Hey.
I am working nightshift since a few years and the place I work at has absolutely nothing to do for me at night. I also work alone.
I haven't even told my wife, friends or anyone this yet and I plan not to do so, cause it might be used against me if for any reason I lose friendship or if my wife breaks up with me for any reason in the future.
I do 1 hour of work. I prepare medication for the next day and clean the storage place for medication. After that I do nothing. I even bought a laptop where I use my hotspot (mobile) to play video games from 10 - 5.
I only play games if I can't sleep. I am not allowed to sleep, but I did it a few times already and no one noticed. My wife leaves for work when I get home, so I have breakfast with her and then I "lay down in bed" but when she is gone I get back up and go to the gym. I don't want her to know I am awake every morning.
I clean the house while she is at work, I go to gym, etc. and when she is home we do something together and she always says: "you don't have to clean after your nightshift, you need rest."
Well I don't. I rest enough...
I feel bad. Doing this since 4 years and don't know if I should tell anyone, but I figure I ask here first what your opinions on this is.
Is this somehow cheating? I feel like a cheater for not atleast telling this my wife, but imagine if we break up horrible for whatever reason in 10 years and she runs to my work place?
She knows I don't have to do too much so I just tell her I only need 4-5 hours sleep after my shift and that it's enough for me.
Edit:
I even have a different account on discord where I play with my "american friends" who are online while I am online at night. I don't want my friends to know, cause 1 of my friends is a friend of a coworker of mine who works dayshift. He shouldn't know about this.
So basically I have a kind of double life. The life and friends in day time and the friends I see if I can't sleep during my nightshift that I play with. My american friends know about this, but they have no idea where I live in europe. I told them england, cause it's the only country I can fake the language properly without accent cause I grew up in america.
I am probably putting too much energy in this but since a few years it's fine. I sometimes think I atleast should tell this my wife.
I also can't quit this job. It's really good paying (nightshift bonus) + I can do what I want. I love it...
I don't think you're doing anything wrong. If you do what your employer needs you to do in a shorter time, I don't see any problem with using the rest of the time to do more useful things for yourself. And at least how you've explained it, its not like you're just using the time selfishly. You're getting some sleep so you can housework and gym and sensible stuff like that.
Since you seem happy about that and keen to keep the job, I assume your real problem is with the lying / double life aspect. Personally, I can't imagine not telling my partner about stuff like that, partly because I'm chatty and like to share but mostly because I can't imagine them "using it against me". It's not like you're committing a crime! Are you really worried that, if your relationship ended badly, you're wife would get in touch with your employer just to tell them that you're being underutilised and they should give the night shift more work? To me that seems insane, and I can't imagine being in a relationship with someone that petty, but maybe she is like that? Or maybe you're really worried about something else?
Do you think it could be partly that you feel guilty about what you're doing and having another person hear it and possibly criticise you is scary? Or that she might not respect you if she knew your job was so empty? Or that she might want you to do other chores (you've got time to learn a language / do our taxes / buy my dad a birthday present) while you're at work?
But if it was me, and I felt my partner would be judgemental (some people have a very protestent work ethic) I'd probably just make vague comments about my shift being quiet, even complaining that working nights sucks a little but at least the job is easy and stressfree, or whatever. If you bring bits up occasionally with her, if anything does come out later, or you tell her eventually, she won't feel like you've kept this big secret. She knows your job is quiet and you sometimes have time for other stuff during your shift, she just might not realise exactly how frequently.
I also suspect that she has a sense. Most women have an idea of how much time it takes to do the housework that you say you're doing while you're supposed to be sleeping. And does she really have no idea that you go to a gym? If you're earning your wage, doing you share of chores, and are happy then why would she have a problem?