Looking for some advice dealing with significant time differences...

[sarahmarie]

Hey LFAD readers,
I am looking to get some advice from you veteran "long distancers" that have more than a four hour difference between you and your SO. My boyfriend and I are currently five hours apart in time, like we always have been, but lately its been extra hard to make time for one another. Where my boyfriend lives is five hours behind me in time. What makes it worse is that he teaches kids all day so we dont really have the luxury of talking while he is at work like I am able to do. Most nights it is after 1AM my time before he even has a chance to text or call me for the first time that day. My job requires me to be up very early, so I have a hard time staying awake that late to talk to him. Then there are the nights where he will call me and wake me up and we will have a 20min coversation that I remember nothing of the next morning because I was talking to him in my sleep. I recently brought up the idea to him of setting "we" time. Where we both make sure that at that time on that day we keep ourselves available to talk or skype with one another. When I brought this idea up with him, he was skeptical that we could do it and kinda shot the idea down. Can anyone help me that has been through this kind of issue before. I know everyone out there who has a SO in the Army deals with this issue everyday, so I am thankful that we get to talk when we get to. But there has to be another easier way to resolve this issue that I am just not seeing.

Any suggestions?

Sarah

[loveonspeedial]

My so and I are on the same time zone but we have opposite lives, I work at night, she's at school all day. For us what works for us a lot is eyejot.com, lets you send a 1 mintue video message as many times a day as you want to anyones email. and no matter how busy you are, EVERYONE gets at least a break, runs to the bathroom, is in the car etc. If you're busy and he's in a traffic jam, he can text or call you even if it's just to leave you a voicemail, my gf leaves me voicemails while I'm at work all the time as do I when she is in school. Weekends he doesn't have work, why don't you talk during the weekends?

[archangel]

More than 4 hour time difference eh?
Is 15 hours in the spring/summer and 16 hours in the fall/winter (8-9 hours as other see it) big enough?

So currently you have a 5 hour time difference. So like if it would be 1pm where you are it would be 6pm where he is. If you both have free time on weekend I would recommend to make the most of it. Also what me and my SO do is write daily emails to each other, since we are unable to chat during the week. The length varies by how much time we have to write and what we are talking about but we usually end up writing emails around 250 all the way up to 1,000 words to each other. Also by writing daily emails to each other it gives you freedom to live your life and get all those important tasks done. Of course with the weekends being free... me and my SO usually chat for 3-4 hours a day.

Hope this helps

AA

[NaNi]

My SO is 10 hours ahead of me. Soon 12 hours. She sends me emails when she gets up and I'm usually at home to reply to them, so we can have a little email conversation before she has to leave for uni. I get up when she gets back home, so we can email for a little while again and right now we're talking over Skype before she goes to bed. Not every day (broadband usage), but on many nights. Once I'm going back to school we will talk when I go to bed; her morning. We also did all nighters a few months ago. Just so that we could talk a little bit more.

[paulawriteslove]

Me and my SO have a 2 hour time difference. But I can understand how hard a 5 hour difference can be from previous experiences. Any who, I recommend you two writing down each other's schedule's and fitting in "us time." Of it it's possible, to set aside a day on the weekend to talk all day. I hope this some what helps!

[Zephii]

My SO and I had a 7 hour time difference in winter/ 5 hour difference in summer. Just another reason to love Australian summer really.

Over the years we had to adjust how we made the time difference work for us. Sometimes one of us wouldn't be working and that always helped But generally, someone is going to lose sleep. That's just a fact of LDRs with a large time difference. You just need to figure out who's loseing sleep and when Offline messageing, texts and emails can also make the difference, as can snail mail. Real-time is great, but you work with what you have A lot of Obi and my real time contact in the last few months of our LDR happened while we were sleeping >.>

There's no one good solution, you just have to talk and find one. Obi and I never shedualed time, but I can see that would be a good way to start.

[Èternity]

We have a USA/Australia time difference. Very tough but he sleeps far less than I do so he stays awake and as I work from home we get to see each other quite a bit. No easy way around it. The weekends are great however scheduling isnt easy.

[SLLVÈR]

I should be sleeping....dang Aussie I swear she is going to be the death of me. *hugs E and kisses her lovingly* I love you Koala and won't change anything cept us be closer.

[MoonWatcher]

My SO is 14 hours ahead of me, so I understand the conflict! One of us typically has to get up early (usually him, he's an early riser) in order to Skype. At the moment we don't have the option of calling each other. Our Skype chats really don't have a scheduled time right now, so we agree on a day whenever both of us are free. When we're not, we write emails and a letter once a week. It may not be face-time, but it really helps rather than waiting until the next "real" talk! Weekends sound to be a good option for you two. If not, it might mean making a date during the work week. It's just like any other relationship - both of you have to make compromises in order to maintain communication, even if it's miles upon miles away.

[TristenLove]

I can feel you're pain. my SO and I have a 16 hour time difference (Him in Guam, me in USA), By the time he gets of work at 4pm his time, I'm sleeping. We've learned to make it work though. I have a break at the same time he'd be getting up for work, and then he has a break around 8pm my time (noon his), and he's having dinner about the time I get up to get ready for work. I also send him an email every night. He doesn't always right back, but he makes sure I know how much he loves getting them and that he actually reads them.
We also have a set 'Skype Date' night, one that's set on both our days off, and other scheduling matters.

A lot of it depends on what you're willing to give. I go to bed, then get up at midnight to talk, go back to bed til 4, then skype til I leave for work. On weekends, I also stay up later. I know he's willing to do the same, it's just more convenient for me since I have trouble sleeping as it is.