December Daily: commuter marriage

[resonant]

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.





1 -- goss, "VENOM! Why do you think it's been such an instant hit with Fandom, and what are some of your favourite fanworks so far?" and nestra, "Any Venom recs?"
2 -- anitac588, "How do you relate to different fandoms? Do you revisit them? Sometimes I find it difficult to go back to reading stories in 'old' fandoms after discovering new OTP."
3 -- marginaliana, "what is your favorite physical non-living thing? Not a person or a pet, but it could be something you own or a piece of art, etc."
4 -- cesperanza, "I'll ask an HP question, actually, because I wasn't really ever in it and I'm interested in the reactions of people who were. It seems to me from the outside so spectacularly meh now; like, it was the fictional equiv of Lost (which I also didn't watch) where it was fascinating as a piece of serialized fiction but where the execution simply couldn't live up to the collective imagination. Am I wrong?"
5 -- teigh_corvus, "Your thoughts on James Joyce and Ulysses."
6 -- kass, "If the you of 10 years ago could see you now, what would surprise her most?"
7 -- jjhunter, "What do you carry with you?"
8 -- mific, "Sounds like you commute to and fro still. How do you pass the time traveling? Music? Audiobooks? Something else? Any reccs? :)"
9 -- torch, "favorite advent songs!"
10 -- princessofgeeks, "How did you go about changing fandoms? Was it, historically, something you did or something that just happened? Did friends lure you? Did you find new shows to watch?"
11 -- reginagiraffe, "(It's MrGiraffe's birthday so...) Have you ever written a birthday themed story? If not, what couple would have the best/funnest/easiest birthday story to write and why?"
12 -- laurenthemself, "What are your thoughts on Thor: Ragnarok? I know ya boy Steve wasn't in it but did you have any shippy feelings?"
13 -- allheadybooks, "13. 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!"
14 -- schneefink, "how about your field of study/work/specialization/hobby and how a book/movie/series/canon got it terribly/hilariously wrong?"
15 -- china_shop, "What hooks you into a fanfic? Is it banter, characterisation, tropes, or...? Is it different from what hooks you into original fic?"
16 -- muccamukk, "Describe a long fic you always wanted to write, but never have and likely never will."
17 -- ride_4ever, "rec two due South fanworks: a favorite that you created and a favorite that someone else created. (Anything! Triggers and squicks not a concern for me.)"
18 -- kass, "What have you read recently that you've enjoyed?
19 -- jjhunter, "What are five words you like or find especially meaningful + 1 word you despise? Why?"
20 -- terminally_underwhelmed, "do you have fandom/character/relationship "types" that you find all your fannish energy going towards? Like, Gryffinpuff/Slytherclaw (and more simply hot/cold) relationships grab me, and so do characters that are both super popular and super ooc in fanworks.'
21 --
22 -- mekare, What would Ben Fraser do in 2018?
23 -- marina, "What was the last book you read that wasn't fanfic and that you intensely loved, and why."
24 -- wychwood, "Something about SGA! What's the one fic you're sorry you never wrote? What was your favourite episode? Do you still love John/Rodney? How gay WAS John Sheppard? Where in Atlantis would you live if you could pick any room you liked? Pick one or a topic of your choice."
25 -- isabellerecs, "What was your most favorite Christmas present that you ever received as a kid?" and/or "What Christmas present had you wanted badly but never received as a kid?"
26 --
27 --destina, "how has your relationship to fandom changed over the years? By which I mean not just participation in it, but your level of tolerance/interest for the cyclical things about it, the way old arguments never really stop or die, etc, but also the ways fandom changes and new ways of doing fandom evolve. (And old ways evolve out, and terms evolve, etc.)"
28 -- kass, "What do you like best about where you live?"
29 --
30 -- china_shop, "Your favourite book you read this year."
31 -- wolfshark, "what is your favorite story to reread of your own stuff? what was your favorite story to write?"

Comments

[armadillo1976]

It sounds hard. Is there an end in sight, a time when you will be reunited? I had one year apart with my now-husband - not so much commuting as long-distance, because we were in two countries and could only afford to travel to see each other every 3 months or so - and the only thing that made it bearable was knowing that it is only for this one year, an then no more. I hope you have some timeline for when it is going to get better too!

[resonant]

Unfortunately, there's no real plan -- he likes everything about his job except this separation. That's a difficulty, too, because I like to have a plan!

[lunabee34]

That sounds difficult. :(

Did one of you have to move for work? That's pretty common in academia because it's so hard to get a job at the same institution as your spouse; Josh and I were really lucky.

[resonant]

Yeah, he's a Presbyterian pastor, so jobs are hard to come by. And the town he lives in is so small that there are no jobs for me there. It stinks, but it does help that it's common enough that people understand.

[lunabee34]

*nods nods*

[allheadybooks]

This is all highly relatable. I also hate having to choose between time with my wife and making friends in my new city! And you're right that quality time is so different from just being around.
The semester just wrapped up, so I'm back home until spring semester starts in mid-January, and the number one thing I'm looking forward to is NOT having to save up things to say on the phone, or info-dumping in texts, but just being able to idly chat about whatever's happening as it's happening in real time.

[resonant]

Yes! I miss that so much. Hope you enjoy your break!

[mekare]

Oh man that sounds hard. I do occasionally have the job-related long distance thing due to the SO being away for weeks (sometimes up to 6months) but at least we live in the same flat. But yes, I have done the two houses/flats thing too (though I at least had a housemate then, so I had someone to talk to ....). Ugh the worst is that there’s no end in sight, I agree.

[resonant]

I'm introverted enough that having no one to talk to isn't so much of a problem for me. In fact, I worry sometimes that I'll get to liking living alone too much.