Abstract
the rise of commuter marriage reflects decades of social change in women’s workplace participation, american individualism, technological saturation, bureaucratic hurdles, and the symbolic significance of marriage itself.
Alexis and Jim enjoyed grocery shopping together. Though they lived nearly fourteen hours apart in travel time, the couple would connect virtually via Facetime—she on her iPhone, he on his tablet—and stride down their respective supermarket aisles, selecting food. Later, at their respective homes, they would cook meals “together.”
Lively and jokingly self-deprecating in her interview, Alexis (a government employee in her mid-twenties) frequently spoke about her love for Jim (an engineer) and her excitement about their future. Describing herself as “a homebody,” she told me that, while she was away from Jim, she did not go out on the weekends. “I’d rather just sit and watch a movie and have him on Facetime. And even though he’s not here, just having his little face on the screen—just to know that he’s there [is important].” When I interviewed Alexis and Jim, they had been married for about two and a half years and were now living apart for the second time. They had no children, though both indicated that they planned to, when they reunited.
Ted, a corporate executive in his mid-fifties, similarly explained that he and his wife Ramona communicated often, sending “a lot of” emails back and forth and talking on the phone three or four times a day. The trip between their two homes could take anywhere from less than an hour to more than two hours, depending on the time of day. Ted typically made that drive, and the couple saw each other three or four days a week. Ted and Ramona had grown children, who were now out of the house.
“We probably communicate, via different media, as much when we’re apart as we would if we saw each other an hour or two or three every night,” Ted told me, clarifying that these “different media” ranged from email and the phone to an online word game they played together remotely. Later in our phone interview, when we had moved on to a different topic, he paused mid-speech: “I just got an email from my wife,” he said, “if you want to know for your record.”
From 2012 to 2013, I interviewed 97 people who lived apart from their spouses due to the geographic incompatibility of their professional careers. These so-called commuter spouses, like Alexis, Jim, Ted, and Ramona, often emphasized their “constant” communication, describing how it facilitated their ability to remain integrated in each other’s lives even when they were apart.
To be sure, commuter spouses are not representative of all couples who live apart in the U.S. today—or even all married couples who live apart for work-related reasons. The people I interviewed, in general, were relatively well-educated (71% had graduate degrees), self-identified as White or Caucasian (93%), and were not in dire financial straits. Yet, in other ways, they are a uniquely illuminating population. Commuter spouses sit at the crux of broad structural and cultural changes related to marriage and the family that have been occurring in the United States since the 1970s. Examining an extreme result of these changes—spouses who must geographically separate in order to reconcile work and family—enables us to better understand these historical dynamics.
In particular, these couples reflect the shift toward greater autonomy within marriage, but also how new technologies enable family members to remain integrated in each other’s lives. When it comes to the historical dynamics of marriage and the family, commuter spouses embody both the current sweeping us forward and the ties that lash us to the past.
New Families, Changing Dynamics
Historically, couples have lived apart for all sorts of reasons—for instance, immigration, military deployment, incarceration, institutionalization, marital discord, and non-marital long-distance relationships. However, the appearance of dual-income married couples who live apart in service to both spouses’ professional jobs is a relatively recent phenomenon, born out of a specific concatenation of social forces.
Living apart from a spouse can support Americans’ desire for individuality, even in a family structure.
The Preiser Project, Flickr CC
For one thing, wives have entered the workforce in greater numbers. In 1970, 41% of married women in the U.S. were working for pay. That figure had grown to 50% by 1980, and by 2010, to 61%. Women, too, are outpacing men in terms of educational attainment. According to the Pew Research Center, between 1994 and 2012 the share of young women who were enrolled in college immediately out of high school increased from 63% to 71%; for men, the portion remained constant at 61%.
Some couples share meals or watch movies remotely by keeping a computer or other device close at hand.
Magdalena Roeseler, Flickr CC
Alongside these changes in gender roles, families are now embedded within tighter, more competitive job markets, with more workers experiencing greater employment instability. The U.S. economy increasingly relies upon contingent, shorter-term positions in the place of long-term, stable employment. Further, the increased specialization of higher education and the professions has had a particular impact on the career prospects of professional workers. Ironically, by going to school, investing time and capital, and receiving advanced degrees in highly specialized fields, these workers have in some ways reduced their options (or at least their perceptions of their options), rather than expanding them. Commuter spouses reflect these dynamics. Indeed, based on data from the 2000 U.S. Census, economist Marta Murray-Close found that marital non-cohabitation was more common among workers with doctorates than workers whose highest level of education was an undergraduate degree. While we do not know how many of these couples were commuter spouses and how many were living apart for other reasons, these findings perhaps indicate that highly educated professional couples are more likely to get pulled apart by specialized labor markets.
Both individualistic and interdependent, both freed by technology and bound by its limitations, commuter spouses tell the story of a changing institution.
