"It's fair to say that after almost ten years of marriage, my husband and I have reached a point where we speak each other's unspoken language.

For example, my husband knows that a gentle shove from me in the middle of the night means "Darling husband of mine, kindly roll onto your side at your earliest convenience in order to prevent yourself from snoring". And a quick sharp jab with my forefinger followed by the violent thrashing about in the bed of my own body means "Roll over RIGHT NOW and cease all snoring IMMEDIATELY or SO HELP US BOTH". And then sometimes, if the sharp jab doesn't work, the unspoken language actually becomes spoken language and is spoken very colourfully at that.

Still, somehow, in between all the snoring and the nudging and the shouting, we both manage to get some sleep.

But recently, a night came where my husband stayed resolutely on his back, mouth open, snoring. Loudly. Turns out he'd decided sleeping on his side was a mug's game and, quite possibly, the root of his recent upper-back problems.

It also turns out that I don't take kindly to having a nasal bomb go off in my ear every five seconds all night every night. And so my husband, growing increasingly wary of my sleep-deprived wrath, went out and bought himself an anti-snoring pillow for the princely sum of $64.99. And that very night, thanks to the revolutionary science behind this miraculous pillow, he managed to snore louder than he ever had before.

As I lay in bed awake next to him, I thought the only thing that could possibly be more annoying than his louder-than-ever snoring was the sound of the cash register made when he'd handed over sixty-five big ones for that stupid pillow.

Now, in previous years, I might have felt compelled to write the word "ARSE" on my husband's forehead with a permanent marker while he slept as some kind of retribution. But these days, I have Twitter upon which to vent my spleen. And vent I did.

"I could suggest one thing you could do with the pillow to stop the snoring," one twitter buddy, @lady_tirey, quickly replied. "But I don't think it's legal."

She was right: it wasn't legal. A quick google of "Is snoring an admissible excuse for matricide?" confirmed that. And also, luckily for my husband, I remembered that I was quite fond of him when he wasn't snoring and so went and slept fitfully on the couch instead.

The next morning, my husband was genuinely surprised to find I hadn't slept in the marital bed.

"Did I snore?" he asked. The look on my face answered his question and that look was very much like the look on Jack Nicholson's face when he goes completely insane and freezes to death in “The Shining”. Except, maybe, a little tireder.

"Maybe I'm not using the pillow properly," he said, picking the pillow up and examining it closely. "I didn't really read the instructions."

"It's a pillow. You put your head on it. How complicated can it be?" I shouted. And then, a little more calmly: "Look, did you actually check the packaging when you bought it? Are you sure it's an anti-snoring pillow and not, say, a snore-enhancing one?"

"I don't know," my husband sighed. "But I can tell you this much: my nose hurts. Is it possible to strain your nostrils by snoring too much?"

"No, but I do know it's possible to strain a relationship by snoring too much," I replied, grumpily.

Still, I knew that I couldn't be too annoyed with him. After all, it's not something he does on purpose to torment my very soul, unlike leaving the lid off the tomato sauce bottle or crunching peanuts in my ear.

I, on the other hand, never snore. Ever. But I do occasionally wake up with the word "ARSE" written on my forehead. Go figure.