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By CityTownInfo.com Staff
June 29, 2009
Couples searching for jobs are being forced to live separately at times so that one spouse can be employed in a location far from home.
The Wall Street Journal reports on some evidence indicating that more people are taking jobs away from their families: Oakwood Worldwide, which provides corporate temporary housing, saw a 6 percent increase in rentals of furnished apartments--a number they attribute to more people accepting temporary positions away from home. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for ITT Corp. noted that 13 percent of employees were relocated in 2008, and that many opted to move themselves while having their families remain in different states.
Clete and Kim are one such example. Southeastern Pennsylvania's Doylestown Intelligencer reports that after Clete completed the nursing program at Bucks County Community College, he was unable to find work within 40 miles of his home. He finally took a job at a nursing home four hours away, and rented an apartment away from Kim, who works as a nurse at a hospital close to their home.
Clete chose to study nursing because he had hoped for a more secure job after being employed in a more tenuous manufacturing career. "That was the main reason I went into this field," he said. "I was a machinist for 23 years and kept getting laid off or menial jobs. This was supposed to be a recession-proof job."
Clete's move away from home has made the couple feel like their marriage is on hold. But they say the challenge has made their marriage stronger.
Nevertheless, such working and living arrangements undoubtedly take their toll on families. The Wall Street Journal notes that according to the Rand Corp. think tank, spouses who stayed at home in military families with a member stationed far away tended to have poorer mental health. Additionally, the children were reported to have more behavioral and emotional difficulties than those in the general population.
Yet those looking for work say they have no choice but to look elsewhere for employment, and hope that the situation will be a temporary one. "You take work where you can get it," explained Cathey Beaty, who was quoted in The Journal. Her husband, Jerry, took a job erecting wind turbines in Big Spring, Texas, and lives at an RV park in his camper two hours away from his home in Abilene, Texas. "You don't like it," she said, "but you suck it up; that's what you do."
Barry Ginsberg, who directs the Center of Relationship Enhancement in Doyletown, Pennsylvania, told the Intelligencer that for a commuter marriage to work, couples must stay connected emotionally while they are apart. He noted that financial stress, job pressure and the strain of traveling can easily take its toll on couples.
"A marriage is difficult enough without having to have all these extra pressures on us," he said.
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