What’s the solution to our Bedroom/Sleeping situation?

[SleepWoes]

Sorry this is long!
In short: OH terrible snorer, no spare room, do I ask OH to convert his 'office' into bedroom or is there a better solution?

My partner and I have been together for 15 years and have three children, 12, nine and four.

In all that time we’ve only really slept in the same bed for a combined total of about two years.
The reasons being his terrible snoring – which made me move to the spare room when our first born was six months old and I couldn’t take his snoring on top of our daughter’s frequent waking.

I moved back in when our first was about two. He then moved to the spare room nine-ish months later when our second was born as she disturbed him. (She was breastfed so there wasn’t much he could do to help in the night and I was happy with the arrangement.)

That was nearly nine years ago and we’ve never slept in the same bed again since bar a couple of nights away!

We’ve since had a third child who’s four.

So there’s five of us and we live in a five bedroom house, but one of the rooms is his work /office/hobby room.
My oldest two children have a bedroom each, OH is in the spare room and I’m in the master with our four year old.
The four year old was probably my worst sleeper yet and so until recently it worked best having him with me as we all got better sleep that way. But now he’s mostly sleeping through and it’d be good for him to have his own room and space, so make the spare room his room.

But OH still snores horrifically. It was bad enough when I only had one child, but now with three, for which I do all of the early morning stuff/drop offs etc, I’m constantly tired and sleep is so very precious and I honestly get anxious at the thought of OH disturbing my sleep all night long. Plus he goes to bed several hours later than me and I get up several hours earlier than him, so we would be disturbing each other a lot.

I’ve tried earplugs in the past which I find very unpleasant to wear, plus I’d be worried I might miss my kids crying or the alarm etc. He’s inquired about investigations into the snoring and thinks he might have sleep apnoea but nothing has come of it.

What do we do?

Part of me would like to go back to sleeping together, at least part time, we basically have no sex life and this would help! But I get more sleep with a four year old kicking me and waking up several times per night than I ever did sleeping with him.

We already extended the house so there’s no space (or funds!) for an extension.

The solutions as I see it are:

A. He moves back into the main bedroom and I just suck it up and have disturbed sleep and end up tired, bitter and resentful.
B. We get bunk beds or a large bed for four year old’s room (currently spare room) and he part time to potentially full time shares with him when his snoring is awful (the kids don’t seem bothered by his snoring – they’ve shared when we’ve been on holiday)
C. He changes up his ‘work room’ and adds a bed somehow.

D. We get a sofa bed for the living room – doesn’t seem like a good long term solution and the children and I would wake him up in the mornings.

This isn’t really about how good a partner/father he is but it’s relevant to say that he never gets up to do/help with school mornings or any mornings so he’s pretty much always asleep when we get up. He usually leaves for work at about 10/11 and it’s rare he’s back for later than 5ish so there’s no reason he couldn’t. This makes me less sympathetic to his sleep needs and feel I should get priority to be honest, is that selfish?

I really think the best option would be C –he sorts out his work/play room and adds a bed somehow and moves in there.
At the moment is is pretty full –it’s a decent sized double bedroom but not massive. It has a massive desk that it full of his hobby stuff, which honestly he doesn’t even do anymore. He has another computer desk on a second wall, and storage on the other two walls. As it stands now there’s nowhere to put a bed. But I reckon he could get one of the high sleeper beds and then have a desk under it, but it might mean getting rid of the massive hobby desk. Plus he’s tall so it’d probably be in the way.

I haven’t even suggested this to him as I think I’m probably being unreasonable. I don’t want it to feel like I’m banishing him to his work room, though he spends a lot of time there by choice.

Perhaps I’m a little resentful of his work/play room. I partake in craft type hobbies a lot more than him and I manage to make do with the dining table/playroom. Plus it’s a place he can disappear and hide from the kids, might as well make use of it and turn into a bedroom too?

It would be quite a bit of work though, and I think it could be damaging to our relationship to suggest it?

I don’t see another long-term solution though. And although I don’t really mind sharing with the four year old at the moment, I think it’s probably best for him that he has his own space soon.

4 year old gets his own room, rejig the hiding from family responsibility room office. Start from scratch, so the unused hobby stuff is away on shelves to be used if and when required and there’s a big desk for work and a double bed which doubles as a spare room for guests (whereupon he can bunk up with one of the kids). The space and mental peace would probably ease your relationship to the point that you actually want a bit of cheeky corridor creeping now and again, rather than lying awake in the dark plotting his demise.

"He’s inquired about investigations into the snoring and thinks he might have sleep apnoea but nothing has come of it".

What investigations, if any, have been undertaken here?. Has he been to his GP about this issue recently, say in the last month or so?. Probably not. Sleep apnoea is serious and the possibility of he having this should not be at all disregarded by him. He should seek medical attention rather than do any of the home suggestions mooted.

Before anything else he needs a GP appointment and really explain how serious the impact is on your family as well as potentially his health.

Can you get a decent sofa bed for his office so there is more room in the day when he is working. Or one of those single beds with another one stored underneath. They are brilliant for an instant double bed for visitors. My husband is a snorer and it is v hard to put up with at times. I chuck him out to sleep on the sofa if I get really desperate so I sympathise.

So he doesn't even do his job from his 'office'?

Do you have room/cash for the following:

'office' is converted back into a spare bedroom with a desk. Hobby items are kept in the wardobes/cupboards so desk can be used by different people.

4 year old moves into own room with a bunk bed which means when you have guests you still have a spare bed.

4 year old gets their own room. Your husband gets an appointment with the GP and a single bed to put in his office, which he needs to clear out and rearrange.

I sympathise though, my husband's a snorer too.

