Snoring Is Misogynistic: Being Married To A Straight White Snoring Man
- Aubrey Earle
- Aug 16
- 10 min read
You don’t have to hit me to tell me I don’t matter. You can simply snore.
For years.
Without putting in much effort.
You can climb into bed like it’s a loading dock and offload an entire factory’s worth of decibels into the night, while I lie there awake… heart pounding, nerves sparking, brain bracing for the next freight-train blast. You can roll over, saw logs, and let the room vibrate like a cheap motel air conditioner, and the message lands, loud and simple… my sleep is optional… your comfort is not. And when I plead, again, “Please, can we fix this? There are solutions,” and you shrug, again, the shrug becomes a thesis statement. It says your habit, your constant inertia, your “that’s just how I sleep” outweighs my health, my safety, my sanity. It says the traditional script… where the woman absorbs the cost so the man doesn’t have to change… still runs the show.
Call it what it is: misogyny with a mouthguard off. (Or other devices that help with snoring)
I know the word makes some men bristle.
“Misogyny? I love women. I married one.” But misogyny isn’t just hatred… it’s hierarchy. It’s the casual, unexamined belief that a man’s baseline is the default setting and a woman’s needs are the adjustment knob. It’s the tiny decisions… night after night, year after year… where the burden slides onto the woman’s body because that is where culture expects burdens to go.
Let’s put the romance aside and talk about the mechanics. Loud, chronic snoring is often a symptom of obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) or another sleep-disordered breathing problem. OSA is not cute or even normal… it’s a cardiometabolic wrecking ball. Sleep-deprived partners are not “too sensitive”; they are injured by the noise, the jolts, the startle reflex repeating hundreds of times. The science isn’t ambiguous. Sleep deprivation raises the risk of hypertension, stroke, coronary disease, obesity, type 2 diabetes, depression… the whole grim garden. Recent reviews continue to confirm these links… short sleep and fragmented sleep are not personality quirks, they are health hazards.
Snoring itself isn’t harmless, either. It’s associated with uncontrolled hypertension and is a cardinal feature of sleep-disordered breathing. That droning buzzsaw in the dark is the nervous system’s fire alarm going off… yours and mine. My body hears it as threat, because on some level it surely is.
And who snores more? Men.
Not because women don’t get OSA (oh we do) but because sex differences in airway anatomy, fat distribution, hormones, and craniofacial structure make snoring more common in men. A recent review notes men’s odds of snoring are roughly double women’s. That means in heterosexual marriages, the snorer is more often the husband and the sleep-deprived partner is more often the wife. That’s the gendered power imbalance, right there, vibrating on the other side of the bed.
Now look at what women report. In 2024, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine found women were almost twice as likely as men to say they rarely or never wake up feeling well-rested. A different AASM survey reported that 29% of Americans have already opted for a “sleep divorce”… sleeping in another bed or room… to cope with a partner’s disruptive habits. That’s not a cute trend piece… it’s a public-health signal that millions of households are improvising solutions because someone, usually him, won’t pursue one that requires effort.
And still, somehow, she’s the one dispatched to the couch. Or told to buy earplugs. Or conditioned to turn her own needs into a scavenger hunt… (more mental energy for her to take on than what she already does!) … white-noise machines, meditation apps, nasal strips for him that he forgets to use (or refuses to use or try different kinds), room rearrangements, a playlist of distant thunderstorms, prayer.
She tiptoes around the snoring like it’s wildlife you mustn’t startle. He, meanwhile, treats sleep like a private empire with a favorable tax code. He will not be levied.
This dynamic sits on top of an older, heavier mountain… women still do more unpaid care and domestic labor. Global analyses and U.S. time-use studies show women carry the larger load of chores and childcare, they re-do dishes that he “helps” with… and even when men “help,” women carry the mental load… anticipating needs, planning, reminding, managing. That means when bedtime arrives, the woman’s brain has already run a marathon, and now the final mile is paved with diesel engines. Then she is expected to be bright and cheerful in the morning, productivity-ready, because the world measures her by her performance no matter the conditions.
So when a man refuses to treat his snoring as a solvable problem, what he communicates is not only disregard for sleep science but disregard for the woman who is already overdrawn. And yes, it is a refusal, because there are options:
• See a doctor. Primary care, ENT, sleep clinic… honestly take your pick.
• Get a sleep study. Home tests exist.
• If it’s OSA, try CPAP or an oral appliance. Side-sleeping devices, positional therapy, weight management, nasal therapies, fore some men (not my husband) there is alcohol/tobacco reduction… all evidence-informed.
• Involve your partner… studies link partner support to better CPAP adherence and outcomes. Translation: the team works better when you act like a team.
