A £39 gizmo has just saved my marriage –and maybe yours too

AS THE May wedding season gets into full swing, those of us who entered the state of holy matrimony many moons ago will no doubt be tempted to share our top tips when it comes to a lasting marriage. Mine may surprise you. Most of us can cope with almost anything so long as we’ve had a good night’s sleep. My husband and I have been through most things to keep the plot moving forward: children, rows about whose turn it is to empty the dishwasher, life-threatening illnesses, being sacked (both of us), the works. But the one thing that I can’t cope with is snoring. I lie there frozen with fury, then I prod him. ‘Snoring!’ I hiss. He wails, ‘I’m not even asleep’ or ‘But I’m only breathing!’

I’ve been driven to recording on my iPhone the window-rattling honks and bellows of my bedmate after only a few ales with his friend Eddy, for replaying as proof.

So some might say, ‘Don’t let the sun go down on your wrath’ or ‘Let most of the little things go’. Others will drone on about ‘date nights’ or even make brave stabs at ringfencing windows for marital relations in the family Google Calendar.

But I say work, rest and play keeps the divorce lawyers at bay, with the emphasis always on rest. I went to a Jewish wedding in Gloucestershire last weekend, and the female rabbi duly told B and M all about the bumps on the road ahead. The older and wiser guests exchanged knowing glances, for we knew the road ahead was tough. But divorce can be even more hellish, and after prolonged study of the species, and 25 years of marriage, I have this advice to offer in prelude to divulging my exclusive tip. Women may be maddening in their own ways, but all men are equally annoying in terms of husband material. Some are untidy cooks, strew wet towels and dirty underpants in their wake, never wipe surfaces, or snore. Some – naming no names – do all of the above.

Yet there’s no point in changing horses mid-race, as you’ll just come unstuck at Becher’s Brook with another one. So you might as well stick with the one you’ve got. Whatever you do or don’t do, you have to work to make it work. You have to find hacks to save your marriage, and here – ta da! – is my solution to the all-too-common problem of men snoring even ‘while awake’ and then denying it.

According to estate agents, the super-rich have a way round the endemic problem of nocturnal disruption, that makes one not merely want to divorce but murder your other half. There’s a new trend of carving out ‘annexes off the master suite’ – nicknamed snore rooms or quarrel rooms, and they contain another bed.

Well, I’ve tried the poor man’s alternative – deportation to a child’s old bedroom – but nothing has worked. Until, that is, a friend told us about a contraption she made her husband wear nightly: a plastic mouth guard that ‘gently holds your jaw in the right position’ as you sleep and ‘helps you breathe easily and quietly’.

Pop it on and hey presto! As advertised, the midnight symphony of a congested warthog does, as if by magic, subside. Yes, the Snoreeze saved my marriage. And maybe my husband’s life too.

‘It cost £39 to sleep with my wife,’ I overheard my husband say the other day. ‘If I want to maintain my precarious place in the marital bed, that’s what it cost me.’ After 25 loooong years of marriage, I’d say I was cheap at the price.