People with long commutes more likely to cheat?

[onlychildhamster]

www.google.com/amp/s/www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/infidelity-and-the-commuter-why-so-many-london-workers-are-having-affairs-8613554.html%3famp

'I can give one resounding answer to that: in my experience, the biggest threat to monogamy in London is the commuting husband or wife. I have lived in the countryside, in the heart of commuter land, for 13 years and have heard countless stories of commuting infidelity. In fact, I know more commuters who have had or are having affairs than those who aren’t'

'Another friend, Richard, who is in a long-term relationship with Susie, describes commuting as being “soul-destroying”. His journey takes a minimum of two hours to the office and back every day. “I wonder why we ever moved out of London. The trappings have become meaningless for me. At least, when we lived in London, I actually saw Susie and my children. Now I am home so late we don’t do anything like that any more.”

This is an interesting article cos DH and I were discussing this earlier. He has returned to work at canary wharf 5 days a week and he has observed some men in their 50s walking around happily with extremely young skimpily dressed women (DH thinks they are underage prostitutes). Anyway the article has points that sound like excuses to me, of course people will have affairs if they want to, regardless of whether they commute.

BUT I have always wondered why so many men are willing to move 1.5-2 hours away from work. I understand that it is to get a bigger house which benefits the family and all, but perhaps the opportunity to have and maintain an affair is a draw ... If you live outside London, you can even claim that you have to stay overnight as you missed the last train home. That simply wouldn't hold water in London where there are Ubers and night buses.

I have a roughly 5 hour round trip commute and I fail to see how it would, in itself, encourage me to have an affair. I try to compress my work day as much as possible so I can go in a bit later and leave a bit earlier so I rarely even have time for a coffee with a colleague, let alone anything dodgy. And the rest of the time I’m on a train, pretty much. So I can only assume that what’s really going on here is that a lot of people with commutes like this stay over for a chunk of nights in the week, in which case, sure, affairs are more likely. Disengaged from the family, hardly any time with spouse in the absence of kids, lots of free time to go for drinks with sexy work colleagues. Recipe for disaster.

Your dh sees men in their fifties with under ache girls that he presumes are prostitutes
In Canary Wharf

Op - your dh is a fantastist
I worked in the city most of my professional life
Never saw this
Never heard of it happening

Do some men visit prostitues? Absolutely
Do mean wander around Canary Wharf with underage priorities? Don’t be daft

How long a commute does your DH have?

I commute into work but I'm female - does that make a difference?

I think a long commute, regular late nights and stop overs (real work ones or maybe not) does give opportunity.

I think a commute by train (not necessarily long) ro a place where most people are travelling by train gives many more opportunities for socialising and drinking after work and one thing can and often does lead to another.

There's no such thing as an underage prostitute.

I used to be London commuter of 10 years + on an off, I don’t think it encourages cheating at all, in fact probably the opposite, used to be so tired from 12 Hour days out of the house, that’s the last thing on my mind

BUT I have always wondered why so many men are willing to move 1.5-2 hours away from work

You don’t, most people start working locally, the ambitious people soon out grow local work and look for more money, new challenges etc, the best will gravitate towards the big companies/ cities

@Saladovercrispsanyday

Your dh sees men in their fifties with under ache girls that he presumes are prostitutes In Canary Wharf

Op - your dh is a fantastist
I worked in the city most of my professional life
Never saw this
Never heard of it happening

Do some men visit prostitues? Absolutely
Do mean wander around Canary Wharf with underage priorities? Don’t be daft

I wondered if the girls might be their daughters! But mostly I quoted your post because the typos are amazing.

@JustAnother0ldMan yes that makes sense but as a Londoner, I guess I observed the opposite where people start their careers in London but move further out for larger houses etc and commute.

