I handle early morning duty and enjoy having alone time while everyone else sleeps. I work out, answer work emails etc. He handles night duty. Works well for us.

I get up and out of bed before my spouse. I exercise and take care of the animals. And then start work. Spouse stays asleep or in bed at least an hour longer. Which is fine. They do the nighttime care of the animals and shutting the house down because I'm in bed.

He's always grumpy

Ummm…you must not have kids because with kids all type of people become early morning people and mornings will be hell. It’s a fact. That’s it.

I was the grumpy spouse who needed about 30 mins to clear my head and adjust to the new day. I'm awake by 7am anyway (usually earlier) and after it's over I'm good to go. It's a real thing and I would imagine partners who understand and respect it are appreciated.

My ex husband took offense when I asked (1) to not be woken up unless it's an emergency and (2) to hold off on random conversations as soon as I open my eyes. He couldn't understand how I could "be this way" and I even showed him articles about this being a thing but he didn't care or believe it.  He also complained that if my 7 year old (at the time) needed something early in the morning I was there for them but I didn't give him the same privilege. :-/

I love morning. Favorite time of day. DW hates morning and is very slow to come alive. She likes to complain that I'm an annoying spaz in the morning. I retaliate by letting her handle all the kid stuff.

DH knows not to wake me up until 11 AM on weekends if he wants to have a good time later on. He is a morning person so it works out well. He is up with the kids and makes breakfast. I end up skipping breakfast on weekends.

Anonymous wrote:My husband makes breakfast for the kids before school, brings me a latte in bed about 15 minutes later.

We get up at the same time, but it takes me longer to get out of bed. I slow to start/warm up in the morning.

I used to be the one up first and doing all of that, but at some point I retired from morning duty. Probably when we both started WAH. He didn’t WAH until Covid started so for about a decade I was doing it since my office was at home.

This is us, too. Husband brings me coffee to bed in the morning and I laze in bed until I'm fully awake. He's a morning person and gets up with our child. I am usually awake when everyone wakes up but I stay in bed. He typically takes care of breakfast for our child.

This works for us because once I'm up, I'm up and I really don't stop until bedtime (and I'm more of a night owl). My husband tends to take a daily nap and needs it to recharge during the day. It works out.

My parents had circadian rhythms about four hours out of sync with each other and had an extremely happy decades-long marriage. My mom always said it was because they had 2-3 hours' overlap every evening when he was home from work and she was still awake enough to enjoy his company and otherwise had plenty of time to themselves. She got everything done in the morning and then napped; he stayed up after she went to bed and got work done and watched TV.

My husband makes breakfast for the kids before school, brings me a latte in bed about 15 minutes later.

We get up at the same time, but it takes me longer to get out of bed. I slow to start/warm up in the morning.

I used to be the one up first and doing all of that, but at some point I retired from morning duty. Probably when we both started WAH. He didn’t WAH until Covid started so for about a decade I was doing it since my office was at home.

DH gets up between 4 and 430. He takes dog out, reads/or meditates for 30 min. Then around 5 he does about an hour of work and has breakfast. He gets in shower between 630 and 7 which is about when I get up. Basically he makes sure to do things that don’t wake me up.

It’s great I did a whole bunch of stuff in the am before he wakes up.

He also did the night feeding (11pm) for our infants so I could sleep 9-3am during the infant years.

I drove kids to morning stuff, he takes the night shift.

I enjoy a quiet cup of coffee or two in the morning. If he needs to be up early I do a few extra things to help his morning go more smoothly and then I clear out of the way. He handles late night stuff I'd rather not do. We find a balance.

You let them sleep in until a mutually agreeable time.

My husband and daughter wake up at 5 or 6 am. They stay quiet until my son and I wake up at 8 or 9 am. Now if one of us were to sleep the entire morning, that would seriously hamper our schedule. But our time difference is manageable.

How grumpy is your spouse at wake up and early in the mornings. In particular, how does this change compared to how they are in the afternoon and the rest of the day?

And more. How do you deal with it?