how long have you and your spouse been

[HOGFAN]

apart voluntarily? DH may have to move to Dallas for a job. We have agreed for me to stay here tho so DS16 can finish high school. So we are talking 2 years minimum. I also have a pretty good career going here that I am reluctant to leave. No, our marriage is not the best so in some ways the time apart may be beneficial. Give us both time to think. anyway, just wondering about others experiences.

 

[DMickey28]

in what works for you.

Right now DH and I are apart Monday through Friday, which I know to some is normal but to us it is not. It's tough ... every Friday night we go through a battle of the blankets in bed and it's hard to get into the swing of being a family on Saturday's. Then Sunday comes and he leaves again.

I know lots of people can do it ...

 

[phorsenuf]

My husband took a job in Florida. He left in December so it's been about 8 months now. We're trying to sell the house but no luck yet. We thought we would rent it out but changed our mind. So I'm figuring it will be pretty close to a year, if not more until we are back together.
I suppose the upside is I get to go to Florida a lot these days on vacation.

 

[KristaTX]

Probably about a week when I've done Disney trips without him. Maybe two weeks when he had to work in Omaha for 6 or 8 weeks in 1996. But his company would send him home at least every other weekend.

We get along great and like being together. Neither of us would ever volunteer to live separately for months or even just for many weeks.

 

[raysnkaysmom]

The longest was when my DBF was in the process of moving 2 hrs away to help his parents, and we had just found out I was pregnant... He was there from July to February. He finally came home 3 weeks before I gave birth

Now, on occassion he goes up there (3 hrs away now since we moved), but not for more than a week at a time.... His family is falling apart, but thats a whole other thread

 

[ontariomonkey]

Not exactly volontary, but DH and I lived apart for 9 months. Only 3 hours away by car so we were able to see each other every 2nd or 3rd weekend. It was easy sometimes and very difficult at other times but we made it. If we had not been able to speak on the phone every night and see each other regularly, it would not have worked out and something would have had to 'give'.

 

[ontariomonkey]

PS I think the most difficult thing for me was no knowing how long the 'separation would last. It could have dragged on for months longer. If we had had a clear deadline in mind to work towards, it would have been easier psychologically for me.

 

[MariDisney]

DH and I have been apart for about 9 days when I've gone to WDW without him. THat would be the longest. I would have an extremely difficult time doing an extended time apart. I feel like we work as such parters. He manages a toy store. So, during the holiday time he's here, but I hardly see him. He'll put in 18 hour days several days a week. I even miss him then. If we had to do it for some reason I would find a way to make it work, but it would be very hard for me to be connected.

This is one reason why I honor and respect military families so much. A friend of ours is on his 2nd tour in Iraq. He was gone about 12 months the first time and will be about 18 this time. I give her a lot of credit. They have 4 kids, and it has to be lonely and hard.

 

[TwinsinCA]

I won't bore you with all the details as to why and how it happened, but DH works in Phoenix and the kids and I live near Los Angeles. He drives home almost every Thursday night, works from home Friday, and then leaves really early (like 2a.m.) Monday morning to get back to work. We've been doing this for just over two years.

The upside is he has a stable job, which we do not take for granted in this economy. And we can still talk every day even if we don't get to see each other.

The downside is that he is away from the kids almost half the time. He had a killer commute when he worked here, so he saw them maybe an hour or two most nights anyway. And he traveled a lot to boot. But he has missed some school events when they fall mid week. He has always traveled for work so I am able to handle him being gone that much. But it changes things with kids involved.

Because he's gone during the week, all the homework and school stuff ends up on me. It isn't that big of a deal, but there are nights when it would be nice to have some help. I have no family nearby so I am pretty much on my own during the week. Again, I can handle it. But every so often there is something I'd like to do on a weeknight and I really can't because of the kids.

 

[mpls_mm]

We tried it for 6 months. We weren't doing the best either so it seemed like a great idea. The plan was one weekend a month he would come here or I would go there. It really came to a make or break and we realized we had big issues. I think it made us appreciate each other more, we are in counseling and have been doing better than ever the last 6 months. The seperation was good for us but not how I thought it would be. I could see how it could drive other people apart and they could stray.

 

[englishteacha]

The longest we've been apart since getting married is 5 nights, and that was just recently. I wouldn't want to be apart for more than a few nights to a time. If there was a set deadline, like going away for 2 weeks or whatnot, then that would be doable, but I don't think I'd do well with an indefinite amount of time apart.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

March-June, so 4 months. I was in DFW as the kids finished school and he went to MO for another job.
We sold the house and the kids, dogs and I went into an apartment and he lived with his mom.

