I prefer to think of it as a room of our own, one where we can have a restful night’s sleep whenever the need arises. (How we frame things in our mind is vitally important to the quality of our lives.)  But, yes, it’s also a room to get away from someone who is snoring.

I was surprised during a conversation among women, by how much they bitched about their partner snoring, and how often their solution would be to have him go out to the couch (as punishment).  Or, to stay in the marriage bed and be angry at him!  It isn’t as if he wants to snore and keep you awake,  or as if he has control over it. Why be angry at your beloved under those circumstances?  Oh, yes,  because you’re exhausted.  (I realize it’s not always the man who snores)  Well, there’s a lovely solution to the whole dilemma.  A snoring room.  

In the Los Angeles Times I found this headline:  “Home builder offers a room in which to flee from a snoring spouse.” 

Their snore room is a secondary bedroom connected to the master bath and designed for couples who start out in the same bed, but for a variety of reasons, can’t stay there all night. Ear-piercing snoring, insomnia, late-night reading or TV watching habits.  I’m still stuck on flee. Flee?

My Dad snored, at an unbelievable decibel level, the whole time I was growing up. Sometimes I had trouble going to sleep because of it…and I was down the hallway!  How Mom dealt with it, I’ll never know, but perhaps that was why we found her napping on the couch in the den most afternoons. With a family of seven, there was no room for a snoring room for her back then. 

At a party a while ago I mentioned to a friend that I had slept in our guest room last night. Her response was to cock an eyebrow and query, “Oh, so you two don’t sleep together, huh?”   As if the fact that I had strolled down the hall and crawled into a comfy bed with a pillow-top mattress,  delicious sateen sheets, under a lofty down comforter, and fallen peacefully back asleep somehow implied that there was ‘trouble in Paradise.’

Au contraire!  Rather than feel resentful when my dear is snoring, or nudging him repeatedly, whispering, “Can you turn over, honey?” I created a room to retreat to, happily, when he is bothered by allergies, and snoring to beat the band. It’s a sexy guest room which is also my dream room…literally.  It’s my Parisian getaway when I am feeling unwell, and a cozy place to go when I just can’t sleep and need to read late into the night.

“I firmly believe that in order to give back to our relationships, careers, families, and passions, we must pull in for short moments to take care of ourselves, then we can return to the people and places of our lives renewed, refreshed, and ready to continue the drama of our days with all the joys, sorrows, pleasures and stresses that go with it.”  From the book, A Room of Her Own, by Chris Casson Madden 

So, I invite you to take a sensual approach to this common problem, and to quote Virgina Woolf, from her book of the same name, create a “Room of One’s Own.”  Add a lovely daybed to your home office, like Nancy Ray Taylor, an artist friend in NY did. (see above) She painted a serene mural,  added lots of pillows and  beautiful things to create this inviting space.  (www.nancyraytaylor.com)

Reclaim one of your kid’s room’s, (they’re gone, right?)  and turn it into your haven.  When they come back to visit, they’ll get to enjoy it, too.  If you already have a guest room, upgrade it from basic, to high-end-hotel fabulousness!   Feeling stuck?  Look at Chris Casson Madden’s other book, “Bedrooms.”  If you find yourself still stuck after that, call me and I’ll come to your rescue!

You will both sleep better, nobody will be playing the “blame game,” and it’s actually quite sexy to ask your sweetheart, over coffee the next morning, “Did you sleep well last night, dear?”

XODonna