@Saladovercrispsanyday 50 minutes from north London to canary wharf

[quote onlychildhamster]@JustAnother0ldMan yes that makes sense but as a Londoner, I guess I observed the opposite where people start their careers in London but move further out for larger houses etc and commute.[/quote]
As a non Londoner I’ve seen loads of people move out, normally as they can get bigger houses, “better” lifestyles etc in the burbs / Home Counties
Of course not everyone thinks it’s “better”

Another article but from an american perspective

abcnews.go.com/Health/w_RelationshipNews/relationships-long-commutes-toll-marriage/story?id=13719087

'It was a young family's dream home, complete with an in-ground pool, a guest cottage, cherry trees and blueberry bushes. But Teresa Difalco had reservations about moving into the house in McMinnville, Ore., because it was 35 miles from where her husband, Anthony Difalco, worked in Beaverton. She thought the 2½ hour roundtrip commute would wear on him. But he was a New Yorker used to the commuter life, and insisted the drive was no big deal.

They bought the house, and the distance between them grew.

"I would see him pull away, and it felt like he was going to another world," said Difalco, a freelance writer who works from home.

Before the move, the couple happily took turns carting their two kids to various activities and squeezed in the odd impromptu lunch together. But the commute turned such pleasantries into "a production."

"He couldn't really do anything unless he took the day off," Difalco said of her now ex-husband. "His life shifted to where his office was. We had our dentist, our doctor -- all our own people in our town. And he had all his own people near his office."

And that included a mistress. When the affair came to light, the couple separated and tried therapy to get their marriage back on track.

"In more than one session, we started talking about the commute when we should have been talking about the affair," Difalco said. "The distance was even more of an intruder than his affair."

They divorced three years after they moved into their dream house.

Compared to their locally employed counterparts, commuting couples face a rocky marital road, Swedish researchers reported last week. According to a study of 2 million Swedes, couples in which one person commutes 45 minutes or longer are 40 percent more likely to divorce.'

@Saladovercrispsanyday I work in the city too- moorgate before pandemic. Never saw this happening either. DH used to work in the City too before he transferred to the Canary Wharf office and never saw this happening.

The thing with Canary Wharf is that its mixed residential/office (though the resi towers seem to be in the Isle of Dogs but its still near) and I don't think there were as many residential blocks in the City other than places like the Barbican.

More likely to have an affair, or more likely to have strain put on their marriage by being out for such long hours that they never get to see their family and are exhausted all the time?

Not necessarily because of the long commute itself, but I have known an absolutely shocking number of men who have long commutes and spend a night or two (or three) during the week in London who are having affairs. Honestly, in my anecdotal experience, it seems more likely than not! I just assume that is the case when I hear about it. Absolute poison for a marriage.

What the hell is Op on about with underage prostitutes? As in they are under 16?! What nonsense. I think her husband may be a fantasist.

Your Dh sounds… peculiar op

@Theriband I don't think they are under 16 but perhaps what he meant is that they look so young that it doesn't look like a normal 'age gap' relationship. And they were dressed very skimpily so probably not colleagues either.

I guess if you don't spend any time with your partner because they don't get back home til really late each night you are bound to drift apart. And then if staying away over night in the week doesn't cause suspicion then it's easier.

But then again, there's no way I'd be happy to move out to the countryside and expect dp to do a massive commute which meant I'd never see him just so I could live in a big house. Perhaps there's something about the type of marriage where that seems ok that makes affairs more likely.

And yeah, the underaged prostitute comment is really odd. I used to go to Canary wharf for meetings and definitely didn't notice any children who looked like they'd been forced into prostituton and if I had I would have been absolutely horrified and reported it immediately.

Sounds like an excuse to cheat if you ask me …it’s not my fault, it’s the commute people who want to cheat will find any reason to do so, the commute is up there with “my partner doesn’t understand me”.

It’s a fluff piece by a journalist. Up there will stories on why it is impossible to live off £100k per year.

I would encourage you and your husband to avoid tabloids. Because no one but cheap red tops uses the phrase skimpily dressed when describing an adult women. And what he describes is not Canary Wharf. Perhaps you need to look at what exactly he is doing in london.

@LemonTT lol! This made me laugh thanks

I commute over 2 hours a day. Every bloody day and believe me, I have no energy to cheat

Maybe the American wide should have worked out that in Beaverton there would be loads of opportunity for shagging...

Wife!