Having to live apart from DH, again...

[Enni2S]

I've been married for three years to a lovely man, 9 years together, no DS. We are both in our twenties. Two years ago I moved to a different city for my career, whilst DH stayed in the house. We lived apart for a year.

We've now bought a house together and live about the same distance (45 minutes to an hour) away from our jobs. DH loves his job and is bound to a specific location, whilst my current role makes me severely miserable.

I have started looking for my next career move and I have had a few interviews. The trouble is that a lot of them are far away from where we live, and I would most likely have to move away again. I want to advance my career and that requires flexibility in location, but I'm worried that I'll never be able to set up a permanent home where I can spend enough time with DH. Neither of us want DS, but I'm worried about a future full of long distance and misery. I also need to get away from my current position and cannot seem to do that in the area I live in.

I guess my question is, has anyone managed a commuter relationship like this? I've done it for a year and my relationship didn't suffer, but I worry that might change if a year becomes 20 years. It really frustrates me that this is such an issue as we otherwise have a life together that I really enjoy. Tips or experiences anyone?

This is tricky and I feel for you. No kids makes it (slightly) easier but al the same it's not a great thing to live apart from the one you love. If you accept it's a long term project to be together than this sort of thing can work well.

I did it, and now do it. My wife lived in Cyprus when we married. We lived together in the UK but she moved for work. Marriage meant she came to the UK (wasn't a U.K. Citizen) a year later. She worked in London and I in Bristol for just under two years before I got a role in London. Much much later my wife got a role in the Far East where she has lived for the last couple of years . We can afford to travel back and forth a lot. In the interim both of us travelled for work, me almost all the time at one point as I was away two or three nights a week.

The biggest issues - loneliness, jealousy, finances. Each visit together makes a departure necessary. If you don't part on good terms for whatever reason it's tricky to talk it over remotely quickly. Jealousy is an obvious one. Only you will know how you'll deal with that. Cost. It isn't cheap to drive back and forth all the time on top of commuting. (and we fly at £500 a time now!). All of these things create tension.

How strong is your relationship and sense of self? If it's all prt of a plan for longer term success as a family it can work.

We bought a house in London as a base and every other place has been rented. If you have a proper home it becomes easier and we still live there many many years later.

There are upsides. The ability to focus on work during the week and weekends together can be fun as absence makes the heart grow fonder but if admin and chores predominate then you get no fun time as a couple so the drudge of life needs managing. Out most difficult times were when we had stuff to do all weekend on the house and had no fun.

Good luck anyway.

If you got a job somewhere else, would he be prepared to look for a job there?

It’s not unusual. Families with people in the armed forces have it even worse and it works in many cases.

It really depends on you both as individuals as to how acceptable and workable it would be.

I think you've got two separate issues going on there, and one is clouding the other.

If you'd just landed a great job and loved the company and were advancing your career, you wouldn't feel as bad about being away.

Get away from the severely miserable work situation first, then reassess.

Is it really 20 years of being away?
Or will you get more opportunities to dictate your location as you progress?
Is your H really fixed in his location?

I work away a lot. Not every week any more, but I used to fly to mainland Europe every week. It's tiring, and hard. I found the relationship side of things OK, more I missed not really feeling like I had a home.

Sounds like your relationship is good too... get a new job, get out of the stress of the current one, and make long term decisions when you're in a happier frame of mind.

Computer life is normal in my view. My last job meant an hour and half drive to work and 3 to 4 hour drive home.. current job is flying to work on a Monday morning, staying away during the week and flying home Friday afternoon / evening.

Commuter not Computer!

It’s not unusual. Families with people in the armed forces have it even worse and it works in many cases.
And every single instance of bf/dh doing something at odds with being in a loving ltr stems from living apart, for however long it was. We've had years of the week working away and back at weekends, and random long periods apart, up to 9 months. In every instance he has struggled with being bored and lonely (that's the excuse), and there has always either been some woman to be overly 'friendly' with or the internet with its many inappropriate opportunities. So in my experience, now that I've lived it, you'd be inviting trouble if you chose to live apart long term. Obviously it's not a problem for some. But my bf/dh has always been seen as a good guy, most ppl (though probably not his colleagues) would be v shocked to hear the details, I think.
If you are determined to live apart for any reason, I'd make sure you set loophole free boundaries to head off even any possibility of inappropriate things happening, and make plenty of time to get together, no excuses.
Do I sound bitter? I know I do, it comes from experience. I hope you don't have the same experiences, as they irrevocably change your relationship.

