EXCLUSIVE I was about to meet my wife at the airport when I was blindfolded and put through 77 days of torture
Dave Lavery knew something was wrong as he made his way towards the terminal exit at Kabul Airport.
His wife was anxiously waiting for their reunion after he had texted her from the plane the moment its wheels had touched down on the runway.
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Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE I love my husband, but I hate sharing a bed with him, and it's NOT because he snores: SOPHIE PALUCH reveals why separate rooms saved her marriage
I see the look of surprise that crosses someone's face when I mention that my husband and I sleep in separate beds. Most people I know have stereotypical sleeping arrangements, a societal norm of a married couple in one bed, saying good night to one another, and cuddling to sleep, but how many of those couples can say they actually sleep well? I'm betting not that many. My husband and I have been together for 14 years, married for nine, and, except for going on holiday (when in most cases necessity forces us to share), we have spent most of our years as a couple sleeping in separate beds. It's not a sleeping set-up I expected, nor was it planned, but I can probably go as far as saying that it's made us a better couple because of it. We met when I was twenty-three and fresh out of the early twenties world of sleeping wherever my head fell. I had spent university in house shares, summers back home with my parents, out late, up early, catching up on sleep where I could - all the good stuff that comes with the care-free life of pre-kids. Sleep had always been easy for me, in fact, I famously once slept through a fire alarm in my halls of residence, and I hadn't even been drinking. I've always had good sleep habits, I read a lot before bed, and it calms my mind. I find it easy to switch off, settle down and sleep uninterrupted for a good eight hours. My husband certainly finds sleep more challenging, he's a light sleeper, prone to repeated wake-ups, and he can fixate on a noise (which, in most cases, I can't even hear) that can keep him awake for hours. We've often had to change hotel rooms due to him being able to hear some distant humming - despite wearing earplugs, I may add. He needs complete darkness, and the right pillow combination, and he snores, loudly. A year after meeting we decided to buy a house together, it was clear to us both that our relationship was different to what we had had before with others. We had the same ideas on life, could laugh together for hours and he made me feel good about myself. It was refreshing. My husband had been sharing a house with his friend for several years and while I stayed over some nights, it tended to be once a week because he found it difficult to sleep when I was there, and I needed to be up early to go and muck out my horse. I suppose his quest for the perfect sleep conditions wasn't as obvious then, although sometimes I did wonder if both earplugs and a pillow on his head were necessary. It was when we bought our first home that the cracks in our sleeping arrangements began to show. There were many of my normal sleep habits (like breathing) that he found difficult and the fact he often sounded like a freight train next to me meant that neither of us got much sleep. 'Perhaps you could stop snoring.' I snapped at him one night when he had repeatedly asked me to stop 'wafting' the duvet - I was just rolling over. 'It's not a normal roll, it's a Crocodile death roll,' he scowled at me before we both turned our backs on one another. For the next couple of months, we told each other we would get used to sharing a bed together. I felt pressure from others to fix the whole sleeping arrangement thing - weren't you supposed to share a bed with the person you love? We tried lots of different options, separate duvets at first, then even resorting to taking the bed frame away and putting two mattresses on the floor so we could sleep side by side but not actually in the same bed. I began to get anxious about waking him up, so my sleep became restless, and his tolerance level for the shared space seemed to get worse. We would both wake up in the morning exhausted from lack of sleep, bickering over silly things because we were so tired. I felt upset that things were so good between us, so why couldn't we conquer this one issue? I suppose at that time, it would have helped to know of other happily married couples that slept apart, but even now it seems to be a taboo topic associated with marital arguments or infidelity - two issues that couldn't be further away from the relationship my husband and I have. We have a very healthy marriage, we are close and connected, it's just the physical act of falling - and staying - asleep next to each other that doesn't work. I began to think about our sleep, how important it was for all areas of our health and wellbeing, and that the quality and quantity of your sleep makes such a huge difference to your day. It can be so easy to get sucked into what we think we should be doing, how we think we should be living our lives, and so we both looked at changing our perspectives on this 'issue' and accepting that even though we loved each other and spending time together, we didn't match when it came to sleep. And so, we decided to sleep in separate beds, in separate rooms. Fourteen years and two children later, I think we are a stronger couple for prioritising our own sleep needs. We still spend time together in the evening before sleeping, and we still have a cup of tea together in bed in the morning, but we both wake up refreshed and ready to be the best version of ourselves for one another. Of course, there are times when we are forced together at night, last summer we bought a campervan and spent a few weeks in Italy - and campervan beds are small! It was a lesson in patience for us both, separate sleeping bags all the way, but holiday time is different to the demands of everyday life - the tiredness of work and parenting seems to be less prevalent. When people ask me whether sleeping in separate beds has made a difference to our relationship, I say yes, but in a good way. I'm still not sure why this type of nighttime set-up is seen as a bad thing. I think the worst thing you can do is to keep going with a situation that clearly isn't working, and the bedroom is perhaps the worst place for a battleground. Marriage is forever a work in progress, you need to grow and develop together as a couple, but I also think a healthy marriage means valuing your own space and needs as well, for us we need good sleep to be a better couple.
