Other half's that work away

[Emmafh3]

How often does your partner come home and see the children?

We currently have a two year old and are expecting another. Dh works about an hours drive away which is great, and gets the weekends off too so we see each other and the babe lots.

But contemplating a life where we would only get to see him every other long weekend and on bank holidays. This would be a long term kind of thing (for about 3-5years) so worried that our dd would be affected by it mostly as she adores her dad to the moon and back. And thinking its not fair on a new arrival to barely know its dad for the first handful of years of its life?
And sure, hard for me too, but we have such a strong relationship its not really a big issue for us, mostly about the kids.

For those who's partners work away long term, did/does it affect your child and their relationship?

Following this as my dh works away for 2 weeks at a time one week at home. This is changing in the new year though to 2/2. Our dd is only 6 weeks and he has had 3 of them away. I try and send him lots of videos and pictures and we FaceTime every night but I'm sure he still feels like he's missing loads. When he's home he spends lots of time playing with her and basically does all the nappy changes. I'm ebf so he can't help there but wants to do as much with her as he can

I think you need to have a conversation about flexible working and your long term plans as a family. An hours commute frankly is nothing and should not be a reason to opt out of life, unless their work requires an overnight componen (thinking here like the work in a residential school or something that requires them to be on call overnight).

I used to have an office based 3 hours from home. I did that commute 3 days a week (6 hours a day), leaving at 6am and home by 7pm, so I made sure I was there to do bedtime with my dd every night. I also shared the nighttime parenting 50/50 and still got up at 5am to catch my train.

It’s no way to live though if you don’t have to and there’s no way in hell I’d be staying away all week to avoid 2 hours a day commuting when I could see my dh and dc. Would you move closer? Would your dh commute? Flexible working arrangements? I routinely worked 2-3 days a week from home depending on the nature of my work for that week. That’s how we coped, by making family life the priority and doing everything possible to be together, even when it meant less sleep.

My DH is self employed in the theatre business.

During the summer and christmas seasons he's away for weeks at a time. The longest has been 4.5 weeks.

He calls when he can and we sometimes facetime but I've found the more he does that, the more DD misses him. As she's got older it's been better but he's away and working. I don't expect him to call in at regular times as it's not possible.

It hasn't left them with no relationship. She's 5 now and we have our second DD due in Feb and if anything it's made their relationship stronger as they value that time together so much more.

I also think it means that as a couple we value each other more and appreciate what each other does.

When DD was smaller (age 5-9), DH was away for 2 weeks (left Sunday midday, came back midday Sat 2 weeks later) and home for 2 weeks (weekend travel meant 1 full weekend at home a month). Those 2 weeks at home were still FT working in the local office.

We got into the routine for when DH was here, and a different routine for when he was away - slightly different dinners, slightly different arrangements for school/clubs etc.

DH would skype a fair amount while away - and we would talk by phone or skype daily.

The weekends he was home, he was under pressure to go visit the ILs (2.5 hours drive away) with us all.

It was hard, but necessary at the time.

Nowadays, it's arguably harder as he lives at home but travels a few days a week instead - so we are all woken at 4am as he's incapable of being quiet. And I tend to either be woken if I have gone to bed, but more often than not just not bother going to bed as he's due home about midnight. So we are all suffering far worse sleep deprivation.