In addition to these structural shifts, the meaning of marriage has also undergone some core changes. One obvious example is the fight for marriage equality and the legal affirmation of same-sex marriage. Also, Americans have come to view marriage as more “individualized.” Scholars suggest that, since the latter part of the 20th century, men and women began entering into the institution increasingly for the emotional support, intimacy, and romantic love it provided—and increasingly felt free to exit their relationships when they weren’t receiving these benefits anymore. As sociologist Andrew Cherlin has observed, the two partners have become decreasingly interdependent and less likely than spouses in the past to focus on conforming to socially-defined roles, such as the “good parent” or “dutiful spouse”; instead, “personal choice and self-development loom large” in today’s marriages. Other researchers, too, have found persistent trends toward emphases on personal choice, gender equality, and individual decision-making within marriages. Within individualized marriage—as the moniker suggests—spouses, more than ever, remain two distinct individuals pursuing their own goals.
Putting the “I” in Marriage
Commuter marriages are not only born of these major shifts in the shape and meaning of American marriage—the movement toward gender equality, an increasingly specialized professional workforce, and a heightened emphasis on individual choice and personal decision-making—but they also illuminate these changes in a unique way. In particular, spouses who live apart in service to the conflicting demands of their dual careers become key players in the overall drama of marital individualization, and their relationships serve as laboratories in which we can investigate these social changes in an amplified form.
Indeed, when commuters spoke with me about their marriages, many specifically emphasized how individualistic their relationships were. They indicated that they were suited for this lifestyle because they were already highly autonomous. For instance, Virginia, a small-business owner in her late thirties, described herself as “independent” and driven in her career. Her description of her marriage was consistent with her husband Bob’s. When I asked how he and his wife relied on each other, Bob characterized that as a “hard question,” proclaiming, “We’re both pretty independent!” He then launched into the friendly laughter that often punctuated our interview. When talking about their marriage, Virginia and Bob both emphasized autonomy, personal growth, and romantic love—concepts that resonate strongly with Cherlin’s notion of the individualized marriage in which “personal choice and self-development loom large.”
Virtually Together
Based on this evidence, it might be tempting to think of commuters only as embodiments of individualized marriage and to close the book on them. After all, these are spouses who are so invested in their personal career goals that they don’t even live together all of the time. And, importantly, most of these couples are not separated due to extreme financial constraints; the vast majority told me that they lived apart to fulfill their individual career aspirations, not for strictly monetary reasons. (In fact, some emphasized that they actually lost money by maintaining two residences.)
Yes, commuter spouses tend to reflect and to value spousal autonomy. But when we zoom in on these relationships and look at the nuance, we begin to see that, perhaps paradoxically, commuter spouses still do think of themselves as highly connected to their partners, despite their geographic separation. Indeed, through communication technologies, they are able to feel “together” in many ways, even when physically they are not.
Commuter spouses can log hours in their cars and on Facetime, keeping up family connections.
Sparky, Flickr CC
For example, in addition to their Facetime grocery trips, Alexis and Jim both noted other ways that they remained in touch during the time they were apart. Alexis, for instance, emphasized that, the day I interviewed her, she and Jim had talked on the phone three times already. She added that she appreciated the “constant contact” they had, even if it only consisted of him texting “I love you” or the lyrics to a song. In his interview, Jim concurred, further suggesting that the distance had improved the couple’s communication in some ways. “I actually think it’s made us closer over the years,” he told me.
Many of the themes that Alexis and Jim discussed—for instance, the “constant” nature of their contact, the use of technology to facilitate interconnectedness, and the way the distance “forced” them to communicate—reflected what many other commuters told me as well. Most said, while living apart, they spoke with their spouses by phone at least once a day, and about 38% indicated that they generally talked by phone three or more times a day. Phone calls, texting, and email were the most frequently used forms of communication.
Commuter spouses sit at the crux of broad structural and cultural changes related to marriage and the family that have been occurring in the United States since the 1970s.
But perhaps more revealing than the number of times they phoned their partners was the fact that many felt that their overall communication was continual. For example, Josie, a professor in her early fifties who had been in a commuter marriage for six years, told me that she was in touch with her husband “during our waking hours, constantly.” Indicating that they talked on the phone “every two hours,” she laughed and added, “Cell phones, you know? He has an iPad, [and] I have an iPad. We Facetime. I just Facetimed with him before I saw you. I’ve talked to him three times today and it’s, what, 12:30 [p.m.]?” Many commuter spouses, like Josie, used words like “constant,” “continued,” or “ongoing” to describe how often they were in touch with their spouses. Communication technologies, furthermore, were not merely for talking but became crucial for collectively managing tasks as a couple. Despite their seemingly autonomous relationships, commuter spouses still relied on each other while apart, in many ways.
