Having enough time to see and converse with my husband is difficult enough to manage being a timezone apart. After all, I teach during the day and he goes to class in the evening. I work Monday through Friday, and he normally works weekend hours. By the time he gets out of class during the week at 9:30 Central Time, all good Eastern Standard Time teachers should be on their way to bed if not already asleep. We had managed to find a schedule that worked well for us--we called each other when I drove to work in the morning (at 5:30 Cody's time), spoke when I left from work around 4pm my time, talked briefly before he went into class at six his time (which normally coincided with my dinner), and then finally when he got out of class. Of course, this last phone call was more of a groggy Iloveyougoodnight on my part than an actual conversation. On weekends, we spent as much time together in the town in which Cody lives as possible. When he had to work, I enjoyed some rare me-time or prepared for teaching for the next week.
Recently, a new monkey-wrench was introduced into our already complicated, clock-watching marriage. Cody was, thankfully, offered a full-time position at the facility in which he has worked for a few months as an as-needed tech. The one downside is that the position is strictly night shift. Now our week-day phone conversations have been altered. Cody takes his break when he knows I'll be on the road in the morning; we speak briefly before he has class and before I go to sleep. Our conversations are shorter and more hurried. We sometimes have to recap days of our lives rather than mere hours.
Weekends have also taken a turn. Cody has every other weekend off, but on those weekends in which he does work, I spend most of the day alone. He wakes up sometime between three and six in the afternoon. To compensate for this, I wake up and we go out for breakfast when he gets off work in the morning. Afterward, he goes to sleep. It gives us some time to connect before those hours of quiet solitude. I lie down with him until he goes to sleep, just like he does with me at night when he doesn't have to work. Sundays provide a slightly different agenda since I have to leave by 3pm Central Time. Cody does his best to stay up until one or later so we have that last bit of time together. We both become upset when our time together draws to a close, and we find ourselves doing something that I hate--counting down the days until the weekend, which makes me feel as if I'm wishing away my life.
Dealing with a change from having a diurnal husband to a nocturnal one has been interesting. As difficult as the transition has been, however, I appreciate that we are able to take that struggle in stride and adapt to a new situation. Being able to handle circumstances like these give me confidence in the stability of our budding marriage (four months today!) and make me look forward even more to that time in which we will be able to live together once again.
Oh, wow...that would be an "adjustment", as my mom would say.
ReplyDeleteTo a certain extent, I think that these challenges are just a sign that you love each other, to the degree that you miss each other while you're gone. (I found that that was true for us, even when my work-day consisted of 4-hour shifts! I'd get bored and text him even though I had other coworkers with me. Silly!) It's good to have that reminder. :)
I'm sure we'll see this as well if he gets into grad school and I get a teaching job; if things command his time in the evenings, we'll probably never see each other. Even now, it's only a few hours every night since he's gone by 8 and not home until 7. So yeah...I think the key is just to make the limited time that you have together as a working couple productive and fulfilling. Whatever you have to do to make that happen, as long as both parties are happy, do it. :)