It is rare that couples decide to sleep in separate rooms, generally one of the partners is woken by the rumbling of snoring, takes the pillow and blanket and moves to a couch or separate room.
They wake in the early hours of the morning only too grateful to have had the uninterrupted sleep and creep back into the bedroom with their still sleeping partner. This repetitive pattern of nightly migrations eventually becomes an unspoken agreement to sleep separately.
Marriage therapists say that couples generally neglect to mention that they sleep in separate rooms, but still wonder why they have an unsatisfactory sex life and find their relationships in trouble.
Therapist exclusive
We have an exclusive with Ted and Francis who allowed us to sit in on one of their therapy sessions in October 2105. The couples 15 year marriage was in trouble and they wanted to discuss some of the events that they had discovered in therapy and we wrote a few key factors while sitting in.
T – Ted snores, Francis complained every morning and the lack of sleep was getting her down.
F – Francis felt Ted did not hear her and how important her sleep was, she was the one complaining so the problem now became hers.
F – Francis started to go to bed earlier than Ted so that she could fall asleep first and hopefully Ted’s snoring did not wake her.
T – Ted felt he was left in the lounge watching TV and started to become a visitor in his own bedroom in fact some nights he fell asleep there and only made it back to the bedroom in the early morning.
T – Ted felt rejected and un-loved
F – Francis felt resentful and felt her lifestyle had been compromised.
According to the therapist, this is a common cycle, and repeats itself through their relationship.
We should sleep for a third of our day, but when we miss out on sleep in order to keep up with our crazy 24/7 world, or have disrupted sleep from a snoring, or a snoring bed partner we pay a huge price with, our health, relationships, and our quality of life.
Snoring and even a more dangerous form of Snoring, Obstructive Sleep Apnea, where an individuals airway becomes partially blocked and the individual needs to wake to regain the muscle control of the throat to breathe. In some instances an individual can stop breathing hundreds of times in a night and is woken as many times to take a breath.
Three recommended solutions that work.
- Obesity is known as the biggest culprit and just loosing weight can take the pressure of soft tissue off the airway.
- Cpap is a more invasive treatment bust sometimes the only solution for Sleep apnea where a constant flow of air is pumped down the airway during sleep.
- Dental devices are popular and are designed to reposition the lower jaw forward in a way that keeps the airway open. So if you have a snoring problem it can lead to a sleep disorder for you and your partner so don’t ignore the problem, it can lead to poor health, poor moods, may negatively impact motivation, relationships, and job performance.