Commuter marriage?

yeah boom and eoe...you're both right about a room in someone's home. Just throwing thoughts out there.

An efficiency sounds good.

As far as it being a wash, even if it ended up costing a little more, there's the "what's your time worth" factor.

If you have unlimited cell phone minutes, you could do the "When Harry Met Sally" thing....remember how they would lie in bed in their apartments and watch movies together? Plus there's email. You could literally be anywhere and be talking to him in second. Really, he just physically wouldn't be there, and there's no worrying about car accidents because he's so tired trying to get home.

Like you said, he seemed relieved when the subject came up.

2 clarifications -- we weren't married yet but we WERE living together, and the insanity was more about two jobs in two cities and going to school in two cities simultaneously than the commute per se. If I'd been able to chill out for one of those halves, the whole thing would've been much more enjoyable.

Also, I had a room in someone's house for the Minneapolis legs, that sucked. I definitely felt like I was walking on eggshells -- perfectly nice person (who was happy to get full-time rent for a half-time tenant), but I was always aware of being a good guest and found it hard to relax.

Boomer--

The Commuter Marriage experiment is worth making.

Mo is still fragile and shifting schools is probably not in his best interests.

Hold your dominion.

I'm not at all sure what is going to happen. The Experiment is looking better and better though.

Mo is really the critical factor here. I already have a real iffy opinion of public schools and I don't want to move to an area with worse schools than the one he's in (which is top rated). The other side of the river has some great rated schools but every one of them are in neighborhoods where little houses are very expensive.

We could consider a lesser house and private schools I suppose.

<sigh>

This is all very difficult.

We did the commuter thing for, um, four months in 1994. I lived in Providence and RP was in NYC finishing up a job. He used to take the train every Friday to RI and then every Sunday he'd turn around and go back to NY. This was fine (kinda) except once it was a horrible snow storm and it was some six or seven hours of delay on top of the four it normally took (keep in mind this was before the Acela existed).

We did not have huge amounts of cash so flying was out of the question, as was the express train. I think I went to NY twice during that time period. I had the new job and the new apartment so I had to mainly take the weekends at home in order to get normal stuff done, like food shopping.

It was exhausting, and we were over 10 years younger then. Fortunately, it did not go on for very long. I cannot imagine doing it for a year or more.

Question: is it possible to just feel around the neighborhoods on the other side of the tracks? As in, look around a few weekends or so, with no expectations. Just, I saw a few houses online or in the paper, I'll take a look and see if they're okay or really frightfully expensive, etc. No obligation; you're just browsing. Heck, bring Mo along if you think he'd be okay with it. Not shopping, you're just looking at other people's houses.

There may be some bargains out there. Here, the bottom is beginning to drop out of the market. That may be the case there, too. So it may not be so outrageously expensive to move. Plus if you bring Mo along, he can see the area and it may not be so scary to visualize himself in it later, if it comes down to that some time in the future.

While I realize you don't want to spend all of your free time doing this, it is summer and so there's a lot of daylight and a lot of open houses out there. And Mo will be out and about anyway. If you were to end up moving, the summer is the time to do it, whether it's this summer or next but definitely summer is better if you can swing it.

I also realize you may want to give the commuter thing a try but I think that you should at least consider giving it some sort of an end point. It may be okay for a while, or even fun, but it may also get wearing. Not that the commuting isn't wearing, but there's no question that being apart is less than optimal, too. Really -- are you going to do this for a year? Two? The house won't move and I take it that the business won't, either. The roads won't get any shorter. The decision about moving is probably going to have to be made sooner or later. I know it's attractive to put it off but I doubt that it'll be put off forever.

I did the comute thing when I first started working plantations. It was ok for a while then the novelty wore off.

For about 3 years I would get up at 5.00 am (sometimes earlier) on a monday and drive to the next plantation. we (3 men) generally stayed in whatever caravan park was closest to the work site. When we finished a plantation we packed up and moved to the next one. Usually we knocked off early on a friday and drove home.
One think I will say is that sex was fabulous on a friday night or saturday morning.... or both! but it was hard to get out of bed on monday morning.

The other thing I think is relevent here is Mo changing schools. As a kid my family moved around the state. 4 different schools over my school years.

I hated it!

It seemed to take a few years until I had friends... real friends who you knew you could trust and depend on... then we would move again. and the whole process would start over.

I wonder how Mo will cope with another round of uprooting. Maybe it will be good for him to learn that just cause things change doesn't mean he will be abandoned.

I was an uprooted kid and was lonely to start with anyway. Each uprooting bettered my lot, generally speaking. But I'm not Mo. I see the wait until the following Fall. I also see him more imbedded where he is.

I don't think this is about money except that you can't just, oh, have two houses. Agree it is about mental health of all.'


I hate to sound all stupid, but on these kind of decisions, I've often tried things on, and then looked at what I felt the next morning, next afternoon, next evening.

Anyway, I'm not against the pied a terre in other part of town. Just wondering on the school thing.

Hmmm, a school in the middle?

But, I'm figuring you are not ready to jump schools yet, Boomer.

Added mulling. Lots of us have done extraordinary stuff when part of a young couple.

This is not to imply anything neg about boomer's marriage - indeed it seems quite sound and able to weather a lot.
and I think I hear that there different realms going already, while the realms are meeting happily.
Still, I wonder about more complete separation of realms.