It was weird esp. when we got back together. We had to live in another apartment until we found a house.

 

[Mysteria]

Will sound wierd to some and quite normal to others but our "dating" was basically online and via the phone. Though, in a year and bit, we got toghether in person for 12 weeks or so before we got married. Since we got married nothig lengthy apart. Guess my thinking is if we could survive early on a long distance relationship I'd hope we could do it again.

 

[jsmith]

umm not all of it voluntarily-but we are going on 6 years of full or part time geographical seperation-Hubby got called up and deployed to iraq in fall of 03-while he was gone-oct of 04 i got laid off from a job i had had for 11 years-when he returned his civilian employer sent him on a six month temp assignment to Salt Lake ( we lived in Denver). Mean while my severance and unemployment ran out and i was not finding a job in IT in denver-so i started looking with defense contractors in Colorado Springs-got a really good job here in Oct of 05. The original plan was that i would get a studio here and commute home weekends til the end of the 05-06 school year and we would move here-but our son was going to be a senior so we opted to continue that til he graduated in spring of 07. Got the kid out of school and put our house on the market-but it had slowed and house was on the market for 7 months-for the first 4 hubby was here two days a week and i commuted to denver on weekends. Feb of 08 he got activated again-for a year before Deployment to help unit prep-his Guard unit is in Cheyenne wyoming. House sold in April-so then he was living in Cheyenne and i was living in Colorado Springs and we alternated weekends. April of this year he went on federal acrtive duty and got sent back to Iraq. When he gets back he will continue to be on active duty to support training of other mobilizing soldiers for up to two years-but then he can take active duty retirement-but not return to his civilian job-there for i need to keep mine.-sigh.

 

[emdav]

Dh often has work assignments that require him to be gone. His company will pay to send him home every third weekend. He missed months 1-6 of our daughter's life. She would have nothing to do with him when he finally did come home for good.

The kids and I just took a 13 day trip without him. That's probably our longest separation that wasn't work related. It's not uncommon for me to take trips to see my family without him. I love road trips and it's hard for him to take that much time off work.

 

[Mysteria]

Dh often has work assignments that require him to be gone. His company will pay to send him home every third weekend. He missed months 1-6 of our daughter's life. She would have nothing to do with him when he finally did come home for good.

The kids and I just took a 13 day trip without him. That's probably our longest separation that wasn't work related. It's not uncommon for me to take trips to see my family without him. I love road trips and it's hard for him to take that much time off work.

This kind of thing makes me so sad.

 

[wdwfan16]

apart voluntarily? DH may have to move to Dallas for a job. We have agreed for me to stay here tho so DS16 can finish high school. So we are talking 2 years minimum. I also have a pretty good career going here that I am reluctant to leave. No, our marriage is not the best so in some ways the time apart may be beneficial. Give us both time to think. anyway, just wondering about others experiences.

Being apart is very stressful on a marriage. If you marriage has problems it is very possible this will end it. If that is something that you can accept then it is worth trying, especially if you have a good job and would want to keep it if the marriage ended. Also where your primary residence is will determine where you get to file your paperwork.

DH and I have never been apart for more than 10 days and at the end of the10 days we were both miserable. Now we will not be apart for more than 4 nights. That seems to be our limit. Of course if a special case occurred we would make the most of it.

How often will your DH come back into town?

 

[KristaTX]

We sold the house and the kids

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Very funny, Krista.

 

[CruiserMom]

Close to 4.5 years. Sort of.

DH was in National Guard, got called up and given a job in Washington DC. We live in SC. Normally, he is in DC 5 nights, home 3 nights, back in DC 5 nights, etc.

There are times, like right now, when he is gone for 2 weeks before he gets 3 days off to come home. That is usually due to staffing problems, or when he takes extra time off for vacation, and has to make it up before or after.

He has a "job" at home that he is "on military leave" from, but with the economy the way it is, we are sticking with the sure thing! We have one DD, and yes, the day to day job of raising her falls on me, plus I work part-time.

I decided long ago that we had it much better than some military families, where the dad or mom gets sent halfway around the world, and is gone for months and months at a time, and is in constant danger. My DH works a desk job in DC, and gets to call every day, and come home often, so we have no complaints!