Any relationships where both partners travel for work?

[gomez]

Looking for views/advice/experience here please.

12 months a go I returned to work from mat leave part-time on the basis that I would leave in the Autumn to retrain. For a number of reasons that hasn't happened and I need to move on, in the short-term/medium term to a job which I enjoy. I may revisit the change in career in 3 years or so.

An opportuniy has arisen with a blue-chip firm which is very, very tasty. BUT will require a fair amount of travel - 25 to 35 percent. When not travelling a degree of flexible working/working from home possible. Travel will in the main be international of varying duration but likely 2 weekly trips. Some UK and short-haul European trips too.

However DH travels for work too, his is more client driven and in his own control to a degree. Mine would be fairly well planned. He is supportive and agrees that if I decide to move then childcare responsibilities must become more evenly shared.

I have an intrinsic feeling of unease that it Just Won't Work.

Can anyone help with views or experiences.

A few obvious things to consider: nanny / MIL / live-in au pair if kids are old enough, eg pre-school, or live-in nanny. Could you bear any of those options to work? Do you get time at home in lieu of time away?

DH travels a lot & tbh makes the option of work a more attractive one, ie sensible conversation and gets you out of the house occasionally. I have often wished we had a live-in because DH's travel very last minute & has meant that I have had to cancel plans / commitments, including weekends away. We have, luckily, never been in the situation where we both travel for work altho I have had occasional commitments that take me away (conferences, family).

I gave up work when dd was born, as both dh and I travelled a lot internationally with work. I didn't want to be in a situation of her having neither parent around for a lot of the time.

I have some friends where both parents work and travel a lot on business. The have a nanny who is available to stay over on nights when they are both away. It's doable but I think they find it quite stressful, as their ds1 has been ill a bit and they have been away.

hi gomez - what would be the downside of trying it? you'll probably never know unless you do and part of you will always wonder. If it was awful and you gave it up (or your dh found something else) in 6 months would that be a really bad career move? If it's reasonably well planned with reasonable notice it might be ok. I don't travel that much - dh does does the odd day or two in Europe, which barely feels any different from him being in the London office - but did once have a near disaster involving cutting it too fine - me being stuck without a flight to come home and dh scheduled to fly out. that was VERY stressful - but wouldn't normally happen

Thanks guys. Fair points Fancyhat and alomst where DH is coming from I think. Perhaps because he knows he might have to listen to me in x years with the old 'I could have been a contender..'. (I am presuming Hatstand as was?)

We would where at all possible arrange it such that the girls would at least have one parent around all the time (barring the odd exception). This being no different from the moment really just that the one parent is currently always me. No reason why it can't be DH on his own sometimes too.

I wouldn't like to go for a live-in but would potentially reconsider schooling for DD1 to tab into the pre/after school care on site thingy.

Both sets of parents are willing and able to help and my mother in particular is supportive of this move as she would like to see me having a successful career with children as she took the tradtional route with us. MiL doesn't really 'get it' but always helps anyway she can.

I think we can cope with the practical side of things with planning, support and a tail wind. but of course things will go wrong.

Sorry I am just rambling away here. Any other views most welcome.

yes tis the same hatty one

I think you will find it hard going but not impossible. Life has certainly been easier for us since we've both been UK based with a small amount of travel.

I think the key is that you can be more flexible when you are at home which will make up for some of the disturbance from being away!

It would be very wise to work out a system for when you both clash. Whose takes precedence. Perhaps a rota. That is assuming you wouldn;t both want to be away at once!

Sounds good - who's it with? Just a hint will do

Hi Gomez. Both DH and I travel regularly abroad with our jobs (he's off to New York on Sunday morning for a week ). Our DS's (8 and 4) are both used to only one of us being around. The longest trip I have done is 10 days as I miss them all too much! DH has done a few three weekers which are a bit of a killer for the one at home. It works for us by careful advance planning (he tends to know way in advance of his commitments and my trips can usually be more flexible), and that we are both in similar jobs so can understand that international travel for work rather than fun is not always as glamourous as it's cracked up to be. Go for it!

agree with soapbox. dh and i both travel for work (mercifully quite rare these days) - i think you really need to avoid both being away at the same time - unless you will have a live-in nanny or very accommodating nearby family and even then i think it would be a bit miserable tbh.

25 - 35% travel sounds like a lot to me. i have a lot of experience of travel for work and have to say i hate it - even worse now that i have children.

even if you could work out the logistics do you think you would be happy being away so much?

Asset managers who have just got bigger by eating some Sauerkraut Soapbox.

Of course I would take precedence.....

That is a concern of mine as DH works to targets and if he needs to go to Outer Mongolia to land a fish that will then mean big bonus it becomes tricky.

As far as I can work out my trips will be planned at least quarterly in advance (and I will to a degree be able to influence this) and I feel, foolishly, that we can plan sufficiently to cope.

I travelled previously and do enjoy it and to a degree would like the opportunity to bugger of to Thailand on my tod for a couple of weeks!

I also think that the disruption caused may be less than me moving back into Industry or Practice with the punishing hours that might involve. At least this scenario would allow me some good time at home when not travelling, a limited number of 4.30am starts and 9.00pm finishes.

Aaahhhhhhhhhhhh.

