Question

How do I deal with having to move out of our bedroom because my husband snores so badly? Plus, there hasn’t been any sexual intimacy for four years. This is so difficult especially since we have always had a great marriage for the past 30 years.

Answer

It’s clear you love your husband and value your relationship, having built a strong marriage together for three decades. While I’m not sure how long you’ve been in separate rooms or why the sexual intimacy stopped, it’s clear you still have a deep desire to reconnect despite the pain and frustration. Let’s explore your options for how to move out of this impasse.

While the issues surrounding your husband’s snoring are outside of my scope of expertise, I hope you’ve explored solutions. Not only could the snoring be symptomatic of a health condition that can be diagnosed and treated, but also addressing this issue might allow you both to share your bedroom again.

Of course, sharing a bedroom isn’t a prerequisite for building a strong relationship. Although it’s customary for couples to share a bed, some couples prefer sleeping separately and find it gives them more strength and energy during the day. If that’s the most sensible solution for the physical challenges in your marriage, it’s important to build connecting rituals that guarantee you’ll have time together. In fact, when couples sleep separately, I find it requires them to be more intentional, which carries over into other areas of their marriage. An intentional marriage is a healthy marriage.

We are designed by our Heavenly Parents to bond with each other, depend on each other, and draw close to each other under all conditions. When we deny our instinct to attach, it increases our suffering. Jenet Jacob Erickson delivered a masterful discourse on this recently at Brigham Young University. I invite you to invest time reading or watching her speech with your husband.

Naturally, prioritizing sexual intimacy in your relationship is an important part of staying connected, especially if you’re not sleeping in the same room. However, it’s not the only way to experience both the thrill and the security of being one with our partner. There’s also emotional intimacy, intellectual intimacy, and spiritual intimacy. I’d recommend focusing on rekindling those areas of connection first. Try to spend quality time together, doing activities that you both enjoy. Go on dates, take a class together, or simply set aside some quiet time each evening to talk and reconnect. Try to create non-sexual moments of closeness and connection with your husband. Small gestures, such as holding hands, touching his arm, giving him a hug, or sharing a dessert together, can help strengthen your foundation of intimacy. You might be surprised at how these small changes can help rekindle the spark in your relationship.

Have you shared how you feel with your husband? It’s possible that he’s unaware of the extent to which these issues are affecting you, or that he has his own concerns that he hasn’t been able to voice. If the lack of sexual intimacy persists, it might be worth seeking professional help. A therapist or a counselor specializing in sex therapy can provide you with a safe space to discuss your concerns and can help you come up with a plan to improve your sexual relationship.

Remember that long-term marriages will introduce surprises and twists that we never saw coming. Health challenges, parenting issues, existential questions, unresolved patterns, and other challenges will sometimes surface in unexpected ways. But remember that the strength of your relationship is not measured by how many problems you face, but by how you navigate through them. The fact that you are seeking help is a testament to your love and dedication to your husband and your marriage.

Keep reaching, keep trying, and don’t allow the distance to keep you from the closeness both of you need. You might discover that this wilderness of disconnection could lead to a stronger, deeper connection with your husband.

Geoff will answer a new family and relationship question every Friday. You can email your question to him at ge***@ge**********.com  


If broken trust is an issue in your relationship, download Geoff’s FREE video series “The First Steps to Rebuilding Trust” to help you begin healing: https://www.geoffsteurer.com/freebie

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About the Author

Geoff Steurer is a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice in St. George, Utah. He is the co-author of “Love You, Hate the Porn: Healing a Relationship Damaged by Virtual Infidelity”, host of the podcast, “From Crisis to Connection”, and creates online relationship courses. He earned degrees from Brigham Young University and Auburn University. He is married to Jody Young Steurer and they are the parents of four children.

The advice offered through Geoff Steurer’s column is educational and informational in nature and is provided only as general information. It is not meant to establish a therapist-patient relationship or offer therapeutic advice, opinion, diagnosis treatment or to establish a standard of care. Although Geoff Steurer is a trained psychotherapist, he is not functioning in the role of a licensed therapist by writing this column, but rather using his training to inform these responses. Thus, the content is not intended to replace independent professional judgment. The content is not intended to solicit clients and should not be relied upon as medical or psychological advice of any kind or nature whatsoever. The information provided through this content should not be used for diagnosing or treating a mental health problem or disease. The information contained in these communications is not comprehensive and does not include all the potential information regarding the subject matter, but is merely intended to serve as one resource for general and educational purposes.