Why Should I Care?
Moving on…
It usually started with a quiet exhale through his mouth. It sounded like “puff”. I would wake up and think, “Here we go.” His breathing gradually grew louder. I would lie awake and wait for each breath because sometimes it sounded as if it would stop as he seemed to gasp for air. I wondered how he could sleep through it. He slept. I did not.
With the slow passing of precious minutes of lost sleep, the labored breathing first became quiet snores. Sometimes I could ignore it. But it usually would build to such a crescendo of unbearable awful sounds that I would quietly become desperate to make it stop. Sometimes a kick or a nudge would force him to turn over. He might quiet down or stop making noise altogether for a short time. Had he stopped breathing? He never did stop.
Short lived periods of peace always gave way to another “puff” that would start the cycle again. In desperation, I imagined evil ways to make it stop. What if I held a pillow over his head until he stopped breathing? I knew this would be effective to stop the snoring, but the longer term results would not be good.
The scenario described here will sound familiar to anyone forced to sleep with a habitual snorer. I did it for 28 years of marriage. It was so bad on the night of February 13, 1999 that I moved into the guest room to try to get some sleep during the sixth month of pregnancy. I finally did sleep that night. When I woke up alone I was unable to move the left side of my body and had a crippling headache.
I blamed my husband’s snoring for causing the stroke.
He moved out in 2015. I was finally able to sleep in peace. There is always an upside.
Recent surgery required that I sleep on an incline. I bought a bed wedge to help with this.
When my best friend/massage therapist came to visit me and saw the wedge, she suggested I give it to her when I was done using it. My first instinct had been to give it to my husband thinking it would help with his snoring. She said, “Why the fuck do you care if he snores?” We both knew he has been sleeping with another woman. On rare occasions he sleeps in the guest room in my house and I can hear him snore through the walls at night.
I will give the bed wedge to my friend after I’m finished using it to use in her massage practice. I do not give a fuck if my husband’s girlfriend loses any sleep.
Thank you for reading:)
