Let me start of this post by saying I love my husband. He’s great. I almost didn’t want to post this here because I’m probably just being paranoid, but the whole situation is just so… strange.
When we met, a bit over 8 years ago, we saw fireworks- an instant connection. The only issue we ran into was that he didn’t want to spend the night together. Even if we slept together, we wouldn’t sleep together. I’m probably making this too difficult with the euphemisms. We had sex, but never stayed the night together.
Finally I told him I was sick of feeling like a booty call and gave him an ultimatum, stay over or stop seeing me. He flushed like a tomato and started stammering,
“I, I- n-no it isn’t-“ he paused and took a deep breath, “you’re going to laugh at me”
I eyed him with a look that said “the last thing I am going to do at this moment is laugh.”
“I… snore” he said
I almost laughed, but out of disbelief, not out of humor.
“You SNORE?!” I nearly shouted, “I’m here thinking you have another girlfriend or something, and you’re just self-conscious about snoring?!”
”It’s really bad. My whole life my friends have made fun of me for it. I avoided sleepovers as a kid because they’d all bully me the next morning. I just… I didn’t want you to hear it and leave me.”
“Well if I’m not leaving you for being an idiot, I’m sure as hell not leaving you for snoring” I muttered, calming down. “You really think I would do that?”
He smashed his lips together into a kind of forced smile and shrugged his shoulders.
“It’s really bad”
That was an understatement. Saying my husband snores is like saying Michael Phelps swims or Usain Bolt jogs or Simone Biles does gymnastics. My husband would be the Olympic gold medalist of snoring.
His friends say “it sounds like he’s literally dying and I can hear his soul leaving his body”
His mom says “I used to think they were doing construction or road work outside when he slept late”
I would say it alternates between a hibernating bear and someone being waterboarded.
Every night is a little different, but it was always comically loud- until it wasn’t.
I’m writing here because my husband has suddenly stopped snoring. By all accounts, I should be thrilled, but instead I’m getting panicked. It’s probably nothing… but it’s just so strange.
I’ve managed to live with my husband’s snoring these past 8 years without complaint. I’m not saying I should be sanctified, but I at least deserve an applause. I never brought it up to him once, until we had a baby.
If you’ve ever had a baby, I don’t need to say anything else on the topic.
If you have not had a baby, imagine you’ve been held hostage for three days, tortured, not allowed to sleep, and drained of the maximum amount of blood you can lose and still live when you manage to escape. You slip out of your prison, sneak towards the exit of the house in which you’re being held, and just before you are free and clear, you step on a squeaky toy.
That’s how it feels when you manage to get your fussy newborn to sleep only to have your husband sleep-scream and wake her up a second later.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my baby. I love my husband. I was exhausted.
The baby started crying. I did too.
“If you can’t get that insane snoring under control, you need to go sleep on the couch!” I screamed. The baby screamed louder.
I know my husband wasn’t snoring intentionally, but in the moment, it definitely felt like it.
“You’re right” my husband said “I’ll stop”
“How the hell are you going to stop snoring?!” I said, not quite a scream this time, but still very tense.
“I… I have to stop, so I will.” He said. Then he turned over, went to sleep, and didn’t snore again the rest of the night.
What. The. Hell.
Is this something people can do? I’ve heard of inclined beds helping snoring, but he otherwise hasn’t changed his sleeping habits? How can someone even do this?!
I have a suspicion, but I’ll admit it sounds a bit crazy. I don’t think my husband is sleeping.
I know that doesn’t make sense, but “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
For example, the other night I woke up in the middle of the night and when I first opened my eyes, I swear my husband had his eyes open, just looking at me sleeping.
I rubbed my eyes and looked again and he had his eyes closed, so I softly tapped his shoulder. He woke up immediately, as if he was already awake.
Other times the baby will be screaming and screaming, and he’ll just be laying there, but if I say: “Steven!”, he just opens his eyes right away.
The other night, I got up to pee. While I was in the bathroom, I swear I heard him get up and move around, but when I got back, he was just there, not-snoring away.
On top that, he was an absolute mess during the day. He was spaced-out most of the day, and when he wasn’t, he was extremely irritable. The bags under his eyes looked like the kind that came home after a trip to Target “just to look around.”
Most people would write this off as new parent sleep deprivation, but compared to me, he sleeps great, and I’m not completely falling apart.
I know all of this sounds like paranoia, and I had been able to convince myself that until I saw him in the bathroom.
I came back from coffee with one of my friends, and I guess Steven didn’t hear me get home. I heard him snoring from the guest room.
My first thought was that he wasn’t sleeping at night to keep from snoring and sneaking naps during the day to spare me the guilt of snapping at him the other night.
I peeked in the guest room and saw him standing, staring at himself in the mirror as he gurgled. The gurgle sounded like his snore, but hearing it like this felt…wrong.
I tiptoed back to the door and loudly re-entered the house. He stopped his “snoring” and came out.
“How was coffee?” He asked. He looked the best I had seen him in weeks.
Two nights later, I was woken up by him snoring again. I turned and saw him standing at the end of the bed, blank eyes staring at me and mouth open, gurgling.
“Steven?” I said timidly
He stopped gurgling, and said “oh no, I must have started sleepwalking” without blinking.
“Oh… well maybe get back in bed?” I said
“I… I don’t think it’s a good idea for me to stop snoring. I’m going to go sleep on the couch.” He said.
That was a few weeks ago and he’s mostly been fine. Some nights when the baby wakes me up, I go to check on him out there.
Most nights he’s on the couch, snoring away racously, but peacefully. I think he is having trouble snoring some nights.
The nights I don’t hear him snoring, he isn’t on the couch. One night I found him in the bathroom, stark naked, staring at himself in the mirror. One night he was sitting with the lamp on, with a knife from the kitchen.
After that night, I have stopped checking on him if I can’t hear him snoring. I also keep the bedroom door kicked.
Last night, I woke up to the sound of him snoring in the room with me. I snapped awake and looked around.
The bed next to me was empty, and he wasn’t in the room anywhere I could see.
The awful thought came to me that he was hiding under the bed or something. I grabbed my phone and shined the flashlight around, looking for the source of the noise.
My baby had pulled herself up in the crib and was looking at me.
She was snoring.