When your partner start working unusual hours, you may wonder how to deal with your partner working night shift. There are so many new obstacles to consider that it can get overwhelming.
You suddenly become the default partner and parent because you are the one people can reach and access when the other partner is sleeping in preparation for work at night.
It doesn’t always feel fair, and it’s important you talk about that with your partner because there’s no better way to strengthen a relationship than being honest while being committed.
That’s why we’ve created this guide to help you navigate your partner working night shift. You’re not alone and, with these 19 marriage tips when your spouse works night shift, you’ll be prepared to handle your lifestyle with comfort and confidence.
This post is all about marriage tips when your spouse works night shift.
HOW TO DEAL WITH NIGHT SHIFT:
1. Learn how to better appreciate your alone time
You’ll get a lot of alone time, especially if you and your partner don’t have young children. They will need sleep when you’re at work and you’ll need sleep when they’re at work. Plus, when your different schedules overlap, they will need time to shower, eat, and take care of the home.
So, even when you are both awake and in the home, they won’t be available for family time until they’ve taken care of their basic needs. This is why you must find ways to enjoy your alone time.
Free time can feel like a burden when you’re alone and want nothing more than time with your partner. You might even accept less sleep in exchange for extra time to make your relationship work.
These are normal feelings, but, as long as your partner works the opposite shift, you’ll have to find ways to enjoy your own company so that you enjoy your partner’s company that much more when you get time together.
2. Let yourself have an off day now and then
It’s okay to get angry and let yourself feel the negative impact that comes from loving a night worker. If we put aside all of the reasons they do night shift work, then we can admit that it hurts sometimes.
Whether they save lives at night, do their dream job, or just need to pay the bills, you’re allowed to notice it makes you feel and feel that on occasion. You can’t always be 100% supportive of your partner.
This is especially true when you feel the night shift effects of putting more time into physical closeness, feeling lonely on normal days, and working that much harder to maintain a healthy relationship.
Let that anger or pain or sadness come out every now and then because you need to be honest with yourself about how you feel so you can process it.
3. Engage in serious discussions with your partner
When you struggle to get quality time with your partner, the last thing you want to do is spend that time on something other than enjoying each other’s company.
Unfortunately, a great way to maintain your committed relationship is by spending part of your precious time on good communication.
Be honest about how you’re feeling. If you’re struggling with their work schedule, tell them. Their job is not to fix the problem but to listen because they’re your partner. Remind them of that if they get upset and defensive.
4. Consider going to see a marriage counselor
Marriage and family therapy is useful when you’re experiencing hard times and when you and your partner have never been stronger together. Mental health professionals, especially MFTs, are trained to help you handle day-to-day struggles.
So, there’s no reason to avoid getting help if even just a few helpful tips can drastically improve your relationship. Sometimes, all that you need is a safe space to be completely and totally honest with your partner.
5. Involve your partner in all major decision-making
Keep your partner involved. If you’re the partner who is available during the day, you’ll automatically be given more responsibilities.
When this happens and the majority of responsibilities become yours, you’ll feel the strain of those responsibilities, even if you initially want to take them on.
The longer you handle them along with your full-time job, whether you work inside or outside of the home, the more you’ll feel resentful towards your partner. To avoid this, it’s a good idea to create a system for sharing responsibilities from the start.
Maybe you can call the electrician and stay home during the day when they’ll be available, but your partner can start dinner in the crockpot when they get home in the morning. Involve your partner in decisions.
This means talking to them about the house, your relationship, and your schedules. Make sure you actively give them responsibilities that would otherwise automatically become yours.
6. Find creative ways to split the household chores
When one of you works the day shift and the other doesn’t, splitting the chores might look different. While you can’t exactly vacuum the house when your partner is asleep or vice versa, you can find other ways that the two of you can contribute equally.
The only way to find out what the looks like for you is to start the conversation. Talk to your partner about the responsibilities and acknowledge how different your schedules are. Maybe one of you will cook during the day and the other can do the grocery shopping at odd hours.
7. Leave your partner voice messages to spice up your communication
Send your partner voice messages. Then, they get to hear your voice even if you’ll be asleep when they get off work. One of the most negative effects of working different shifts is that you don’t get as much time to be a couple.
Since you two have so much else going on and lots of stuff to do to maintain the home and your health, voice messages are a great idea.
They feel personal, intimate, and thoughtful when you don’t have the chance to show that in person. When you and your partner seem to have no time for each other, voice messages can go a long way in feeling together time.
8. Invest in a home security system for safety when alone
Get that extra feeling of security with a security system. You can opt for cameras that cover every entrance, alarms that go off anytime a door is opened, or a doorbell that notifies you when someone is at your front door.
However you go about it, invest in a system that gives you the confidence to stay home alone and feel safe. There’s no worse feeling than feeling uncomfortable in your own home, so safety is a big deal and you should take the steps to feel safer.
If nothing else, remember that your partner will also have the peace of mind to know you’re safe when they’re away and can check their security apps.
9. Refocus on the main problem when you’re angry
Avoid bringing up small issues when you’re angry about a different issue. For example, don’t yell at your partner for forgetting to unload the dishwasher when you’re upset about them taking on an extra shift that week.
You have so little time to communicate effectively that it’s a good idea to address major issues before they come out of your mouth in the heat of the moment. Understandably, this is a struggle. It’s challenging to express anger during the so-called “designated time.”
But, to avoid ruining the good mood whenever you two get time together, the ability to set aside time is one of the best ways of managing problems within your family or relationship.
