A few months ago, my boyfriend received a promotion at work. Great opportunity for him, but he had to switch to working the 6pm to 1am shift. His days off are Tuesday and Saturday. I work the standard 9-5 job with weekends off.
We haven’t been seeing very much of each other lately – I’m walking in the door at night as he’s leaving. I’m asleep by the time he gets home and he’s konked out when I’m leaving. This is really starting to put a strain on our relationship. I feel like we’re not part of each other’s lives anymore.
Hopefully, once he’s more firmly established in this position he will be able to negotiate a better schedule. But that could be months from now.
Are there any Dopers out there in a similar situation with their SOs? How do you make it work?
For the first three and a half years of our relelationship, the SO worked in Oil and Gas. The first job(s) he had were working on drill rigs or up north, so he was gone for anywhere between one to five weeks at a time. We could usually talk once in the evening.
After that, in about 2004, he got a job with a big O&G outfit where he worked two weeks in (away from home usually) and six days home.
It really put a strain on our relationship, partly due to other reasons (my health) and partly due to his absense. The way we worked through it is by talking about it, and trying to rememeber that being apart is just as much of a stress on the other individual as it is on yourself. It sucked, because he’d be grumpy from working all day and I could hear it on the phone and reacted, which caused a fight, which caused a hang up, which rolled into the next day, and so on.
Best advice is to communicate openly and don’t keep things bottled up. You’ll also get used to it soon, and remember that it’s only for a short while (hopefully).
Now he’s with the FD and works two days, two nights, four days off. NOW I look forward to his two nights, so I can have the house to myself!
Make some time to talk together and make a plan to spend time together. Respect his fatigue–one thing that always bugged me when I worked nights was that people just didn’t get it. No, I can’t talk on the phone right now–I’m supposed to be asleep. No, I can’t go get X for you, even though I’m home “all day”. That sort of thing (not saying you’re doing this, but it does happen). You should be able to manage a few meals together and perhaps an occasional outing on that Saturday. You both have to compromise a bit. Suggest to him that you two need to work out a way to spend some time together. If he falls asleep on you, at least he’s trying. Good luck. Off shift work sucks (it did for me).
My hubby and I are on different schedules. Since we’ve got little kids, we had to work opposite shifts so that one of us would always be at home. I was first shift, and he was third. Right now, I’m not working, but we still don’t see much of each other, since hubby tends to sleep during the day. And when he’s awake, he’s trying to divide his time between me and the three little ones. It’s hard. It’s really, REALLY hard. His job demands lots of overtime, which means that the weekend (his days off) many times ends up a bust, as they make him go in so they can push more production. I guess I’m not really much help, since I’m trying to find a way to deal with it myself, but I did want to pop in and let you know that you aren’t alone.
My wife and I have totally different schedules. I work Saturday-Monday 12 hour shifts 8-8:30 and she works the weekdays 9 to 5 thing and we’ve done this for years. If you are only talking about a few short months, it shouldn’t be too hard to get through it.
Leave notes, send texts, call when you can, have one day where you miss a little sleep and have a lunch or dinner together and make the most of the one day off you do have together.
Just a thought, but it sounds as if you both have very short commutes: could he pop home on his mealbreak? Even though it’d only be for half an hour, it would be valuable valuable ‘Us time’. Better might be for you to visit him so you both have the full hour together.
Kritter, I can’t imagine doing this for years! I’m impressed that you guys have made that work for so long – you must have a wonderful relationship.
Quartz, we’re trying a variant of your suggestion. Our commutes are about half an hour each way, so making it home and back to work on an hour lunch break is difficult. But today, he’s picking me up from work and we’re going to have a quick dinner, then I’m going to drop him off at his job.
freekalette, it’s somewhat comforting not to be alone. Sometimes I feel incredibly selfish for getting upset about this. At least I have the normal schedule… the world revolves around my time. I get to go to stores, see movies, hang out with people. He’s the unlucky one. There’s not much to do at 2am.
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Pixilated,** I believe “lots of quickies” is the answer to a good many more problems than just this one!
I hate talking on the phone, so it’s been a trial to remind myself that I should call the SO just to talk or say hi, even if I don’t actually have something specific to tell him. I believe we can get through this. I even believe we can get through this without seriously maiming each other, but it does feel very lonely right now.
If you hate talking on the phone, and never/seldom get a chance to talk in person, then you need to up your usage of e-mail or the old-fashioned note. Maybe buy a journal and write him a message each day, as you leave for work, then he writes you a note in response. Something that helps you keep communicating. If he used to be a sounding board for you about work, figure out a way for him to be that in writing, if you can. If he used to be a supportive shoulder for family or friend problems, figure out a way to do that in writing. Even just short notes like “your favorite pizza is in the microwave” or whatever.
But if you do go the journal route, don’t let yourself be sucked into the pattern of only using it to gripe about life, make sure you take time to talk about why you like him–how much you appreciate the fact that he did a load of laundry on Monday, or grocery-shopped on Tuesday, and various other good things, too.