that go to high school so he takes a hit for me in order to help me sleep because I’m a light sleeper. But that’s not to say that the sleeping apart hasn’t gotten to us because he’s made some comments before about being sleeping separately and I feel terribly guilty asking him to go in the living room. But we do talk about it and we’re very very close and communicate very well, and we don’t hold resentment, or at least try not to, because this is something that we refuse to let pull us apart. We always fall asleep together. Always. It doesn’t really get bad until the wee hours of the morning anyway. He does have horrible allergies sometimes and meds help, and eventually when money permits we will see a doctor. But for now we’re just doing our best. I love him to pieces and this really sucks but it is also very very serious. I end up very sleep deprived *many* nights and it’s pretty horrible.