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DH and I are almost empty nesters! I am looking at some different employment opportunities that would require us to have a commuter marriage. My inlaws did it for a few years.
Has anyone here done it? Would you do it again? Advice?
I think it's a highly individual decision. My DDs best friend's father commuted from New Jersey to Indiana--living there 4 days a week and returning on Thursday night. The kids were in high school, and the mom ran the household by herself during the week. They did it because of the financial incentives involved, from what I believe.
They are still a strong family--the kids are now out of college, and their parents have semi-retired in South Carolina. I don't believe he is doing the commute anymore.
I travel on business a lot, and some months I'm gone Monday-Friday for a few weeks at a time. I don't mind it, but my DH is an extrovert, and needs people around. So it's not ideal, and if every month was a lot of travel, I'd have to reconsider doing it. He actually minded my travel LESS when the kids were around, because at least there were people around! When we became empty nesters, he actually had a very difficult time adjusting to a quiet house. So, you have to think about each others' tolerance for being alone a lot.
As for me, I'm the introvert in the pair and I don't mind the alone time--in fact I think it's good for the relationship--at least from my POV.
What kind of arrangement? DH and I have both travelled a fair amount on work-related stuff since we first got together -- we started seeing each other a few months before I left for 2+ years of fieldwork, and got married during that period while basically living on two different continents and only seeing each other every 4-6 months. THAT was a heck of a commuter marriage and I don't recommend it if you can avoid it! We did survive it, though, as well as the 15 years that came after it. Currently he travels more than I do, at least once a month for a week to 10 days typically. It is kind of hard to coordinate schedules sometimes, but the periodic separation hasn't been bad -- we actually seem to get along better when/right after he has been away for awhile! If you can arrange it so you can spend long weekends together and the economics of it work out, I wouldn't think it would be a huge issue. But I am an introvert and the idea of having 2-3 nights a week all to myself sounds pretty much like paradise...
lhamo
My parents did that and so did my aunt and uncle. It split my parents up, but my aunt and uncle have been fine.
I am more familiar with my parents' situation. In their case my mom would come home really tired and kind of cranky on Friday night and my dad would avoid her. She would complain that he hadn't done the housework while she was gone and was upset that she had to spend some of her only time at home doing that. That's always been a point of contention between them. They have different standards of clean. He'd then avoid her the rest of Saturday and she'd go out with her friends. Sunday she'd do her laundry and pack and Monday she was off again. Eventually mom started to feel emotionally neglected and Dad got bitter. Mom had an affair and they split. I've sometimes wondered if they would still be married if they had just hired a housecleaner.
My aunt and uncle have a very different situation. My uncle is the one who is gone. My aunt is actually retired, but she's one of those retired people who are busier now than they were when they worked. She sees her friends all week long and weekends she and my uncle do things together or with their kids and grandkids. She does have a housecleaner.
I think it's a key to my aunt and uncle's success that the time they do spend together is enjoyable time. Also, I think like Catherine's DH my dad needed more social interaction. He felt neglected. My aunt is such a social butterfly she isn't bothered by it.
DH and I live together full time now, but for the first five years of our relationship I spent 3-5 days a week across the border working. He actually preferred this, as he is greatly introverted. He has a teenaged daughter who lives with us half time, so of the time I was away, he was only really alone for half of it.
I didn't like it. I felt too responsible for both homes, felt like I had to squeeze my worklife into the days I was away so I worked 12-14 hours a day, and I didn't have any relationships with people in the place where I worked, with the exception of coworkers. I felt fragmented and tired most of the time. It was an academic job, and those are not easy to come by, plus I wasn't able to just move to Canada and work without going through a fairly long and tedious immigration process. I think that those years were probably okay for us as a couple but it is different starting out separate and then coming together than doing it the way that the OP is considering.
I think my DH recalls fondly the years when Sunday afternoon saw me into the car with my duffle and briefcase, and he didn't have to deal with me until the end of the week. We have a fundamentally different approach to absence, by the way. For him, out of sight is out of mind, so no phone calls or long emails or Skype. For me, I would fret about what was going on at home when I was away, and I would have been vastly more comfortable with a ten minute phone call daily but we didn't ever get to a point of agreement on that.
I would probably still be doing it if I had not been so tired. I liked the job but I didn't like the fragmentation, and the travel took a lot of time, too.