When a man won’t do any of this… won’t even start… he’s telling me the most basic form of care (letting me sleep) is negotiable.
The most basic form of accountability (making an appointment) is aspirational.
And then there is the gaslight: “It’s not that bad.” “You’re just sensitive.” “Plenty of people snore.” “My daddy did it for years and my mommy just accepted it.”
Women are well acquainted with medical and domestic gaslighting… our pain and symptoms get dismissed at higher rates, our concerns waved off as anxiety or oversensitivity. Snoring becomes one more arena where female discomfort is rebranded as female fragility!
Here’s the kicker… even the kindest men can live inside misogyny like fish live inside water. The water is not cruelty… it’s convenience. It’s the smooth glide of never having to learn the language of true deep effort because the culture translates for you:
He is sweet, generous, funny… he just… doesn’t make a call.
He is faithful, devoted, a good dad… he just… keeps falling asleep on his back, mouth open, with the alcohol (or large amount of sugary cookies or soda) he said he’d cut down on.
He is “one of the good ones”… he just lets me take the couch because “I sleep anywhere,” and somehow that arrangement calcifies into tradition.
Good intentions don’t neutralize structural advantage. The softest raindrops still wet the floor.
If you want to see the structure, follow the outcomes. Women are more sleep-deprived, more likely to report waking unrefreshed, more likely to shoulder the domestic evening shift, more likely to rearrange ourselves to accommodate male habits. Even the “sleep divorce” trend, while sometimes a healthy solution, often defaults to the woman relocating to protect his comfort. If the arrangement is mutual and chosen, fine. But if she’s exiled from her own bed because he refuses care, that’s not a compromise… that’s a monarchy.
And please spare me the faux humility where men protest that women are “the better half,” as if flattery cancels physics.
The greatest men who exist… the activists, teachers, nurses, fathers, mentors, scholars, artists… are equal to the average woman in one precise way… they finally offer what women have been demanded to give by default… effort.
Not genius. Not boasting.
…Effort. Checking the calendar. Making the appointment. Wearing the sleep-aid mask. Sleeping on your side. Getting fitted for an oral device. Reducing alcohol (if needs be). Using the damn humidifier. Following up. If you succeed at what women have been conscripted into doing invisibly… sustained care… you are not a hero… you are a partner.
Let’s count the costs when you don’t. Chronic sleep fragmentation tanks my executive function. It corrodes my mood, my creativity, my immune system. It makes me more accident-prone. It erodes our intimacy… desire doesn’t grow in a body that’s running on fumes. It makes me resent you, which is a terrible prayer to go to bed with. It turns our bedroom into a courtroom where the verdict is foregone. And in the background, your untreated OSA keeps chewing on your cardiovascular risk factors. This isn’t just a me problem… it’s a we problem with medical footnotes.
I’ve heard of many men saying, “But I tried CPAP and it’s uncomfortable.” Of course it is… at first. Many medical treatments are awkward before they’re lifesaving. Adherence improves with education, mask refitting, humidification, desensitization, and yes, partner support. There are different mask styles… there are mandibular advancement devices… there are ENT evaluations for anatomical contributors… there is positional therapy… there are behavioral tools. Doing nothing is not a treatment plan, it’s a privilege plan!
“But my dad snored his whole life.” Your dad also drove without a seat belt for years… shall we follow that tradition too? Culture evolves when we decide that love is measured by the inconvenience we’re willing to endure for each other’s well-being, not by the poetry in our wedding vows. If your snoring ruins my sleep, ruins my health, and you choose inaction, then you are choosing your comfort over my humanity. That choice has a name.
There’s also the politics of bedtime. Heterosexual marriages still leak inequity after dark. Women shoulder invisible labor… packing lunches with real intent (veggies, fiber, protein- full thought out planning and intention and not just throwing it into a lunch bag), cleaning clothes with each stain paid attention to, separating most colors and saying different temperatures for certain fabrics to help them last longer, restocking the closet with toothpaste and toilet paper that mysteriously appears. She finally lies down, and the ground itself vibrates under her. Then she’s told to be reasonable, to adapt, to remember he has to be up early… Do you see the asymmetry? He is allowed to outsource responsibility to her nervous system. She must metabolize his noise or move her body. She must be pliable. He may be immovable. That’s not partnership… that’s feudalism with clean sheets she put more effort in.
And if you’re tempted to rebrand this as “compatibility”… as though snoring were a zodiac sign… look at the cracks spreading through modern couples. Therapists and journalists note the rise of “weaponized incompetence,” where one partner’s strategic helplessness pushes the other into exhaustion and, increasingly, out the door. Snoring becomes one more arena where men pretend complex mysteries surround simple tasks… call a doctor, wear the mask.