I know this isn’t the point of the thread, but why doesn’t he get up in the morning?! There doesn’t seem to be any reason for this.

Regarding the room issue - basically he’s happy with a situation where he has two rooms and his DW and youngest child have to share? Surely you should all have one room. It’s up to him how he sets that room up, but it’s his problem not yours. Sort the four year old’s room out and leave sorting the office to DH.

You are not being unreasonable at all! I genuinely don't understand how you could think that. Of course a 4 year old needs his own room. Of course your husband should give up a hobby room -- it's not an office if he's working out of the house, and anyway he can fit a bed and a desk in the same room.

Honestly I would be telling him, not asking him, that this is what's happening. I mean I'd do it nicely but this is the only fair option and he'd be such a jerk to refuse.

He doesn't get up in the morning, doesn't help with the kids, and has a whole room for his hobby which he spends lots of time with while you sort the kids out? I feel like you have bigger issues than the snoring - he sounds very selfish.

@Peanutsandchilli

4 year old gets their own room. Your husband gets an appointment with the GP and a single bed to put in his office, which he needs to clear out and rearrange.

I sympathise though, my husband's a snorer too.

This is the solution

What is his general health?

I really sympathise. It gets to breaking point. My partner snored terribly and I tried all sorts of earplugs but never found any comfortable. Lack of sleep is such a draining thing and it effects so much of your life.

My partner had all these different theories as to why he was snoring but in the end, when he accepted it was his weight and lost 5 kilos, it went away immediately.

If your DH is overweight, this might be his issue and it could be beneficial to try and fix that alongside a spare bed in the office/ hobby room for the time being.

It’s C.

Why does he get things all his way?

I think it is very fair for you to have your own room. I negotiated hard to have one in the same situation - there is no reason for you to have disturbed sleep when the problem lies with him.

Garden room for both of you to work/hobby in. Depends on finances I suppose, then current office = full bedroom.

Sounds like a CPAP machine is in order here though and will be well worth the money. Then you can sleep in the same room and nothing else needs to change.

5 of you. 5 bedrooms. Each of you gets to choose how you equip your own room. (Of your room became just yours could you get a desk in there for your craft stuff?)

There’s a lot going on here but the most urgent thing is the 4yo out.

The DH to GP.

I’m actually questioning this op. The snoring is so bad you can’t sleep through it but it doesn’t bother the kids, that would be unusual, although some kids can sleep through anything very bad snoring in close proximity they aren’t used to would normally have an impact. Is there a potential this is maybe also about your sensivity?

However as you genuinely can’t sleep next to him, then the office is the only solution it’s not fair on your four year old to not have a room.

Is the bedroom you currently sleeping bigger than his -non- office? Could you say that if he gives up both his work room and current bedroom/spare room for you and the 4 year old to have one each, then he can have the master to put his desk/bed/whatever in?

5 bedrooms, 5 people, you get one room each. He can't claim two rooms just for himself and the 4 year old shouldn't have to share with his dad.

I'd say he'd have to have an office/hobby and bedroom all in one. Can you fit a single bed in his office or the current spare room? Otherwise move things around so he gets a slightly larger room, although I'd hate to do this as he doesn't actually need it and he would be a more present father if he didn't have so much stuff to play with all the time.

I don't know how you can live with a man like that, he sounds utterly selfish.

There are plenty of options nowadays for snoring, such as operations even and other therapies. If he loves you and cares about he will exhaust every option. He would do that, if you happiness and comfort meant anything to him. Regardless he sounds like a selfish pig in general by your entire post so he probably won't bother to chase anything up or doing anything about it.

Thanks for the replies.

He does actually work in his office - he's self employed, mostly out of the house but has paperwork and phone calls so he does need a quiet place to work. He mostly uses it to play games and play guitar though, that's another thing, he has about eight guitars he keeps in there with nowhere else to go.

It would be a challenge to fit a bed in there, but doable, he just wouldn't like having to get rid of stuff/having a complete rearrange of everything but hearing it from everyone else makes it seem like it's a reasonable request.

@Bluntness100 I’m actually questioning this op. The snoring is so bad you can’t sleep through it but it doesn’t bother the kids, that would be unusual, although some kids can sleep through anything very bad snoring in close proximity they aren’t used to would normally have an impact. Is there a potential this is maybe also about your sensivity?
It varies from a fog horn to quiet-ish but VERY irritating. I actually used to lie awake sometimes, when he was quiet, in anticipation of it starting. So it definitely has a lot to do with my sensitivity but it is indeed loud at times. I was surprised it didn't disturb the children either, but once they're out they're not easily woken apparently. Had a weekend away a few weeks ago, OH shared with 4 year old and slept fine.

He did see the Dr about his snoring years ago and I can't remember what was said about it but nothing came from it. He tried strips and mouth guards and such but they didn't help.
He's never been overweight and is pretty healthy.

The sleep apnoea thing he's been looking into over the past few years, thinks he has symptoms but I don't think he's actually spoken to the GP about it. Think this is definitely the first thing to address asap!

It still wouldn't solve the problem of the mismatched bedtime/wake up time but I know that's a whole other issue!

He needs to rejig his play room. It’s the only reasonable solution. What about a chair bed? We have one from Loaf that is essentially a squishy armchair that folds out in a single bed.

@Peanutsandchilli

4 year old gets their own room. Your husband gets an appointment with the GP and a single bed to put in his office, which he needs to clear out and rearrange.

I sympathise though, my husband's a snorer too.

Yes, this is what I was going to say. If the office/hobby room is big he can have a bed in there.

( Am married to an intermittent snorer, and sometimes it only starts up at 4.30am but I just go to the spare room and straight back to sleep).