Commuter Marriages Test More Americans 1/9/00

[owner-smartmarriages]

from: Smart Marriages

Dear CMFCE, 
This thread about how we use the skills in our own marriages/relationships
- or sometimes fail to use them - reminds me to tell you that there will
be a workshop exploring these issues.  "How Your Marriage Impacts Your
Teaching of Marriage Education, and Vice Versa" - it will include lots
of time for discussion and should be a very interesting enjoyable 
session. 
_____________________
<< Get the point?  We're human and we should be letting the people in our 
courses know that no matter how skilled they become, they're going to get 
it 
wrong sometimes.  Teach them how to get back on track.  And then do our 
best 
to practice what we teach.  
Michele Weiner-Davis >>

Michele--
    This makes good sense to me. We're all in a "learning experience" and 
change is hard for all of us.
    Sometimes what also helps (my husband and me, but also working with 
clients in therapy) is to be able to notice how long or short a time it 
took 
to "get back on track," whether it was a shorter time frame than the 
time(s) 
before, and then to give oneself credit (validation) if it was less time 
(even by a minute!). I think that serves as an accomplishment, gives a 
sense 
of optimism and empowerment (I really dislike this word--hackneyed, but 
it's 
in vogue, and describes this concept well). This validation is very 
similar 
to what you describe in your books as stressing the positive, the 
strengths.
    I've seen couples work with each other on how much shorter time it 
takes 
each of them to get back on track each time. I think that's really good, 
since they're both aware of working on the issues. They feel joint 
responsibility for the marriage, and it adds a really neat quality for 
them, 
as they tell me.
    Thanks for your honesty.
        Alice Graubart
____________
The following came in as part of an email this week. The writer is talking
about the session LifePartnerQuest by David Steele.

 It prompts me to mention a request for ideas about how singles might 
meet each other at the Smart Marriages conference.  There are lots of 
singles who attend and many have asked 
that we schedule events that might help them meet.  They say they love 
the conference and  this group of people who think about relationships in 
the right way, but have no way to know who is single and no way to meet 
them.  

There have also been requests for ways for those
who aren't single, but are just attending alone, to connect with 
colleagues --to have 
people to discuss ideas with.  

Two different requests with two different goals.   
Please send me any and all "networking" ideas. What has worked at other 
conferences?  What might work at ours?  

If you hit the reply button
your comment only goes to me.  I will keep the ideas confidential and ask
your permission if there are any I want to share with the list.  (Also, 
it helps
me when any of you write in if you say that I may share or may not share 
your comment.) -
diane sollee 
>Diane,
. . . 
> I'm cleaning slates and thinking totally differently about how to go about
>deciding who I can be happy with. I learned this from the guy from the West
>Coast who gave a talk at smartmarriages and was doing relationship
>counseling around the idea of helping singles find the right person. That's
>another way of working on the divorce rate. 
>Anyway, I found that tape very helpful. I am optimistic about being able to
>select a suitable mate and being able to resolve future conflict. 
>In case you can't tell, the conference was a very good thing for me. 

_________________


Saturday, January 9, 2000 - Christian Science Monitor

Commuter Marriages Test More Americans

By Francine Kiefer, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

Amid packing boxes and furniture they hadn't seen since Little Rock days, 
the Clintons awoke Thursday to a new phase in their life: the commuter 
marriage. 

But while they're now the nation's highest-profile commuter couple - and 
the first presidential duo in which the wife has moved out of the White 
House - there are millions more Americans like them. Sort of. 

Long-distance marriages are on the rise in the United States, reflecting 
an era of dual-income households and of women, like Mrs. Clinton, 
pursuing careers of their own. 

The trend is driven by a host of factors, including convenient jet travel 
and couples having fewer children. But even as it opens career doors, 
experts say it can strain marriages at a time when Americans seem more 
concerned about family breakdown. 

Commuter marriages are especially prevalent among educated professionals, 
like the Clintons, who either don't have children or whose children have 
left the nest, say sociologists and psychologists. 

And it tends to involve lines of work that offer some flexibility, such 
as politics, journalism, or academia. 

In fact, "commuter marriages are a regular feature of political life," 
says Judith Wallerstein, author of "The Good Marriage" (Warner Books). 
Legislators typically divide their time between a home district and their 
offices in Congress or a statehouse. 

But unlike the president and first lady, most couples who work in 
separate cities can't call up a motorcade or military jet to get home 
whenever they want - or send the bill to taxpayers. And, unlike the 
president, most spouses left holding down the fort probably don't have 
cooks, gardeners, and other help to take care of all the household 
duties. 

"[The Clintons] have access to transportation and to various resources 
that most people just don't have," says Naomi Gerstel, a sociologist at 
the University of Massachusetts in Amherst who studies commuter 
marriages. 

In 1998, 2.4 million Americans said they were married but that their 
spouses did not live at home, a 21 percent increase from four years 
before, according to the US Census Bureau. These were not people who 
considered themselves "separated" - which implies a troubled marriage. 

Sociologists like Ms. Gerstel caution that these data include military 
couples who spend long periods apart. Still, anecdotal evidence confirms 
that the trials of long-distance relationships are spreading far beyond 
military ranks. 

How well these marriages work, however, is another question. 

Tremendous stress can bear down on these relationships. There are two 
residences and schedules to coordinate. Travel and phone costs increase. 
If the situation goes on for years, each person can develop a separate 
life that becomes unknowable to their partner. Worries about infidelity 
increase. 

And if there are young children involved - the greatest challenge of all, 
according to experts - the person left at home inevitably bears the brunt 
of raising those children. 

Still, everyone interviewed for this story agreed that, while a commuter 
marriage can speed a divorce - the outcome for half of all US marriages - 
it is usually not the underlying cause of one. 

"The substance of marriage is dependent on other things," says the Rev. 
James Ford, who, as 21-year chaplain for the US House of Representatives, 
has heard an earful about the strains of weekend flights back home and 
long stretches on the campaign trail. 

Anne Northrup, a congresswoman from Kentucky, says it's her rock-solid 
marriage of 30 years, and the fact that five of her six children are up 
and out, that account for a commuter marriage that "works really well." 

She would never have run for Congress when her kids were small, says this 
Republican, who has been commuting between Louisville and Washington for 
three years. 

But now she's in a new phase of her life, one in which she can work 
straight through till midnight if she wants to. Still, she gets homesick 
in her studio apartment, especially when it's the end of the 
congressional year and she's having to spend five days a week or longer 
in Washington. 

"In the last three or four weeks, every time I would find myself coming 
through the airport, coming home, with the biggest grin on my face, and 
leaving on Monday choking back tears," she says. 

The president and first lady say they will try and see each other as much 
as they can, though it wasn't until the last minute that the president 
decided he could accompany his wife as she moved into their five-bedroom 
Dutch colonial on Old House Lane in Chappaqua, N.Y. 

While gossips wag about the implications for the Clinton marriage, the 
White House and others point out that the first couple won't necessarily 
spend more time apart now. Last year alone, Mr. Clinton made more than 80 
visits to various states sans Hillary. 

He also spent about 30 days overseas without his wife - and that doesn't 
count the trips she made without him. 

"Whatever you can say about them, I guess it's true that somehow, one way 
or another, they've made some kind of emotional, psychological, or just 
physical accommodation for being apart over quite a significant period of 
time," says Barbara Defoe Whitehead, of Rutgers University's National 
Marriage Project. "You could argue that proves it can be done, or you 
could argue that's one of the problems." 



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