A
female
age
36-40,
*e130172
writes:I work as a teacher, Monday through Friday, and am up 6am and get home around 4pm. My husband works as a casino dealer and works weekend shifts and weekdays that he can pick up from 9pm-5am.....Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays guaranteed. Therefore, we have literally NO time off together, and typically he sleeps until 7pm and has to get ready for work. I will not have a day off with him until Christmas break. I miss him so much it hurts, and it's so lonely to go to bed every night alone. How can we make the best of a shitty situation?
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male
reader, Denizen  +, writes (24 September 2013):
 You have to work out between you what is most important. Is it the money or the relationship? If the immediate problem is cash, could you put a time-limit on how long you will spend living this way?
Clearly it is not a long-term option for you both to have to endure this. Make time to talk - come up with a plan.
This is about your lives. People go through hardship together, but you want to know that there will be some end to it.
A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (8 September 2013): I'm right there with you, except not married.My partner works graveyard shifts Friday-Sunday plus one Thursday per month. He sleeps during the day on those days. I work Monday through Wednesday (24-hour shifts; I'm allowed to sleep at work as time permits) and get off Thursday mornings. I work three hours from where we live so although we should theoretically have some Thursdays together I don't usually see him till the afternoon. 9 months out of the year while I'm working (my job is seasonal, with winters off) we don't have a full day together unless one of us calls in sick at work. This is going to change next year as I am transferring to a different location where I can work Fridays and weekends instead, so while our current situation is hard on both of us, we both know it's not forever.But in the meantime it sucks, and I feel for you. I assume as a teacher you had the summer off with him and now that you're back to school it's extra hard making that transition from seeing him to never seeing him at all.How you're living now is a very hard way to conduct a relationship of any kind, let alone a marriage. It takes a lot of patience and a lot of trust and over time it has the potential to put a lot of stress on both of you.In the short term, the only advice I can give you is the advice I use myself. Your job gives you sick time: use that. Even a day here and there is better than nothing and I personally feel no guilt over it because maintaining your mental and emotional well-being is just as important as being well physically. You're not going to be a good employee if you're constantly sad, lonely, and distracted by the health of your marital relationship. You just aren't.In the long term, I think you two need to discuss as a couple what your options are. How does your husband feel about the situation? As long as you are teaching, your schedule is pretty much a given, because school only runs during the week. What about his schedule? If he stays at his current job, is there potential for him to move to weekday shifts as he gains seniority? If not, then I would say one of you needs to look at changing jobs, or if that's not possible, working part-time instead... even if you have to adjust to making do with a lower combined income. What you have right now is a living, but not a life. Best wishes.
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