Confession: I was not entirely truthful with Dan regarding an important matter when we were dating. Not that I ever outright lied. But perhaps I lied by omission regarding certain things and embellished certain other things.

What I mean to say is, I didn’t exactly tell him I’m a night person. Although, I never told him I was a morning person either. I just got up early most mornings while we were dating. And at night, I guess I was tired from waking up early, so I went to bed earlier. Or I wasn’t, so I went to bed later and Dan stayed up with me. I don’t exactly remember. What I do remember was a period of bliss (aka The Honeymoon Phase) where we just wanted to do everything together, and this included going to sleep and waking up. At least I did. Maybe he didn’t, but he acted like he did. The point is, when the romance wears off (not that it’s completely gone, it’s just changed, but that’s for another blog post entirely!), and you find out your partner has a different temporal rhythm than you do, it can be irritating.

In other words, the night person would strangle the morning person who wakes up singing “Good morning, I love you, Good morning I love you!” if only she could open her eyes when the alarm goes off. Meanwhile, by the time the clock strikes 10pm, the morning person is pretty much in a coma while the night person is like, “Hey, can we talk?” Before she’s even made it to “I feel like…” the morning person is fully snoring.

In the wake of my last post, I have discovered many star crossed couples in our midst. While opposites attract, this temporal disconnect seems like it ought to be a major deal breaker. And yet, couples persevere despite all odds. How does this happen? If we can agree, and I think we can, that people are just wired one way or the other, how can we fake it during the courtship phase?

In my case, I was training for an ironman when Dan and I met. This meant that many days, I had to get up early to complete a workout before work, so that I would have time to do my second workout after work. This led him to believe I was a natural morning person. This was not a clever ruse on my part, it was just how it was. And Dan, by my estimation, was totally 100% butt crazy in love with me, so he was more flexible about extending his bedtime. Again, not a clever ruse, but it was just the way things were. A friend told her sweetheart mislead her by scheduling many of their dates at night. She was therefore surprised to later realize how much he actually enjoyed going to bed early and waking early.

Are you and your partner both morning people, both night people, or one of each? If you don’t match, how do you make it work?