How do spouses who work in different shifts make their marriage work? With this question floating on our mind, we approached some couples who hardly meet their respective counterparts in a day.
“The little time we get together is precious”, laments Ancy Paul, a senior accounting officer in a private hospital, whose husband is a Senior Editor in a media firm. The couple who works in different shifts find it difficult to spend quality time together.
“My husband comes back at 3.00 am from the office and he gets up late in the morning. Mine is a day-time job so we don’t get time to sit together and chat on a working day. So every minute we spend together is priceless. Most of the communication is done through phone,” Ancy says.
Even so, there are couples who utilise this discomfort in their favour. “I count the change in shifts a blessing as we have 2 small children who are in need of constant attention. When I am off to work my wife takes over the kids and the household chores, while she’s off I do the same”, says Arun, a private bank manager, whose wife is working in an IT company.
Renjin whose wife works in the same IT company finds it hard to jump between home and office. “When children fall ill we both have to take leave as they are too young to sit in a car alone while we take them to the hospitals . When I am in the night shift (10.00 pm to 6.00 am) my wife works mostly in the early shift (6.00 am to 2.00 pm) so even though we are working in the same office the only time we get to see each other is in the evenings” says Renjin.
Marriage needs revamping at times says Meera, a teacher at a private school, “I yearn for spending an evening together or an occasional candlelit dinner, but that never happens as he is always in the night shift”. Meera’s husband works in a multinational company. “Still, we are managing just fine with the help of our parents, who take care of our child while we are in the office”.
Aarya and Rahul, a newly wedded couple who work in the same IT firm, say that as of now the shifts do not affect them, however when they have a child they want the children to get both their attention.
“A marriage is all about adjustments. I understand that we both have different careers so even after 15 years of our marriage we savour the little time we spend together” says Ancy.
But Ancy’s husband Paul sees it in a different light, “as we do not have time together we never fight. On Sundays when I get an off we go out or stay-in and share everything and anything that has happened in the past week .”
Divorces, misunderstandings and family breakdowns are rampant in Kerala today, nevertheless within their limited time and space, it was heartening to see these couples striving to achieve marital bliss.