How Renting a CPAP Machine Improved My Relationship and Sleep

I didn’t think my sleep habits were hurting anyone. I snored. A lot. I woke up tired. My partner complained sometimes, but I thought it wasn’t a big deal.

It became a big deal.

We stopped sharing a bed most nights. She said she couldn’t sleep with me gasping every few minutes. She said she felt like she was watching me stop breathing over and over again. That scared her.

I brushed it off for a while. Said it’s normal. I told myself it’s just stress, or age, or whatever excuse made me feel better.

But then I started feeling it too. Not just the tiredness, but the fog. I’d forget things. I’d wake up angry or confused. I’d fall asleep at weird times. Once I nodded off at a traffic light.

That’s when I looked it up. Everything pointed to one issue—my breathing during sleep.

I didn’t know where to start. Machines looked complicated. Expensive. I wasn’t ready to buy something I didn’t understand.

I found a cpap machine rental option. It said I could try a device for a month. No big cost. No big risk. Just a try. That felt fair.

So I booked it. A few days later, a small box showed up. It had the machine, a mask, and simple instructions. It looked less scary than I expected.

The first night was weird. I hated the cpap mask. I kept pulling it off. It felt unnatural. But I slept longer than usual. I woke up without a headache. My mouth wasn’t dry. My chest didn’t feel tight.

My partner noticed too. She said I barely snored. She said I looked peaceful. That was the first night she stayed in the same room again.

A week later, we were both sleeping better. I was still adjusting to the machine, but it was getting easier. My energy came back. I didn’t need five cups of coffee to get through the day.

We started talking more. Laughing more. The tension in the house was less. We both noticed it.

Turns out, bad sleep doesn’t just make you tired—it makes you distant. It makes you short-tempered. It puts walls between people.

I never thought something like breathing at night could affect love. But it did. And fixing it helped more than I expected.

By the end of the month, I was used to the cpap machine. I didn’t dread using it. I looked forward to sleep again.

We still fight sometimes, but now we fight with sleep. We’re not dragging through the day anymore. We’re not living in two separate beds.

I returned the rental and then bought the same model. I knew it worked. It helped.

If you’re reading this and wondering if your sleep is messing things up, it might be.

You don’t have to fix it all at once. You don't need to make any purchases at this time.. Try something small. Try a rental cpap device. Just see if it makes a difference.

For me, it gave me back my nights. And it gave me back someone who didn’t want to sleep next to me anymore.

And that’s something I didn’t think a cpap machine could do. But it did.