If you're feeling tired, grumpy and that you could go to sleep for at least a week you're probably married to a snorer - but you're underestimating your own need for some shut-eye.

New research reveals partners of snorers aren't just kept awake for two hours a night, but over the average course of a marriage lose an incredible two years' sleep.

The British Snoring and Sleep Apnoea Association found that 15 million long-suffering Britons (34% of the population) suffer from that rumbling noise on the other side of the bed. Of 1,000 partners of snorers questioned, more than eight out of 10 said the issue was damaging their relationship and most revealed it affects their sex life.

Association co-founder Marianne Davey says, "Our survey reveals that snoring has a disastrous effect on people's lives - both the snorers and their partners - affecting relationships, sex lives and sometimes their jobs if people are sleep-deprived and find it hard coping at work during the day."

The condition is far from the joke it's sometimes made out to be.

"Around three quarters of snorers are male - 10.4 million compared to 4.5 million women - but typically the average snorer is "a middle-aged, overweight man who drinks and smokes," Davey says. "It's a sad fact that snoring is often a result of over-indulgence in life's pleasures.

"For a small number of snorers the consequences of the condition can be life-threatening, warns Dr John Shneerson. He's director of Britain's largest sleep clinic at Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, which treats chronic snorers and features in the BBC series Sleep Clinic. He says, "Snoring is normally a noise problem and a social nuisance, but for around 5% of people it can be a potentially dangerous condition."

It may be a symptom of obstructive sleep apnoea - where someone literally stops breathing for around 10-second intervals regularly throughout the night. This causes severe lack of oxygen and forces the body to continually wake up to kick-start breathing again. "This can lead to raised blood pressure and leave people at increased risk of strokes and heart attacks. It needs medical treatment."

Follow our guide to snoring and treatments that could save your relationship, or even your life.