Earlier this year, during one of Alison's many rotations, she was assigned to a hospital about 45 minutes away. Her shift was from 7am - 7pm daily with the exception of Wednesday, meaning that her schedule and Benedict's schedule aligned very poorly. In fact, during the week, with the exception of Wednesday and the weekend, she often wouldn't see him at all. To help alleviate the loss that all three of us felt, twice during the month Benedict and I drove her to work and then went on an adventure.

When time is tight in your schedules it becomes even more important to make time to be with your wife. Certainly sacrifices will need to be made, but the fact that there is limited time necessitates that for the sake of your marriage, you make time.

You could stay up later, go to work together, or reserve time in the evenings. Hopefully the restricted nature of your schedules is only temporary, but during that time, you jointly need to create time to be together. Your marriage cannot withstand, nor should it be asked to, prolonged periods of absence when a few schedule adjustments could free up as much as an hour or more a day.

We all struggle to balance our time and we tend to look back longingly on the days when we had all of the time in the world to do as we pleased. Yet, the "struggle" to balance your time is not as much of a struggle as it is a difficult decision process. You likely will have to sacrifice a good for the sake of a greater good, nourishing your marriage.

It's hard to be apart from your wife and there will most certainly be times when your schedules conspire against you. In those times of difficulty, choose to not be overcome by the tyranny of the clock and instead make reasonable adjustments to your schedule so that you can have more time together with your beloved on a daily basis.

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