10. Ask your partner to consider getting a different job
Approach this tip with care and only if you feel that their job is truly hurting you or your family. This conversation will not be easy, so prepare for it by exhausting every other option you have.
Shift-work relationships are incredibly difficult because you don’t get to see your partner on your own time, you probably don’t think you get enough time with them, and you may be losing hours of sleep.
If you’re working the day shift, you inevitably pick up more responsibility and maybe this extra responsibility is testing your communication. Keep in mind that you can tell your partner you’re struggling and you’re not sure how to resolve it.
Getting a new job does not need to be the end goal as long as you and your partner are willing to do the work for each other. However, this is also important to consider when you’re talking about doing what’s best for the two of you.
11. Treat your relationship like a long-distance relationship
Depending on what shifts the both of you work, night shift, third shift, or day shift, you may not be spending time with each other. So, it’s not much of a leap to say that you can treat your relationship like it’s long distance.
You don’t want to avoid your partner to make this into the reality nor do you want to avoid cherishing the time you do get to spend with them. However, when you’re not getting those special moments of couple time, it may be a good idea to think creatively.
Ask yourself what long-distance couples do to strengthen their relationship and maintain a feeling of closeness when they are anything but geographically close.
12. Figure out the right sleep schedule for each of you
Decide on the best way for both of you to get enough sleep. Maybe you’ll institute a policy of quiet time during certain hours. You might create a shared calendar to avoid guests and loud noises when it would completely disrupt the sleep time of your partner.
There’s no denying that changing your sleep pattern can negatively impact other aspects of your life, but doing so with the support and care of everyone in the household can make it a seamless process.
13. Plan one date night every other week
Date nights can become date days or date weekends. Whenever you two have the time and the energy, plan an outing. This can happen during the day time, late evening, or whole days if that works for you and your partner.
The point of these date nights, which can happen as often as you and your partner want, is to reconnect. Set aside time for the two of you to be nothing but partners who love each other and find each other for a reason.
When life, kids, or jobs get in the way, this purpose and love can get lost, which is why a date night is so meaningful and should be a top priority.
14. Invest in a quality pair of ear plugs
As silly and specific as it sounds, you should invest in a good pair of earplugs. Every relationship requires you to accommodate to better meet the other person’s needs, so long as they hurt your ability to meet your own.
Shift-work relationships are no different and they require you to adjust even more than you normally would. Maybe your partner likes to wind down with a TV show before bed and you can’t sleep with any noise, so a pair of earplugs is an easy, worthwhile compromise.
As you figure out how to arrange your schedules, you’ll have to compromise and accommodate, so enter that conversation with a committed heart and open mind.
15. Consider adjusting your work schedule to see more of your partner
Whenever you talk about how to improve your relationship when you work different shifts, you have to consider ways that you can change your shift. If you take care of your kids and the home, this is more difficult.
But, if you work outside of the home or work full time, it’s worth considering to start working part time or changing your shift. Think about the issues that you’re trying to solve as a couple.
Maybe the household chores are getting to be too much for two adults who put in a full day and work different shifts. Changing your work hours or working more unusual hours might be the fix you need.
16. Devote energy to quality time between you and your partner
Just like you and your partner need date nights, you also need mundane moments that can be turned into quality time with some love and attention. The two of you deserve time to be a couple outside of the daily hustle and bustle.
This time is what reminds you why you put up with the complex schedule differences and work to make this relationship the best thing it can be. So, put energy into creating quality time.
This means that you put away your laptop or phone when they sit down on the couch or you cuddle with them when you get into bed. Quality time looks different for everyone, whether you two are shift workers or not. Ask your partner what quality time looks like for them.
17. Rearrange your family schedule to fit your life
Get used to your family schedule looking different than other families. This is one of those practical tips that’s a little frustrating to hear.
You and your partner are working out a plan for the long term on how you two will get as much sleep as you can while also working long hours, nurturing your relationship, and figuring out the kid situation if kids are involved.
One of the easiest ways to make this happen with less stress is to accept that your schedule doesn’t have to be conventional.
Make adjustments to your time so that your schedule can be the good thing that works for everybody. Don’t be afraid schedule dinner at an earlier time if it means a family dinner. Or maybe everyone gets up a tad earlier to see their parent off to work.
18. Get comfortable with saying “no”
When you’re left sometimes feeling like a single parent or single adult, it can frustrating to facilitate all of the social interactions for you and your partner.
There’s no way for them to be present when everyone else is present and for them to actually get sleep and perform well at work. But, it still sucks to be the one who has to negotiate with everyone else.
A good way to keep your sanity and time to yourself is to get comfortable with the word “no.” If you’re a chronic people pleaser, this is the last thing you want to think about, which means it’s also the one skill that will be beneficial for you for a long time.
Start small by telling your mom that you’re too busy to answer the phone or telling your child that you can’t play a game with her right now because you need to take a shower.
19. Monitor your mental health as you navigate different shifts
Your health comes first always, even if that doesn’t feel true. This is especially true of your mental health because, as much as you feel like you can push through it and survive the next day, you’ll burn yourself out.
It may not be immediately noticeable to you because you’re so focused on picking up the slack that your partner can’t handle with their night shift.
Don’t wait until you can’t ignore your mental health anymore because, when you reach that point, you’ve already done yourself a disservice. However, if you’re at that point, there’s no better time to reach out to a mental health professional than right now.
