Police Officer Preparation & Law Enforcement Resource - Archive

Hi everyone! I'm new to this post and am so glad that I found it. I am married to a police officer who works morning watch (10 PM until 8 AM) So we rarely see each other. Anyone else out there whose better half works these great hours? :D

And if so, can you give me some advice on how to get used to these hours? We got married last year and at the time, he wasn't a police officer. He was an IT Manager..go figure! He was an MP in the army and after a few years in law enforcement decided to get a higher paying job but ended up getting layed off this past June so now he went back to being a cop. I support him 100% but it is taking some getting used to the scheduling. I was spoiled having him home for dinner every night :-)

I'm happy that he's back doing what he loves and just wondered if anyone else out there was in the same boat as us. It does get kinda lonely at night, would love to chat with some friends.

Thanks!! :p

Yo Brook2915,

Hi and welcome aboard, well things like this does happen, i even have the same question with family where they dont see me at home at all, i come home they work and they come home i work, the only thing to keep each other aware of our existence is like leave small notes etc as well as email each other.

Well i know that husband and wifes are indeed different, probably you'll can work something out :)

I think other police officers here will be able to give you some precious advise :)

until then, see ya around!

Cheers!


ronald'2oo2

Hey Brook, welcome to the forum. I've been the wife of a LEO for over 10 years and we have 2 daughters.

Stump makes some good points (by the way Stump...golden rule shmolden rule...LOL). Do you have any children Brook? That's a huge factor in the difficulty of dealing with the schedule. The wacky schedule is probably one of your biggest challenges as a cop's wife. My hubby can't just get off work and go to sleep since he would be too wound up. I had to factor that into the schedule as well. The one thing that I did to try to make his schedule changes more like a regular work schedule was to make whatever was the closest meal to him coming home, that would be his "dinner" (and mine). When he got off work at 8am, breakfast would be our BIG meal rather than dinner...that way we could have time together. Have you ever had lasagna dinner at 8:30 in the morning? My husband was always flattered that I was so accommodating. Sometimes I did breakfast food, most of the time I put something in the crockpot and let it cook overnight. For me, it's much more difficult to deal with the girls not seeing him because of his schedule. The 12-8 schedule is a good example since the girls would have to be to school at 7:30. He would usually sleep from 2-11pm and then go to work, thereby completely missing the girls. That's always tough. You've come to the right place though. There are some really great people here and always loads of advice. Welcome again.

Thanks for the reply's...and yes it hasn't been so bad. We do have a 5 year old little girl who is in kindergarden. I work part time in the mornings so usually I am gone in the mornings before he gets home. He actually goes right to bed give or take an hour and sleeps until about 5-6 PM which is usually about the time that I am getting dinner ready. So initially, he is wanting to have his breakfast time (coffee, newspaper) at 6:30 in the evening when we are ready to eat dinner :-) But at least we have those few hours together before he leaves to go to work at 9 PM. It really worked out during the summer to so we didn't have to put my daughter in a daycare and we were able to work it out to where one of us was always up and home with her.

This is his stepdaughter so every other weekend she is with her dad and on those weekends, I try and stay up as late as possible so that I can sleep in with him the next day. Its not as bad as some people make it out to be but its harder on him due to him having court some mornings after he gets off of his shift. I'm so proud of him and respect him for everything that he does.

Thanks for all the advice and encouragement. I'm still trying to adjust but its getting better. At least i'm part time and am not rushing in the door when he's getting up. Now if I could just work on keeping my daughter quite during the day. :-)

I am a fiance of an officer and we don't live together ( yet ) so scheduling some time together has been very hard at times, through his Boot year ( done July ) in the LAPD at the beginning when he was off he was having to sleep, eat ( by remider usually ) and had a ton of homework to boot! He doesn't have as much home work now as he did and has saved some time getting his boots polished by a guy at the PD, although he still does his belt.
Every two months his schedule changed and TO so he had alot of ups and downs.
He's now hit every schedule there is...it will be much easier when he has a more solid schedule!
I would stay up later when that was needed, at the moment my job doesn't allow that, so we have a family plan cell phones and text messeg each other when ever we can, talk, etc, so we get to stay closer . We send each other cards in the mail even though we live two miles from each other.
Sometimes breakfast for me turns into dinner for me to accomodate him so we can spend time together, tell each other about our days, etc.
He calls me while driving to work and I'm walking my dog before work myself.
We take my dog and go jogging in the park about 8:pm after we are both off work ( current ) and when he worked nights we would have an early dinner in the afternoon , talk while he drove to work and take total advantage of days off! Although on those days I would stay up later with him. Now our only day off to see each other is Saturday, so we make the most of it. Even if it's laying together watching movies.
It takes an adjustment for me each time his schedule changes ( as well as for him ) but we manage, and at times ( like now ) we see each other less for a month or two, but when he has a more solid schedule it will be another adjustment too, but one we will deal with when the time comes.
One huge lesson as a cops partner of life, is that you can't be selfish about "wanting more time" and not getting enough attention, only if it gets to the point of them always at a bar when not at work does that come into the picture, otherwise if he really try's to be with you and spend time with you then you have to just say " ok, this is the way it is, and this is what we do".
Otherwise, change your job to accomodate his, it is a two way street and niether persons job is more important than the other persons .