“You remind me of Lucille Ball,” a military friend once said, chuckling after I told a funny story. The iconic 1960s television character with a fiery ginger updo and crinolined polka-dotted dresses looked nothing like me, but we shared the same exaggerated facial expressions. As a fan of all things throwback, I took the comparison as a generous compliment.

A lifelong class clown, I related to Lucy’s humorous antics. However, Lucy had something I coveted but couldn’t have. She slept in a twin bed.

This scene detail seems insignificant, but Lucy was always so darned bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, while I groped through my days in a perpetually drowsy fog. Despite her ditzy disposition, she knew better than to snuggle up to snoring Desi. When it was time to get her forty winks, Lucy snoozed soundly, all the way across the room.

I, on the other hand, lay each night right beside my husband, Francis, praying that I might squeeze in five meager hours of shuteye over the racket of his rattling airways.

During our first decade of marriage, bedtime was tolerable because Francis’ snore wasn’t the decibel equivalent of a gas-powered buzzsaw. Instead, it fluctuated from mild wheezing to mattress-vibrating rumbling, and every buzz, snuffle and gasp in between.

Some evenings, Francis’ slackened sinuses projected nothing more than a steady nose whistle punctuated by soft snorts, and I was able to sleep using a strategic combination of earplugs, elbowing and whispering, “Honey, turn on your side!” But other nights, his snoring was relentless, waking me often and turning my mornings into a scene from “Dawn of the Living Dead.”

Furthermore, when Francis partook in scotch and cigars with our base neighbors around our fire pit, his snoring was so loud that I’d grab my pillows and retreat to the silence of our living room couch.

During the second decade of marriage, Francis’ snoring got worse. Researching online, I read a Finnish study concluding that women suffering from chronic sleep deprivation have significantly impaired ability to maintain peak cognitive performance. I found articles with headlines such as ”For snoring spouses, separate beds may save marriage,” “More couples getting ‘sleep divorces’,” and “When happily ever after means separate beds.” I wondered if twin beds might be good for our relationship.

However, I couldn’t realistically suggest twin beds to Francis. On mornings when I’d retreated to the couch, he’d tsk at me as if I’d betrayed him. He never believed his snoring was bad, and thought I was being ridiculous.

Lucy and Desi got away with it, but today, sleeping in separate beds implies that something’s wrong in the marriage. As much as I secretly loved having our bed to myself when Francis was deployed or on TDY, I just wasn’t willing to suggest separate sleeping berths.

It wasn’t until Francis retired from the Navy, and we went on a family getaway to Vermont, that I was vindicated.

We reserved an open cabin room with a cozy fireplace where we slept with our three children. At breakfast the morning after our first night, our groggy youngest, Lilly, shared snippets of an overnight video she took on her iPhone.

The blurry, time-stamped footage showed teenaged Lilly illuminated under her covers, thumbing captions, “12:42 AM I can’t sleep cuz Dad’s snoring!” “2:26 AM Mom tried to make him stop, but nothing works!” “3:10 AM [Lilly softly weeping].”

In the background, we heard shockingly loud grinding coming from deep within Francis’ respiratory tract, as if a meaty drill bit gnashed against his larynx, or a jackhammer battered his sinuses with each thundering inhale.

“That’s not me, is it?” Francis asked incredulously.

A few months later, Francis was diagnosed with sleep apnea and outfitted with a CPAP machine. Arguably, snoozing in twin beds is more romantic than sleeping with a partner who has surgical tubing extending from his nostrils. But after decades of applying copious amounts of concealer to the bags under my eyes, I was relieved that I could finally sleep through the night.

Looking back, I’m glad we solved our problem without resorting to twin beds like Lucy. It may have taken us 20 years, but love is definitely worth losing a little sleep over.

Read more at themeatandpotatoesoflife.com and in Lisa’s book, “The Meat and Potatoes of Life: My True Lit Com.” Email: meatandpotatoesoflife@gmail.com