Would I want to be away that much? Bossykate you know what I don't really know - I don't THINK I will pine for the children (DH does) but then I have never done it. And am trying not to underestimate the impact of sitting in another bl**dy hotel room, bored shitless. Perhaps the glamour is reeling me in....but the travel is not why I would like this job but is a necessary evil to get it. The challenge and the role are what appeal - and would look good on my currently slightly shabby CV .

since you have rationalised so well why it is a good idea and manageable to boot, what do you think is causing your intrinsic feeding of unease that it just won't work?

sorry, i x posted with you there. the other thing i would be concerned about if i were you is whether it will really be only 25 - 35%. what if it were more than that for some reason? hard to say no in a new job, i'd say.

oh - don't listen to me i'm a jaded old bag who is dying to leave work so will not reply on any more work threads!

congratulations on this opportunity and good luck with your decision

ps - i really enjoyed meeting you at the mnet xmas meet up

That is the question BK. Probably because the routine will be fine but it is the unexpected bits that will make it all go t*ts up.

Or that DH can talk a good game but he has had it all his own way for the last 3 years as my job has been very secondary to his (by mutal consent I should add).

Or becasue I am talking myself into it not being an issue because I don't want it to be. But nobody in real life will say don't be silly, why introduce such a huge amount of stress into all your lives for what? So I figured MN wouldn't be as polite if that was the case.

I am just dumping all my thoughts really.

I think that actually in practice the 25-35% is quite a large travel commitment, especially as you're describing effectively a global assignment. I love getting away somewhere exotic for a week or so, but doing that once every 3 or 4 months is enough tbh. And daytrips to Hamburg tend to be tiresome afetr a while.

i guess it all depends on what your default childcare is. I've been very lucky in using temp nannies (effectively I have used the same 2 nannies for the last 18 months), but it can get rather nervy as sometimes I don't have agreed childcare until the last minute.

When both of you travle it gets a bit scarey. I alwasy feel uncomfortable if one of us is away for a week or two that if the other is on a European day-trip that they'll get trapped by flights getting cancelled, or else that will be the day when ds1 has an accident at school and there's no parent in the country!

Different story where you have live in care. (I'm about to try that out for a while). If you're not already working for the company I would explore travel patterns quite carefully. I didn't know which country I would be sleeping on Tuesday for example (and it wasn't finalised until 4pm!).

My gut instinct would be that it could work if you were valued sufficiently by the company that they could live with the occasional need to change plans for dh or dc reasons. This is hard to achieve when you're a new recruit though.

Jaded old bags can talk lots of sense thou' .

OK in the time I wrote that I see that BK made all the same points anyway...
I love business travel. I am already looking forward to a trip to a remote Russian island (via Tokyo). The pleasure of sitting in business/first class sipping a glass of fizz and knowing that I am responsible for no-one other than myself...bliss. And they bring my meals tome - I'm not responsible for cooking and serving up, and even spoon-feeding.

Sorry - that doesn't help you.

IME my dh & i found it pretty stressful for several reasons. Firstly if one of had a call to travel then we would have to say "hang on I'll just check with dh" instead of committing then & there as the rest of the team did.

Then we had the "I need to be in Amsterdam" "but I need to be in South Africa" arguments. Then we were both fog-bound in different airports for 3 hours when we should have been at home.

Finally I had to go to Ireland in apalling weather when ds was ill. I kept thinking we were going to crash & all because of a job!

This last one finished my commitment to the job. I retrained & stayed in one country. It was just too stressful. Sorry if this isn't what you want to hear, but it was the reality of our situation.

Which industry sector would it be out of interest?

New job/trying to prove yourself argument very vaild. Also as company just got bigger hence new role perhaps the amount of work required has been underestimated - in fact very likely.

I am meeting with them again at the beginning of next week to consider package/reporting lines etc. so feel I need to be clear at that point if I wish to continue discussions. Bu**er!

Oops forgot to add BK that I had a great time chatting with you at Christmas. Sorry that you are not happy at work. 'Tis a horrible place to be.

Finance Ladymuck. And doubt very much I will be travelling first class you lucky person you.

Thanks Mistyeyed - all experiences welcome and equally valid.

To make it work what we would need to 'guarantee' is that DH is in the office or working from home whenever I am out of the Country and vice-versa. And that ain't going to happen is it.......

gomez, if you clock up enough business miles they let you in the first class lounge, so there's hope for you

lm - i'm so glad i got the chance to meet you in person at the meet as well

Have to say I find even the short hops to Amsterdam in cattle class as being peaceful - I get to read the paper and someone bring me a cup of coffee. No toddlers screaming, no bags to carry other than my own.

But then even going into London on the train makes me feel free!

both DH and I do a certain amount of travel,mainly inthis country though. We balance the childcare between us.

Careful diary management is the key... it helps that we both work for the same big mulit-national bluechip... so when we know we ahve something coming up we book it in each other diaries!

(also very useful to remind him of school plays, dentists etc!)

Thanks for all your input. I met with them this morning and withdrew from the process.

Issymum your points were all spot on in particular the loss of weekends in addition to the away time during the week. This would have happened a lot with travel to Asia-Pacific and America.

Both the girls would struggle and DH admitted openly yesterday that he felt it would be the wrong choice at this point for us all.

Onwards and upwards. Might just do this bloody LLB after all and be poor!

Thanks again for all your views.