Job on the line because of wife’s snoring

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This article was published 01/02/2017 (3516 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I’m tired all the time because I can’t sleep with my wife who snores loud enough to rattle the window panes. She insists I sleep in the bed with her because that’s how married couples are supposed to sleep. I bought that for a long time and suffered, but now I can’t take it anymore. Ear plugs don’t work. I’m so tired at work, and I’m going to lose my job if I’m not careful. We have an extra bedroom and I want to sleep there. I still want to have sex just as much though. So what’s her problem?

— Awake Beside a Jackhammer, Windsor Park

Dear Awake Beside a Jackhammer: Why do you have to beg her permission to get some sleep and keep your job? Start pressuring her to get the snoring looked after. Tell her the first night she starts using a proper method to stop the snoring (such as a CPAP machine or other device) you will move back into the bedroom, but for now, you’re setting up a bedroom for deep sleeping and entertaining her when you two are in the mood to make love.

One day when she’s not there to see the moving, and feel humiliated by it, just do it. Move some clothes into the bedroom, set up a nice little bar and some lighting and invite her into your bedroom for the inaugural ball. Make a big fuss over her in your bedroom.

If it’s one of the kids’ old bedrooms, redecorate it and make it an adult bedroom. Invite her over too often so she gets to say no sometimes. Maybe you could put a loveseat in there and a small table so you can occasionally eat appetizers, drink wine, watch TV and snuggle. You get the picture? More romancing, not less, with the two bedrooms. Just don’t let her talk you into leaving your door open all night when the purpose of the room is quiet.

Dear Miss Lonelyhearts: I love my nephews and pretty much anybody’s kids, with the exception of spoiled brats. They don’t all love me, though, I just found out. My new girlfriend’s boy can’t stand me. He’s had his protective mom to himself for eight years. Now I come along, and he has to share her.

He is polite to me when she’s around because she wouldn’t put up with rudeness, but when there’s just the two of us in the room, he treats me with disdain like I am a creepoid from a different planet. I spoke to my girlfriend about him and she says he doesn’t behave like that with other people. (But she’s not sleeping with those other people.)

She seemed like she didn’t believe me, so the next day I captured a spoken interaction between him and I on my phone, where he wouldn’t speak to me except grunts, although I kept trying. She was shocked at me for having tricked him that way. I am at my wit’s end. What should I do? — Shunned by Girlfriend’s Son, Winnipeg

Dear Shunned by Girlfriend’s Son: You might as well hit the road. When you allow yourself to get serious about a package deal like a single mom and her child, you have to have a comfortable fit with both people. This is anything but a fit. Mom and son are a unit and you are an outsider as far as the kid is concerned.

This mom is not the kind that will help build a bridge. She is not listening to evidence of what is happening when she’s out of the room, so this hasn’t got a prayer of working. With nothing to lose, before you leave, you might ask the boy outright why he dislikes you. The answer might be interesting.

This woman’s child may keep people away until he is a teenager and prefers being out of the house with his friends. That’s a lot of years. You could find a situation much better than this and enjoy family life.

Many kids take to new men in their mothers’ lives, but some don’t. Kids generally prefer the original family setup, but in some cases a blended family can be very good. Hold out for one of those situations, or a lady with no kids.

Please send your questions and comments to lovecoach@hotmail.com or Miss Lonelyhearts c/o the Winnipeg Free Press, 1355 Mountain Ave., Winnipeg, MB, R2X 3B6

Miss Lonelyhearts
Advice Columnist

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