Working around time differences

[MadMolly]

Zephii's post inspired me for this thread, I thought it was really interesting actually - https://members.lovingfromadistance....me-differences


Like she asked in the thread, does anyone gp looking for certain jobs to work around their time-difference LDRs? Do you change your daily schedule in a major way to fit in talking time with your SO?

I don't have a SO right now but I have a romance going on with a guy in Canada. It didn't take long before I found myself waking up (willingly) at 4:30 am so he can call me for an hour before he goes to work, and I do this every day now haha. I have to admit, getting up so early means I fall asleep really quickly at night now and I've never had a better sleeping pattern haha! I actually get my 8 hours of sleep every night now!

How about you guys?

[Zephii]

I do this (obviously) lol. My relationship is my number one priority (Which most people think is sad and I'm ok with that). I used to shift my sleep pattern getting up stupidly early and change my meal times (because cooking dinner would cut too much into talk time). I don't know what I'll need to shift this time around though, hopefully not too much!

[uniquefem]

The time difference between me and my so is 5hours. I am ahead him. So when i finish my day at work, its still working hours for him.

Trouble comes when i feel so tired from work, and had to wait for him to finish work, its around 10-11pm at night, and i was half a sleep, and sometimes i become so moody when i got too tired, and that could cause me turn in to an evil moody girl.

We rarely chat, we just chat when he is not so busy at work, i will always leave msg, or just type something on the messenger.. if he's not busy he will reply and sometimes we chat. We will talk on phone at least once a week.

I had to wake up at 4.45am every morning when i am on site/on work sched, so he never push me to wait for him to chat, and i never ask him to spare sometimes to chat because i know he is at work! when i ask him to call, if its urgent matters he will call me right away.. hehe even if i said, hunny please call me tonight i really miss you, and he will call

The best time to chat for us is on weekend, is both of us not traveling or relax at home. I think both understanding are needed here

[Tanja]

I didn't change my daily routines dramatically when we were LD tbh. I had a job so I had to work and Andy was in Uni so he had to study and that was that. I was 2 hours ahead of him though so I would stay up until 2am (sometimes 4-5am) to talk to him and then get up at 6 to go to work... I was pretty tired sometimes lol. My daughter and my animals took a lot of time away from us so I pretty much gave up my social life to stay home and talk to him after all the chores were done. I guess I should start reviving those old friendships now

I kind of like it that Zephii is putting her relationship first. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have taken that into account if I was looking for a new job and we were still LD... You rock Miri!

[leonsfangirl]

I'm 7 hours ahead of my SO (U.K-Canada)
We text as much as we can during the day while he's at work and I try to stay awake so we can talk for an hour when he finishes which isn't always easy if i've had a busy day with my little ones. During the weekends we both stay up late/get up early to talk as much as possible. I think it's easier for us to adjust as we've always had the same time difference so we're not used to it being any other way.

---------- Post added at 11:18 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:18 AM ----------

I'm 7 hours ahead of my SO (U.K-Canada)
We text as much as we can during the day while he's at work and I try to stay awake so we can talk for an hour when he finishes which isn't always easy if i've had a busy day with my little ones. During the weekends we both stay up late/get up early to talk as much as possible. I think it's easier for us to adjust as we've always had the same time difference so we're not used to it being any other way.

[13000km]

We did have kind of a routine. Our time difference is 15-16 hours which worked out for us. I'd wake up at about 5 every morning which was about 2pm for him and call him, or we'd skype if he was home for 0.5 to 3 hours depending on what time I worked that day. And I'd get to skype with him every day after work because he was a polyphasic sleeper, meaning he only slept 6 30 min naps a day instead of through the night. He had been doing this before we met, but has stopped since we closed the distance. Now that I think about it, I think the time difference really worked in our favour.

[kteire]

Neither of us really have the option to work around each other's schedules, unfortunately. He works as an actuary and has set hours every day, and I work for the ministry of health and have random hours. I try to take as few 12-8 shifts as I can, because then I'd be getting home at 1:30am his time, and he has to be up for work at 8. Usually he'll just find things to do until I'm online at 10pm his time on days that I work until 4:30! But when I move to Scotland in October, I'm going to be looking for work that will allow me to work 9-5 Monday to Friday so he and I will have weekends together!

[HollzHeartsChris]

My SO and I have a 7-8 hour time difference between us, since he's in the states and I'm in the UK, though it depends on the time of year (daylight savers times). I wake up at 6am everyday, even on the weekends, so that I can have at least 2-3 hours with him before he goes to sleep. During the weekdays, I've been leaving my Skype running until around 2pm so that I can chat with him for about 10-15 mins before he goes to school. After this, I text him all day until about midnight, when he normally gets home from school (although on a Wednesday he gets home an hour earlier which works out better for us ) and we chat for about an hour, before I generally pass out It depends if I'm able to stay awake that long. I know I won't be able to do this come Monday, because I'll be going to university and I start at 9:30am, so I'll probably only have an hour or two with him in the mornings and that's it, short of texting him. At the weekends, I have around 3-4 hours with him in the morning (unless I have written work to do) and generally, he wakes up at 4pm my time, and on and off for the whole evening I'll be talking to him, either by text or Skype.

Yes, we are quite extreme when it comes to spending time with each other. lol

[Zephii]

Thanks Tanja It's easy to do when you have no qualifications and no kids. I don't have a life to disrupt haha.

[ioanna]

intresting topic Molly! (please accept my humble apologies! this week seems to be "miscredit threads week" for me )
i'm 10 hours ahead of my SO, both of us work full time and up until this summer i was a full time student too. this basically means that by the time i wake up he's gone to sleep exhausted, he wakes up while i'm still at work, while i commute home he commutes to the office, so the only tiny time slot we had for live communication was during his 30 minute lunch break which was at 10 PM my time.
add to that the fact that internet is horribly expensive here (and the connection isn't worth being called a connection) we used to chat for half an hour when he didn't have work obligations at lunchime.

when we first started LD, i would wake up at 5 every monring to catch him for a couple of hours before he slept... but a few months in, i was too tired, i couldnt fit those two hours of sleep anywhere and it took it's toll on me, so i reluctantly stopped

about a year ago we both got blackberries and with the advantage of the messenger system we are able to communicate a lot more, and take advantage of our common commute times yay for technology it costs a lot though, 40$ for 100 MB, but this is a very very good investment for my wellbeing!

i wish my job didn't imply working regular office hours, as it is a lot of teamwork...

[Moon]

My guy is 7 hours ahead of me, we manage because he loses a lot of sleep, poor guy. We talk about an hour or so a day, and much more on weekends. To make it work, I make sure I come straight home after work and get online as soon as possible, anything I need to do has to come later, and although that's sometimes inconvenient, so is him having to sleep so little. We manage pretty well together though, we both know how important our relationship is to us, so we find time where we can.