Perhaps you’re a veteran business traveller who recently got married or started cohabiting. Maybe you’ve been married for awhile and just got a new job that involves regular travel. No matter what you’re expecting, there will be things you didn’t expect when it comes to your relationship. From the Tag Along Travel archives, here’s what you need to know about marriage and business travel.
Relationships can suffer, but it’s not inevitable
How can an intimate relationship survive when you’re apart so much? True, it’s not easy, but with the right attitude and strategy, relationships that involve separation due to business travel can be just as strong.
Some people’s minds go immediately to the risk of infidelity due to frequent business travel and time apart. That happens a lot in the movies, but the statistical reality is actually different.
Related Posts:
6 Relationship Benefits of a Spouse’s Frequent Business Travel
Infidelity and Business Travel
Even if business travel keeps you apart, you can stay connected
Compared with 15 short years ago, the options for staying connected with loved ones abroad is remarkably easy today. You can video call each other, text message and follow each other’s lives on social media.
Related Posts:
Virtual Dating – Yes, it’s Weird, But it Works
Review – Can an App Really Help Your Relationship?
Business trip tag-alongs can help if you do it right
If your spouse is a frequent business traveller, tag along as often as you can. It’s not always possible but even one or two trips a year can be hugely beneficial to you both. BUT, being a tag-along spouse requires a certain attitude and a lot of independence, so be prepared.
Related Posts:
7 Reasons to Tag Along on Your Spouse’s Business Travel
How to Solve the 2 Biggest Challenges of Travelling with your Spouse on Business
Tips for Enjoying Business Conference Travel with your Spouse
Not everything is going to be picture perfect and that’s okay
No marriage, no relationship, is perfect. There will be ups and downs. That is especially true if faced with the challenge of being separated frequently or for long periods of time. Being alone on significant occasions can be a drag. Being the one left behind to deal with a crisis on the home front is also no picnic. One of the dynamics that I was surprised by in the early days of Steve’s frequent travel was the adjustment it required when he came back home. Weren’t we both supposed to be ecstatic about reuniting?
Surviving this stuff comes back to attitude again. Accepting that things won’t be smooth sailing all the time goes a long way.
Related Posts:
How to Survive Valentine’s Day (or any other “day”) Apart
The Adjustment Dance: When a Frequent Business Traveller Returns
6 pros and cons of life with a frequent business traveller
It helps to connect with others in the same boat/plane/train
Any time you’re in a unique and/or stressful situation, it helps to connect with others who are having similar experiences or have “been there.” That’s why I started Tag Along Travel. It’s been great growing a community through the blog over the past year and a half. If you’re a fellow tag-along traveller, thanks for visiting the site and I hope you’ll subscribe for email updates for new posts so we can continue the conversation together.
Marriage, with its everyday equation of radical proximity to another human is never going to fit nicely into our neat boxes of formulas and principled ideals. I get it. And, regardless of what we know before we get married or not, it is always going to have a way of stretching us — many times to the brink of wanting to give up. But perhaps with every misguided idea about marriage we replace with a more timeless one, the more natural the very unnatural art of loving another person becomes.
The readjustment to a returning spouse is all too real. It’s funny; you’re happy about having your spouse back, but at the same time, all of a sudden you’re back to sharing a bed, double the dishes, cooking for two. It normalizes quickly again, but that adjustment period is always surprising to me.
It’s a crazy thing, eh? It used to bewilder me at the beginning. Now, I’m ready for it, which makes it easy to handle.
[…] Marriage and business travel can be a challenging combination. But heartache and conflict are not inevitable when you know what to expect. […]