Night Shift and Marriage

I'm in the exact same boat! Any advice is appreciated!

ps - my husband's parents actually say that them working different shifts and barely seeing each other for a period of time in their marriage actually saved it! just something to think about :)

My husband and I have been married for almost 15 years (he was my senior prom date) & except for when we first got married, we have always been on opposite schedules. He's always worked days and even travelled 5-6 days a week out of state at one point. Now, as a new nurse, I will be on nights 3x a week and he's still on days. So far it has worked and even made our marriage better somehow.

We never fight (which is good for the kids to see that Mom & Dad get along and love each other) and time spent together is precious. Always try to make time for date night. It really helps

Oh, and date night doesn't always have to be night time. We have had many nice breakfast or lunch dates just the two of us, or even a movie snuggled on the couch while the kids are at school.

The time spent apart makes the time together that much better!

I work 10 pm-7am 4 nights a week. My husband leaves for work 5 minutes after I get home. I sleep all day & get up when he comes home around 4:30. That way we have our evenings together. The ones who really benefit from this arrangement are our 2 cats. They get to sleep with me all day & with my husband all night. They are totally happy kitties!

I work 10 pm-7am 4 nights a week. My husband leaves for work 5 minutes after I get home. I sleep all day & get up when he comes home around 4:30. That way we have our evenings together. The ones who really benefit from this arrangement are our 2 cats. They get to sleep with me all day & with my husband all night. They are totally happy kitties!

My dogs love this arrangement too :-) My husband and I both work nights but, on my days off I switch to a day shift schedule. It's not too bad when we get to spend evenings together. The thing I hate is we have opposite days off, he works Mon -Fri and I work Sat-Mon so, we don't have days off together. The only time we get a day off together is if he gets called off work on a Friday.

Thanks for the encouragement everyone:) Ultimately I know I can't worry about what hasn't even happened yet and that I'll need to roll with the punches and adjust accordingly. I definitely hope to do the small things for him to let him know he's loved in my absence.

I worked straight nights for several years and my husband loved it cause he had his "me" time when I was working to do his own thing, see friends, etc. I have been on days and it is nice to see him every evening, but getting up early is rough. I am going to start working evenings soon, which will allow me to sleep in and go to work later in the day, without completely messing up my sleep schedule.

I don't have a great deal of advice to post other than this:

My fiance and I have been making it work from 400, sometimes 600 miles apart on opposite shifts for over a year. Make each other a priority, be willing to sacrifice a bit of sleep for a bit of fun every now and then, and take care of each other. Y'know...just the normal stuff a marriage requires.

Good luck!!

Sometimes I think a little bit of distance/time restraint can do wonders for a relationship. Something I've noticed with my relationship is that in college (when we had all the time in the world ) we'd spend lots of time lazing about and doing things concurrently---maybe even side-by-side---but not together. Now, the time we get together is shorter, but consequently more precious, and so we focus on each other more I do find myself thinking about all the time we had together in the past that we took for granted, but in a way, this is also good, because maybe when we are at that point again, we will appreciate it more.