It wouldn't be complete, though -- it would still be Friday afternoon to Monday late morning. That's not nothing.

I don't particularly have an opinion on this yet, so many variables.

Question for you boomer -- in terms of parenting, just that, does it sound like a relief or a burden to be on your own for most of the week? E.G. helps a ton, but in a lot of ways it is almost a relief when he travels (which he does, often) -- things get a little less complicated. We have dinner when we want to have dinner, we go to bed when we want to go to bed, etc., etc. Then he's home, and we're happy to see him.

More complete.

How more complete - people have moods, get isolated.

Sure, phone calls are good.

Lot of different goals going on.



This is surely not my business.

I'm just not saying all yayyyy.

Is anyone yayying, though...?

I get that there is an extraordinary effort involved in getting a business off the ground that can then be relaxed a bit once it's more established. As a time-limited thing, I can see it making sense.

Can definitely see that it's a hard decision, regardless.

I agree with what Jes has to say about just researching housing a bit, seeing what there is to see, making sure that all the info that goes into the decision is current and accurate.

If you can find a way not to comute, do it. My SO and I both comute long distances to work. It gets old fast. Try it for a while. If it works for you, great.

Every solution is imperfect:

We buy a million dollar house, send Mo to an "exceptional" public school and spend our days sweating over the mortgage and therefore never see Mr. B.

We buy a house near Mr. B's work and send Mo to a crap school. However, we do get to see Mr. B.

We stay here and Mr. B endures a four hour commute. We see him but when he's here he's exhausted.

Me and Mo stay here, Mr. B takes an apartment. We see him on weekends.

Or we settle. Settle for a mediocre house in a mediocre school district and we each quietly resent the other for settling on mediocracy.

Our city is very much determined by geography because of the river. There are two ways across to where Mr. B needs to go. Either way takes forever.

Could our marriage handle it? It has survived bigger challenges like long separations and having a baby left on our doorstep so yeah, our marriage could survive not seeing each other a few days a week. Even with him coming home every night now we don't really see each other.

I know it would be easier for him. In some ways it would be easier for me. In no ways would it be easier for Mo even though it might be easier on Mo. He adores Mr. B. The feeling is mutual.

I would LOVE to start packing today. Changing schools before the start of first grade would be ideal. A lot of kids enter public school in first grade as kindergarten isn't mandatory and a lot of kids go to private kindergartens because they last all day.

Even if I did 90% of the work involved in moving, provided we found a house in a good district, it would still be expecting a lot of Mr. B to move his house and his business within the save summer.

Sorry this is scattered. My thoughts are all over the place on this.

Yayyys? Well, no, but I saw a lot of uniform agreement for quite a while.
Whatever works out, surely fine with me. If I give a qualm, I mean a qualm... usually, however well or not so well that applies.

Keep talking, boomer. You'll settle on something.

Whatever decision you make will be the right decision at the time. There are never any guarantees in the decisions we make. Think it through, decide on something with a combination of your heart, brain, and a dash of hope and give it your best shot.

If it doesn't work out then you regroup and make another choice.

Is there any way to get closer to where Mr. B will be working, and still stay in the same school district? Split the difference on the commute a bit? A little more travel time for you and Mo, a little less for Mr. B.

I don't really see any serious downside to the 'couple' on this sort of thing, but once kids are involved, my perspective changes.

What would work best for Mo - more time with dad, or more quality time with dad? What seems like it would make him less antsy?

Is the neighbourhood more important than Mo's experience as a member of a family?

What does Mo think? I'm sure he's got some opinions on the subject of dad travelling/being home more/less often.

Those are really good questions, eBeth. I wish I'd seen them last night so I would have had a chance to sleep on them! I'll go for the quick answer now but I'm going to mull them over for a bit too.

Elementary school districts are tiny. Several schools funnel into middle school and several of those funnel into high schools. But even if Mo were in high school we couldn't really reduce the commute time and stay in the district. Mo's school is three blocks north of my house. Two blocks west is a different school district -- even though they are really closer to the school. Crazy.

I'm torn between quality and quantity. They're both very important.

Neighborhood is VERY important and probably the biggest reason that we would consider a commuter marriage. Is it as important as a sense of family? That sounds like an easy question to answer "no, neighborhood isn't as important" but it really isn't that easy. This is one I need to think on a bit.

Mo does have opinions. We browsed through a few neighborhoods last weekend and while driving through one particularly elegant one Mo says "Let's move here!" I said "Yeah!" Mr. B said "You two have lost your minds."

I mentioned to Mo that moving would mean -- a new school - different neighbors - blahblahblah - and he said "Oh. Then let's not move here."

He does have a say in it but ultimately it has to be my and Mr. B's decisions.

Funny. It almost seems like giving Mr. B permission to concentrate on work has given him a focus on us.

Men.

What strange creatures.

Anyway, at his request I have sent him my top 7 list of schools within an easy commute to his new work location.

He used to do real estate so he's familiar with different areas of town. He still has a lot of friends in real estate soo.....

He left a cute little RMLS listing up on our computer this morning to see what I thought of it. Expensive but darling. Who knows?

Have I ever mentioned what a great guy he is?

Strange creature. Great guy.

so whatcha thinking now?

just wondering - are your school districts sorted by where you pay taxes? would it be worth having a small property for tax purposes to keep/get Mo into the district you want.

Friends of mine in my hometown did that - kept a small rental property in town so their kids could go to the 'right' schools.