So something that is becoming abundantly clear to me (again) is that I am a morning person. Dh is a night owl.

for years I have tried to force myself into his biorhythm. Especially when my kids were at home, because none of them were morning people. (Although ds is an “I just don’t need to sleep” person - 4 hours and he’s good. 6 and he’s well rested. His early childhood was rough!)

but lately i’ve just been “going with the flow” - I get up when I want to, I get him off to work, and I accomplish things in the morning. 4 nights a week we both get home after 6, sometimes after 7, and i’ve been hardly ever making dinner. - large batches on one or two of the three nights i’ve been home all day, sometimes he cooks, spaghetti with sauce from a jar about once a week, and leftovers or whatever the other nights. This works for me. It works much less well for him, but he hasn’t complained, he just looks disappointed.

so far so good but here is how evenings look - he gets home and he wants to eat, “finish up a few things” and “unwind” (read the paper, do the crossword, last night he added a 15 minute exercise routine with a really annoying soundtrack that took almost half an hour including changing, set up, and cool down with drink of water. He says he wants to do that every night.) so, now it’s close to 8 o’clock at best (he almost never gets home before 6:30) possibly close to 9. My body wants to go to bed at 9:00.

some nights I try to stay up with him, but I don’t really accomplish much and i’m not really a sparkling conversationalist at that hour, and I get more and more tired as the week goes on if I do that, and by the time we finally do get to bed, I just want to go to sleep.

some nights I just go to bed.

when i’ve stayed up during the week I usually sleep in on the weekend to recover. Then my best “accomplishing things” time is spent doing my chores and hanging out with dh and a cup of coffee - which is nice, and one of the few times we really spend “together” all week - but I don’t end up doing any of the things I wanted to do on the weekends, and I get grumpy.

I’m trying to figure out some way to have more time together during the week because the current system is starting to make me feel like we are roommates.

and, i’m Not really a great roommate - dh likes the house clean and orderly. I’m tired in the evening - he almost always gets home second. So he comes home to a house where someone has come in, shed bags and piles of teaching stuff (objects, papers, books, tote bags), shoes, coats, groceries, whatever i needed to pick up at the pharmacy or farm store or hardware store...all over the living space, and then made food - heating leftovers or cooking - without cleaning up. And “someone” is tired and gets grumpy if asked to clean up.

also, someone has a little folding desk she is supposed to fold up and put away every night, but since she is usually too tired to finish whatever, it often gets kept out so she can finish in the morning.

then, after he leaves for work the next morning, I clean everything up, finish my work, and put my desk away.

i’m trying to figure out what to do about this. I am hoping for insights from a new perspective, but also, please remember that while I can ask dh to make changes, I can only control my own behavior. (like, I need to find some way to reenergize myself enough to hang up my coat and put the groceries away! because I leave home every morning intending to, and then I get home in the evening just not caring and too tired to be creative or think to do anything for myself that might help)