bout de papier, Vol. 4, No. 2 (1986) — Spring/Summer 1986 // Printemps/Été 1986, p. 5
Three of us sat warming in the spring sun, idly sorting through the shards of departmental gossip and family news.
“I heard Gordie was offered Ginawago,” offered Grace.
“He’ll turn it down. He and Willardson don’t get along,” countered Jeene.
“Kowpat is open. Mardien is coming out early. Gordie could go as number two,” I speculated.
The coffee cooled and the smoke curled as we turned this possibility into cud.
It was Grace who dropped the bombshell.
“They offered us Jumpoff. Marco accepted. I’ve decided not to go.”
Caution and curiosity kept us silent. Not knowing why Grace had reached this decision, there didn’t seem to be anything appropriately neutral to say.
While waiting for Grace to offer some explanation for this state of affairs, my mind turned back a quarter of a century to when work and study had forced me into a long distance relationship.
Long distance loving – the wrench of partings, the passion of reunions, the agony of waiting for letters. I remembered wryly the night I broke my toe on the door jamb as I rushed to a 2 a.m. phone call and the anxious, dangerous drive over the icy airport road before I could throw myself into his arms.
That is the stuff of young lovers, not staid middle-aged married ladies. Marriage was supposed to do more than cut down the phone bill; it was to allow us to share our lives together and fulfil those “whither thou goest” vows.
What had happened to make voluntary separation a serious option when confronted with a foreign service posting?
Grace explained her reasons.
“My oldest boy starts university in September, my daughter is about to produce my first grandchild, and Marc dr. has one more year of high school. Besides, they offered me the position of buyer for all three stores come July. I can’t turn it down.
“Marco retires in five years but I can work another ten. If I quit now …”
We nodded our heads in understanding and commiseration.
No longer is this dilemma the purview of “career-oriented younger spouses”, tresh out of university and disciples of the feminist movement. As the posting season wends its inexorable way through the spring calendar, more than a few of the “older wives” will also be considering commuter marriage as a serious option.
There are as many reasons as there are commuter couples. Conflicting career commitments, child care and education requirements, medical reasons. More recently for the middle-aged middle class, there is fear for a financially secure future. Pensions are proving not to be enough, marriages are ending after decades of apparent solidity, education and medical costs are rising, facilities for the elderly are scarce and of uncertain quality, widows are on welfare after years of comfortable living.
Being half a separated couple is worse than being single. When separated, each partner becomes, in effect, single without the rights and privileges pertaining thereto. If one of the partners has the care of the children, they become, in addition, a single parent with all those trials and responsibilities.
No one wants to make this decision. It is fraught with risk for the relationship. I feel that anyone making it must be able to answer, “Yes,” to the question, “Is my staying here more important than my marriage?”
Is there any way to avoid some of the pitfalls of separation? A search of some of the available literature on commuter marriages turned up some trends, if not any solid statistics.
There seem to be some factors that increase the success rate of long distance relationships. The more of these indicators for success that exist in a commuter arrangement, the better the prognosis.
Some of the positive factors are:
1. mutual agreement that the reason for the separation is valid
2. a shared reason for separation, for example, child care
3. that it is the only satisfactory solution available
4. that the separation is a temporary situation which will be followed by a life together
5. that both partners continue to regard this as their primary relationship and find it adequte to their needs
6. when both remain satisfied with the situation and the reasons for its existence (frequent, honest reassessment)
7. when no children are involved
8. when the distance between the partners is not too great, for example, Ottawa- New York is better than Ottawa-Lima
9. frequent reunions, phone calls and a continuance of courtship patterns (remembering special dates, gifts, love letters, etc.)
Long distance relationships in the foreign service have to defy several of the general predictors for success. The channels for physical reunion, voice communication and other tangible means of continuing the relationship remain limited by long distances and high costs.
Another difference for foreign service people is that it is not a traditional part of the career and no protocols have been established for managing it. For example, the family support network that kicks into gear for military spouses does not exist. In fact, this has been one of the unresolved conundrums within the foreign service for years — how to get all the benefits of a paternalistic service without the restrictions.
To be classed as a viable option for foreign service people the outcome would have to be an employee who remains rotational and a relationship that continues.
I suspect that commuter marriage as a long term answer to the difficulties of foreign service life is probably short lived, at least to the individuals involved. It is such an imminently awful solution that most people will try it only once.
But the numbers who try it are on the increase.
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Originally published in bout de papier, Vol. 4, No. 2 (1986) — Spring/Summer 1986 // Printemps/Été 1986, p. 5. Read the rest of this issue →