Women are filing for divorces not because they are heartless but because they are tired of living inside other people’s choices.
Here is what care would look like, if you meant it:
1. You’d take my words as data, not as drama. “You’re suffering; therefore I act.”
2. You’d book a sleep evaluation. If cost or access is an issue, you’d say, “Let’s problem-solve this together,” not, “It’s probably fine.”
3. You’d try interventions for at least a month each, not two nights followed by “it doesn’t work.” That’s not experimentation… that’s deliberated sabotage.
4. You’d invite my feedback… “Is tonight better with the nasal pillow mask?”… and respect my answer.
5. You’d adjust your habits… limit soda (some men: alcohol) close to bedtime, manage weight if recommended, treat nasal congestion, shift to side-sleeping. Evidence supports these changes… they’re not folklore.
If we need to sleep separately for a while, fine… but it should be a bridge to treatment, not a cul-de-sac that normalizes my exile. And if separate rooms become our steady state by mutual choice, then we both invest in making that arrangement dignified and loving. The wife is not the shock absorber for the husband’s refusal to change. She is not the couch’s concubine. She is a full person who deserves REM cycles and mornings where the world arrives with edges softened and colors true.
I am not asking for a miracle. I am asking for the kind of care women give relentlessly, unthanked, in a thousand small ways. I’m asking you to join the species of humans whose love translates into logistics. Make the appointment. Try the device. Follow up. Iterate. You don’t have to conquer the patriarchy tonight… you just have to wear your mask.
And if you still don’t… if you continue to choose the old script where I’m the adapter and you’re the constant… (this isn’t women demanding we switch roles and you be the adapter- chill tf out)… then own what that choice means. It means you’re content with a marriage where my health is a rounding error. It means you prefer the self-flattering myth that you’re a “nice guy” to the reality that you’re a beneficiary of a system that lets you be nice without ever being accountable. It means you want a wife who sleeps like a ghost… present, invisible, and silent. I refuse.
Because here is my counter-creed… I deserve a bedroom where my nervous system is not a sacrificial altar. I deserve a partner whose care interrupts his habits. I deserve a life where I am not negotiating with a chainsaw at 2 a.m. I deserve sleep. Not as a luxury. Not as a treat. Not after the dishes. As a human function. As a right.
You want to prove you’re not a misogynist? Start by ending the bedtime monarchy. Dethrone the snore. Put your body where your vows are. Choose care that costs you something. Then come to bed… not as an empire, but as a person who understands that love is quieter when it’s real.
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Sources:
• Sleep deprivation and health risks (2023 review)
Description: A 2023 systematic meta-analysis showing that short-term sleep (≤5–6 h/night) is significantly associated with increased risk of cardiovascular disease across adult populations.
• Snoring and hypertension; snoring as a marker of sleep-disordered breathing (2024 study in npj Digital Medicine)
Description: A February 2024 study using objective, in-home monitoring of snoring that found a nearly two-fold increased risk of uncontrolled hypertension linked to time spent snoring—even independent of sleep apnea.
• Sex differences in snoring prevalence (2024 narrative review)
Description: A narrative review (2024) covering genetics and snoring, noting that habitual snoring affects approximately 35–45% of men versus 15–28% of women, with men’s odds of snoring nearly doubling women’s.
• Partner impact & adherence: CPAP compliance factors (2024 study)
Description: A 2024 observational study analyzing CPAP adherence in newly diagnosed OSA patients during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, emphasizing the importance of early follow-up and partner involvement for long-term use.
• Women’s rest gap: AASM survey 2024
Link: https://aasm.org/women-more-likely-than-men-to-never-feel-well-rested-according-to-aasm-survey/
Description: A 2024 AASM survey reporting that women are nearly twice as likely as men to say they “rarely or never” wake up feeling well-rested.
• Sleep divorce prevalence (2024 AASM survey)
Description: A 2024 AASM report estimating that 29% of Americans have chosen a “sleep divorce”—opting to sleep in a separate room or bed—to accommodate their partner’s sleep disruption.
• Unequal unpaid care and free-time gender gap (2024 GEPI report)
Description: The “Free-Time Gender Gap” report (October 2024) from the Gender Equity Policy Institute, analyzing 2022 American Time Use Survey data to show women spend over twice as much time as men on unpaid childcare and household labor, resulting in significantly reduced free time.
• “Weaponized incompetence” as a driver of marital dissatisfaction and divorce (Business Insider, August 2025)
Description: A Business Insider article (August 2025) exploring how “weaponized incompetence” — the strategic withholding of basic responsibilities — is pushing modern women toward divorce, often in otherwise “good” marriages.
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If you love your wife, make the call. Wear the mask. Save both your sleep. That is the smallest revolution with the biggest echo.
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