Damn you timezone....

[Petals]

YOU ARE A STRONGER PERSON THAN I EVER WILL BE. I have a 3 hour difference and it's ALREADY enough to be inconvenient!

Haha, thanks but I doubt that! We have the tendency to do the things that matter to us, even if it means sacrificing sleep and sometimes social time with friends. I have turned down events because it would interfere with my weekend Skype time and yes I get up 2hrs earlier than I have to so I can talk to him when he gets home from work. He sometimes stay up later to talk to me as well.

We text everyday at least twice daily (sometimes Skype during the week) and Skype for hours on weekends.

This morning I missed his text because I fell asleep after my early alarm went off. This happened because I have not been sleeping well since returning from our last visit, so had a glass of wine late last night to help me doze off. He stayed up as late as he could but 45 mins before I finally got up he sent me a text saying he's going to bed.

Now this is upsetting because I hate going through the day without talking to him and I know he hates not talking to me before he sleeps. I know he couldn't wait up any longer because he works very long hours and wakes up quite early so he needs his sleep. I could always send him a few texts but i don't wish to disrupt his sleep.

We rarely have disagreements about communication frequency or quality because we have the same needs and level of commitment.

You could do it if you really had to... hehe

[Petals]

In our case, he's 17 hours ahead of me. I have been living with two very different time zones for almost 5 years. Sometimes it is exhausting, because I stay up until he gets off work, so we can chat before bedtime, and go to sleep close to the same time as he does. It works because I am retired, except if something comes up during the morning or early afternoon. Sometimes I end up with only 4 hours of sleep, if I can't sleep til my "normal" time because of morning appointments, or unexpected visitors. Sometimes when I am completely wiped out, I end up sleeping the next day until sundown, and miss the whole day. There has to be a better way, but I haven't found it yet.

Bless your heart for dealing with 17hrs time difference for 5 years! I can relate very much to your experience except that I am not retired and cannot sleep the next day lol but have to function on 4hrs sleep.

I'm happy that after June I will not need to deal with this time difference...well, it will affect friends and family, but I can deal with that.

[itsjen516]

Time zones can suck ! When my husband and I where long distance we were only 2 hours but even those 2 hours sucked. He worked all day and went to school. He would get out of work 9 pm 11 my time but by the time he got home and ate changed it would be late and I was tired so talking was hard. It sucks

[Hollandia]

We were six hours apart for almost 4 years but my brother was 3, in other direction and I swear it was harder to catch up with my brother than my SO. I think 3 is almost worse than 6.

[Miasmata]

I'm superlucky that I attend an evening school, because it allows me to stay up all night and sleep until noon and still be fresh and ready for classes in the evening. 8 hours time difference is definitely doable with good planning and all, but it still blows.