December Daily: commuter marriage

allheadybooks, "What's your least favorite thing about splitting your time between two houses? (My wife and I are also in a commuter marriage at the moment, and I get so frustrated every weekend when I have to go grocery shopping AGAIN because I thought I had eggs but that was at the other apartment!"

Where do I begin?

I hate trying to cook in a kitchen that isn't my kitchen, and I hate the way my kitchen tools are all scattered -- the roasting pan is in the Spousehouse but the stockpot and the fat separator are in my apartment. I'm spoiled and don't like to make bread without my stand mixer, which lives at my place, but if I make homemade bread at my place, two-thirds of the loaf will get stale because I just don't eat that much bread.

Also, I'm still shopping for a family and throwing away masses of wilted lettuce every week.

I hate always being separated from one of my cats.

I'm actually starting to spend more weekends in the apartment, even though I miss the spouse terribly, because I just need to live where I live; if I'm away every weekend, I can't go to the farmer's market or garage sales, and it's hard to make friends other than the people I work with.

I hate that the only church I'm part of is an hour away. Church friends are that "loose network" that the social scientists say everyone needs -- I don't necessarily involve them in deep conversations or intense emotions, but if I'm looking for someone who can teach me to sharpen a lawn mower blade or someone who can connect me with a possible work contact or someone to call when I've locked my keys in the car, it's great to have that big community.

I hate talking on the phone. I hate it so much. But it's that or have no contact with the spouse at all.

I think what I hate the most, though, is missing the unstructured, un-meaningful, low-density interactions that you have when you live in the same house -- when you're not conversing or working together, but you're just quietly making two cups of coffee instead of one, or looking up from a book to read someone one line.

We make 'quality time' for ourselves, but I miss the time that was just time.



( Click for question list. Still 4 days left to fill. )