Hello all,
Through various circumstances we've ended up living in a small town in the west country and my husband's work is in Surrey commuter land (2.5hrs away). He used to pretty much work from home Mondays and Fridays and be away Tues morning through to a Thursday evening. That was ok as I could enjoy a couple of days peace and quiet and sole control of the tv and then he'd be back 
However, increasingly he can be away for 3-4 nights during the week instead, with the occasional weekend conference or whole week away thrown into the mix and it's getting much harder to manage.
When he's away I get into a regular way of doing things with the children (aged 9 & 11), of parenting, of running the household etc and increasingly, when he comes home I now feel that he's disrupting things, going against what I've been doing and generally getting in the way. He feels increasingly detached from family life and as though he's treated as a nuisance (by me) when he does return. Weekends are hard too as he's knackered from being away and just wants to chill out at home but I've spent all week working / being stuck at home and want to go out and do stuff!
Moving closer to his work is something we toyed with a couple of years ago but both me and the children were really distressed at the thought of leaving where we live (we've been here since our 9yr old was born), plus we'd have only been able to afford a smaller place which none of us wanted to do. A year ago my mum, widowed a year previously, also uprooted herself and moved to where we are, which makes moving away even more impossible now.
The sector he works in is almost entirely based in the South East, there really are no jobs here that he could do that would pay the mortgage!
Anyway, the question I want to ask is does anyone else manage the whole "one partner working away thing" and how do you make it work rather than the two of you drifting further and further into separate lives?