For the last year and a half, my partner has been working/living away three days a week in the southern part of the country. At first I found it quite taxing (and I think I even posted about it on here) and of course I still miss having someone to come home and chat to three nights a week, but it has advantages also. Both of us work part-time and always have Friday-Sunday free, so we make up for the evenings we don't see one another during the week. That's not to say we don't see our own friends at weekends - we certainly do - but it gives us increased flexibility. On weekday evenings, I'm either working late, doing an evening class, lazing around or seeing friends, so it means I can do what I like without having to worry about little things like dinner arrangements with my partner.
My father commuted away from the family during the week, home on weekends, when we were children. It was hard on all... but their marriage wasn't great all around, IMHO. When he eventually came home to work, we had habituated to talking to just mom at the dinner table, and she kept telling us to "talk to your father". That pattern has continued, and even today she will attempt to manage our relationship with our father. The controlling and triangling is subtle but uncomfortable.
Keeping a balance in relationships is challenging, but many do it well.
DH and I are almost empty nesters! I am looking at some different employment opportunities that would require us to have a commuter marriage. My inlaws did it for a few years.
Has anyone here done it? Would you do it again? Advice?
Ex-DH and I had very long periods of time where we were apart during our 17 year marriage (20 years together), often living in different states, because we were both in the Coast Guard stationed on ships deployed many months a year. At first it was OK - even great in many ways, very passionate, very fulfilling in that we could both have the adventurous life we loved but also have a meaningful relationship upon our returns to our home ports. But over the years it became much harder on the relationship - and a big part of the reason we divorced ( we had both agreed to get out and get civilian jobs, I did and when it was his turn he decided to stay in. I was unwilling to live the life of a military spouse - always moving and giving up my own job and life - and I also no longer wanted to live the life of always being apart, so we split up). Our time apart was extreme compared to most and I would never do it again for so many years, but a shorter term thing where we got together on weekends or a few weeks each month would be OK. I enjoy having time on my own, doing my own things, and am very independent even when married. But there is a certain amount of bonding that takes place when you are together alot that falls to the wayside when you are living apart much of the time. Deciding if your marriage can handle that seperation and lose of bonding is something only you can know. But for what it's worth, I think if a marriage is strong, the couple has things seperate from each other they enjoy, and they like being independant of each other then it can work great.
My father's father traveled for work a lot. His wife hated it and published bitter poetry about all the women she figured he was with, and how men do that and it's awful. When my father started traveling for work, my mother was unhappy, and thinking of his own mother, my father stopped. I think he might have been happier with that life, but that she could never have adjusted--she was very dependent and not resourceful in healthy ways.
My dad had several jobs where he was gone during the week and only home on weekends. I think it was a way for him to cope w/ a wife who was in charge whether he was there or not. But he would have been much happier to have the day to day with his kids.
Too bad the world was not set up in the 1950s for the man to stay home with the kidand the wife go out into the world....it would have been a different story for our family if so....
Based on my life experience, the marriage will not survive if both spouses are not committed to fidelity. :(
Also Anne Lee, I don't know if you and DH had any plans for other things together once the kids were gone but that's something to consider too. If you had planned on an early retirement or travel or whatever (growing a garden you tended together, taking classes at the local Y, building a his and hers outhouse on the back 40, etc...) then taking a job where you couldn't do those things like you planned may really impact your marriage. For example: My Dad and his second wife (not my Mom) had talk for years and planned for years to retire early and travel in an RV around the country. My Dad, who was younger then her, retired at age 55 but she - at almost 60 - kept working even though she had agreed to retire. That went on and on for years until her federal Govmint job basicly forced her to retire at age 75. She then told my Dad she had no interest in travelling and wouldn't leave her home for even an over night stay. So for almost 15 years her waited until she was free to travel - only to find that she didn't really want too. he was very bitter about it and seriously regretted waiting for her.
Also, I had a similair experience with my own DH - and again another reason we split up. We had both wanted to quit work while youngish (me 42 and him 41) and spend several years travelling around the world on a sailboat. We bought the boat and fixed it up, planned all kinds of interesting routes, etc... and it was something I thought we both really looked forward to. But after he decided to stay in the CG longer - meaning he'd have to transfer to another town & state and go back on a ship that was gone 9 - 11 months a year - those plans were ended. He kept saying lets just wait a few more years, but he had said that for several years already, and I knew that if I stayed in the marriage that he would never stop working or moving from place to place until he was old. And of course he didn't - he's retired from the CG after 24 years in, but still works full time for the CG in a different city, in a job where he is gone all the time. I, of course, went ahead with my plans to take off work at age 42 to travel anyways :-)! No round the world sailboat trips but not too shabby either!
So if you and DH had plans, and you are putting them off so that you can take a job out of your area, then that may impact the state of your marriage unless he truelly doesn't care. Just my 2 cents - worth less :-)!
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