Thank you for all your replies :-)

I think my relationship is strong and my Dh supports me unconditionally with whatever crazy life plans I come up with. We've already lived apart for a year after marriage, and we lived in two different countries for a while a few years back. Yet I always feel like I need to compromise on something. Chasing a flashy career and possibly neglect my home life, or stay local and think 'what have I really achieved' years down the line. I really enjoy the time I get to spend with him and I'm really aware it could be over before you know it (this makes it sound like I'm his clingy mother ).

DH's field of work makes it very difficult for him to move. He is in a job that he loves and that treats him well; I would never ask him to give it up. I do sometimes dream of a world where he was a freelance working from home hero though.

You guys are right, I need to get out of this work situation and think things through better, but I know that the further I go, the more I'm being pushed to a certain location. I have some upcoming interviews which would place my workplace around 2 hours drive away, with the possibility of working from home one day a week.

I guess I just want to have my cake and eat it, but somewhere down the line something might have to give. Or perhaps Richard Branson can hurry up with that Virgin Hyperloop. Problem solved.

Do not sacrifice your career for a man's when you're young. Please don't.

I think that part of it depends on much time you spend together when you are living apart. If it is close enough that you can be together every weekend, I'm not sure that even counts as living apart as I know so many couples who are on schedules like that.

@Terrypratchett: I'm not planning on sacrificing my career. I'm trying to figure out what would make me most happy. Sometimes my DH says that I underestimate my quality of life and overvalue my career as a measurement of how happy I am. (this is in no way a dig at getting me to stop chasing. What he means is that I don't look at the non-career aspects of my life (my marriage, my own home, my hobbies and social life) when I compute how well things are going for me. I know he's right, and I need to take a more holistic approach when I consider where I want to be. I'm not being pushed into doing anything, but I have to consider that I might just want to stay in the nice house that has my name on it, with the man I fell in love with.

Changing jobs and chasing promotions is currently biting me in the backside, as I am stuck in a job where I feel my skills are wasted and I am overpaid (considering what I do) and under-utilised. I'm miserable and I'm bored, and that could happen again if I move. You never know what a job will really be like until you start it, and sometimes I feel like I'm chasing some fairy-tale esque position that simply doesn't exist. Once I've moved again I can't go back until I do more interviews/panels/other exhausting crap, and I might never be happy or satisfied. I'd live in a one-bedroom rental flat with no interoir of my own and cheap, miserable furniture that feels nothing like my own. When I was fresh out of university I thought all of that was a non-issue, but the older I get, the more I wonder if it's all worth it.

I could try commuting for up to two hours each way a day. If it's 4 days a week, I might be able to do that for a year or so. Alternatively I could move again and see DH at weekends. Not having or wanting DS does make it all a lot more feasible, and I quite enjoyed having the the undivided attention of my DH during weekends whilst completely ignoring his existence during the week fir a while. I was also really excited to move back in with him though.

Sorry I keep typing such mountains of text each time, I'm trying to make things make sense in my head. DH has previously said that he'll give up his job and follow me if I can absorb that loss into my salary comfortably. So maybe by the time I'm 40 I can afford to keep a travelling spouse he'd get bored though.

@Meandmydog: I'm jealous, I wish I did! Nobody in my circles lives like that and I would love to get to know people who do. I need a bloody support group haha.

I used to commute for two hours a day for four years. It's doable.
Could you maybe move so you are both in the middle of the commute to work?

Lots of people weekly commute, is that an option? Maybe a new job would let you work from home on Friday so you’d only be away Monday morning to Tuesday evening? It would be hard but there are middle options, and if you don’t want kids that makes things easier to be flexible for you both

(Also on abbreviations - I think you’re meaning to use DC (darling/dear children, DS is darling son, DD is darling daughter )

Haha yes @paperdoll I do not want DDs either. We currently live in the middle of our commutes. My current commute averages out at on hour each way, so two hours a day. This doesn't bother me. My new commute would be two hours each way and thus 4 hours a day. This would probably bother me

From th sounds of it you could easily manage the apart four days/ together three days routine.

Two hours each way driving is too much. People do it but it's tough. I used to do two hours + each way by train and could work/read each way if I needed to which meant getting home happy at 7pm ish even if I left at 6.30am.

I drove it once. Nightmare. Being present but exhausted and miserable is worse than being absent a bit more but happy when present.

Long commutes are a result of high house prices and stupidly high stamp duty. It is corrosive.