Are You Snoring Your Way To Divorce?

Making a marriage work is no small feat. In the United States, between 40 and 50 percent of first marriages end in divorce while the percentage of second marriages that are unsuccessful is even larger . We are not sociologists or psychologists or even marriage counselors and we could not give you an expert opinion on why so many marriages end in divorce. We can only state that they do and leave it at that.

We can, however, let you in on a little nugget of knowledge that not so many people talk about, despite the fact that it is a common problem. We are, of course, talking about the fact that snoring can easily be the thing that is ruining your marriage and you would probably not even know it.

Before you discard this article as pure fear-mongering, please check out this story from 2013 where a wife attempted to kill her husband with a knife because he was snoring so much. Don’t worry. We are not saying your spouse is going to kill you or that you are going to kill your beloved one for snoring. We are, however, saying that snoring might be putting more strain on your marriage than you realize.

Depending on the data you consult, you will find differing reports of how many people actually snore, but most experts agree that this is the problem for about 30 percent of the adult population worldwide. Certain demographics are believed to feature more than 50 percent of snorers in their ranks.

Some people snore every night while others have to be extra tired to do so. For those who snore occasionally, drinking alcohol will increase the chances of being loud during the night. For a certain number of snorers, it is a symptom of obstructive sleep apnea, a medical condition where their oxygen intake during sleep is impaired, which can lead to a whole number of symptoms, some of which are quite serious.

One thing, however, is common for the vast majority snorers and their spouses – they do not get enough sleep. You know what they say, there is no such thing as a quiet snorer. Even if the actual level of noise that a snorer produces during sleep is low, the mere fact that they are doing it during night while you’re trying to sleep makes every snore resemble a Boing 747 taking off.

There are those very few people who can ignore their spouse’s snoring if they fall asleep first, but for the majority of snorers’ spouses, their partners making noise is guaranteed to wake them up. According to experts this can cause snorers’ spouses to wake up a few times per hour. This, of course, will cause them to interrupt their spouses’ loud sleep by waking them up in order to get at least a few moments of quiet. The end result is that no one gets enough sleep.

The medical profession calls this sleep deprivation and you can rest assured that it is not something that will make your marriage better. Having two sleep deprived individuals try to live together in loving harmony is like sticking a Tasmanian devil and a mongoose in a bag and expecting them to start a household.

It just doesn’t work. When people don’t sleep, they get irritable. When they get irritable, small problems become gigantic issues. Drinking milk straight out of a carton becomes tantamount to cheating one’s spouse with their sibling. Fights become more frequent and more aggressive. Slowly but steadily, the two people start resenting each other.

A better case scenario is that you don’t fight but start avoiding each other around bedtime. For example, the spouse who doesn’t snore will go to bed earlier to try and get a few hours of sleep before the racket starts. Soon enough, the only solution seems to be sleeping in different rooms.

It goes without saying that this wreaks havoc on the couple’s intimacy. Considering the fact that sleep deprivation can lead to a drop in libido anyway, it is obvious that snoring can do immeasurable damage to the couple’s love life.

The distance and fighting are enough to ruin any marriage, no matter how in love the spouses are. Do not let this happen to you. Being aware is the first step.