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Daily Mail
BEL MOONEY: Why can't I let go of heartache even years down the line?
By Dear Bel, I've thought about this problem a lot and never seem to come up with any answers. It's a very old issue (and I don't expect you to have an answer) but I find it very hard to get over being hurt by friends, relatives and others. Sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article.
The Guardian
8 hours ago
- The Guardian
Kabul at risk of becoming first modern city to run out of water, report warns
Kabul could become the first modern city to completely run out of water, experts have warned. Water levels within Kabul's aquifers have dropped by up to 30 metres over the past decade owing to rapid urbanisation and climate breakdown, according to a report by the NGO Mercy Corps. Meanwhile, almost half of the city's boreholes – the primary source of drinking water for Kabul residents – have dried out. Water extraction currently exceeds the natural recharge rate by 44m cubic metres each year. If these trends continue, all of Kabul's aquifers will run dry as early as 2030, posing an existential threat to the city's seven million inhabitants. 'There should be a committed effort to document this better and to draw international attention to the need to address the crisis,' said Mercy Corps Afghanistan country director, Dayne Curry. 'No water means people leave their communities, so for the international community to not address the water needs of Afghanistan will only result in more migration and more hardship for the Afghan people.' The report also highlights water contamination as another widespread challenge. Up to 80% of Kabul's groundwater is deemed unsafe, with high levels of sewage, salinity and arsenic. Water access has become a daily battle for people in Kabul. Some households spend up to 30% of their income on water, and more than two-thirds have incurred water-related debt. 'Afghanistan is facing a lot of problems, but this water scarcity is one of the hardest,' said Nazifa, a teacher living in the Khair Khana neighbourhood of Kabul. 'Every household is facing difficulty, especially those with low income. Adequate, good quality well water just doesn't exist.' Some private companies are capitalising on the crisis by actively digging new wells and extracting large amounts of public groundwater, then selling it back to city's residents at inflated prices. 'We used to pay 500 afghanis (£5.30) every 10 days to fill our cans from the water tankers. Now, that same amount of water costs us 1,000 afghanis,' said Nazifa. 'The situation has been getting worse over the past two weeks. We are afraid it will get even more expensive.' Kabul's sevenfold growth from less than 1 million people in 2001 has drastically transformed water demands. A lack of centralised governance and regulation has also perpetuated the problem over the decades. In early 2025, the UN's office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs announced that its partners had received just $8.4m (£6.2m) of the $264m required to implement planned water and sanitation programming in Afghanistan. A further $3bn in international water and sanitation funding has been frozen since the Taliban's return to power in August 2021. The US's recent move to cut more than 80% of its USAID funding has compounded the crisis. 'Everything is so aid-dependent,' said Curry. 'We can throw millions of dollars at short-term water fixes and say we've addressed the need, but that need will continue until there's better investment for longer-term solutions. And that's where foreign governments are stopping short at this point due to political dynamics.' Nazifa said: 'Water is a human right and natural resource of Afghanistan. It is not a political issue. My heart bleeds when I look at the flowers and fruit trees in the garden, all drying up. But what can we do? We are currently living in a military state, so we can't exactly go to the government to report the issue.' The Panjshir River pipeline is one project which, if completed, could alleviate the city's over-reliance on groundwater and supply 2 million residents with potable water. The design phases for this were completed in late 2024 and are awaiting budget approval, with the government seeking additional investors to supplement the $170m cost. 'We don't have time to sit around waiting for budgets. We are caught in a storm from which there will be no return if we don't act immediately,' said Dr Najibullah Sadid, a senior researcher on water resource management and member of the Afghan Water and Environment Professionals Network. 'Those in Kabul are in a situation where they have to decide between food or water. And yet, the locals we've spoken to are still willing to invest what little they have towards a sustainable solution. Whichever project will bring the most immediate impact is the priority. We just need to start somewhere.'
