Commuter Marriage

What can we learn from looking at married partners who live apart? In Commuter Spouses, Danielle Lindemann explores how couples cope when they live apart to meet the demands of their dual professional careers. Based on the personal stories of almost one-hundred commuter spouses, Lindemann shows how these atypical relationships embody (and sometimes disrupt!) gendered constructions of marriage in the United States. These narratives of couples who physically separate to maintain their professional lives reveal the ways in which traditional dynamics within a marriage are highlighted even as they are turned on their heads. Commuter Spouses follows the journeys of these couples as they adapt to change and shed light on the durability of some cultural ideals, all while working to maintain intimacy in a non-normative relationship. Lindemann suggests that everything we know about marriage, and relationships in general, promotes the idea that couples are focusing more and more on their individual and personal betterment and less on their marriage. Commuter spouses, she argues, might be expected to exemplify in an extreme manner that kind of self-prioritization. Yet, as this book details, commuter spouses actually maintain a strong commitment to their marriage. These partners illustrate the stickiness of traditional marriage ideals while simultaneously subverting expectations.

Long-distance relationships can be difficult. Whether you’re dating, long-married, one of you has been promoted to a different city, or you live a bi-coastal lifestyle, the information and guidelines in this book helps you keep your relationship connected when you’re disconnected.

This singular book describes various aspects of the commuting experience and delineates a process linking causes and consequences of commuting stress. The authors quote extensive survey data from metropolitan areas and examine literature on the known psychological, physiological, attitudinal, and behavioral consequences of commuting. They then provide a model integrating these variables. This comprehensive text features specific coping recommendations at the individual, governmental, and organizational levels.

Rohan and Ira's life takes an unexpected turn when Ira decides to leave for New York to study. They've been married for only fifteen months, but this is the opportunity of a lifetime, and Rohan is not going to come between his wife and her dream. So, sad but supportive, he stays back in Delhi. Rohan prepares for a year without Ira, getting by with a little help from his friends. Life without Ira is going surprisingly well. Until the day, that is, she reveals the real reason she left.

How does a couple stay connected when living apart is their norm? A super commuter is a person whose job is far enough away from home that they must live apart from their family for days or weeks at a time. During the past several years the number of super commuters in both the United States and abroad has risen exponentially. Through interviews with people from around the world as well as the author's personal experience as the wife of a super commuter and professional knowledge as a licensed therapist specializing in supporting super commuter couples, this book takes the reader behind the scenes of this lifestyle where they will find tips for strengthening relationships, insights on how to decide if super commuting is right for them, practical advice on how best to navigate a super commuter relationship, and six steps to help super commuter families cope with ambiguous loss.

Computers have changed not just the way we work but the way we love. Falling in and out of love, flirting, cheating, even having sex online have all become part of the modern way of living and loving. Yet we know very little about these new types of relationship. How is an online affair where the two people involved may never see or meet each other different from an affair in the real world? Is online sex still cheating on your partner? Why do people tell complete strangers their most intimate secrets? What are the rules of engagement? Will online affairs change the monogamous nature of romantic relationships? These are just some of the questions Professor Aaron Ben Ze'ev, distinguished writer and academic, addresses in this book, a full-length study of love online. Accessible, shocking, entertaining, enlightening, this book will change the way you look at cyberspace and love forever.