The utility of communication technologies extended beyond these couples to their children as well. About 37% of the people I interviewed had minor children at the time they lived apart from their spouses. These parents gave rich accounts of the various ways in which they used technologies to stay in touch with their kids while living elsewhere. I heard stories about chatting on cell phones in airports, Facetiming with astounded toddlers, and texting teenagers from the office. Further, when commuter parents discussed their virtual reliance on each other, collective childrearing was a major element of that discussion. Commuters used technologies to check in with each other about their children’s well-being, to coordinate schedules, to pay for extracurricular activities, to look at grades, and to engage in numerous other collective parenting tasks.
Highly educated professional couples are, perhaps, more likely to get pulled apart by specialized labor markets.
To a large extent, the continued interdependence between spouses (and between parents and children) while living apart was possible because of technology. The advantages of these new forms of communication were particularly salient for couples who had lived apart both before and after such resources were available. One woman had lived apart from her husband in the 1980s and was doing it again when I interviewed her. She underscored the difference in the two experiences: unlike last time, now she and her husband were “constantly” in touch and “sometimes it felt like he wasn’t even really gone.”
Commuter spouses clearly demonstrate that caring, committed connection can come in many forms.
Brandon King, Flickr CC
This historical evolution also comes into stark relief when we look at earlier scholarship on this same topic. For instance, researchers Naomi Gerstel and Harriet Gross, who studied commuter marriage in the 1980s, observed that one downside of this lifestyle was the loss of shared leisure time. As one of their interviewees explained, “If I wanted to go to a movie, I wouldn’t go there by myself… I don’t get out a whole lot these days.” Today, commuter spouses can share activities remotely, and they don’t necessarily have to “get out” to do it. In fact, my interviewees often noted their ability to engage in leisure activities while apart—playing Xbox together online or having “movie nights” in which they watched the same films in their respective residences while chatting about them over the phone or online. With the push of some buttons or with a few keystrokes, they were able to check in to coordinate children’s schedules, to make sure one of them was paying this month’s utility bill online, or to play online card games. They had the capacity to be reachable at almost any time, so that they could rely on each other—for emotional support, for help with the mundane business aspects of life, and for fun.
Of course, not everything about commuter marriage has changed since the 1980s. For instance, the gender dynamics within these couples have remained static in some ways. In their study from over 30 years ago, Gerstel and Gross found that women more often than men welcomed the fact that there were “fewer demands and fewer constraints” on their time in the absence of their partners and that women’s domestic duties were reduced (while men’s were increased) when couples lived apart. Interestingly, my overall findings regarding these particular advantages of commuter marriage for women were strikingly similar. Access to cell phones and the internet has reshaped commuter marriages in some, but not all, respects.
Distance isn’t Dead
New technologies have altered the commuter marriage, but they are not able to bridge all gaps or heal all wounds. In the provocatively titled 1997 book The Death of Distance: How the Communications Revolution Will Change Our Lives, economist Frances Cairncross predicted that new communication technologies would render physical separations between people decreasingly important. In some ways, commuter spouses, whose lives are intertwined even while they apart, are embodiments of this prophesy.
Still, distance matters for these couples. The commuter lifestyle presents challenges that can’t all be met by “constant contact” over email, text, phone calls, or even video chatting. Although they emphasized how often they communicated with their spouses, many commuters still suggested that their varied mechanisms of communication were no substitute for in-person contact. Perhaps the most obvious issue was the reduced time for sex and other forms of physical intimacy. But my interviewees described other frustrations, such as feeling disconnected, not being able to adequately convey emotions, and feeling a lack of resolution at the end of arguments. Furthermore, the bureaucratic infrastructure of the U.S. is still organized for married couples who live together. For that reason, marital non-cohabitation creates some logistical issues that can’t be resolved in the virtual world. Some people I interviewed, for instance, discussed their problems with getting insurance or mortgages on two “primary” residences for one married couple.
It’s also important to point out that I relied on commuter spouses to cast light on their own experiences, as seen through the lens of their own perceptions. Two-thirds of the people I interviewed said that they felt judged negatively by others for their commuter lifestyles. It is possible that some commuter spouses overemphasized their “constant” connectedness while apart as a way to manage that stigma—to preemptively “justify” their marriages to people who might cast aspersions on them. Still, if this were the case, it would still be instructive. Cherlin has made the point that, though we have seen a rise in alternatives to marriage, Americans still sentimentalize marriage—in fact, the symbolic significance of the institution “has remained high and may even have increased.” Accordingly, my findings suggest that, however often commuter spouses “actually” email each other in practice, these non-traditional couples still think about—and represent—their relationships in ways that tie into some traditional notions about relationships and marriage.
Commuters’ narratives about staying in touch not only shed light on the dynamics of these unique marriages, but they reflect how so many Americans now sustain their intimate relationships through new technologies when the demands of work preclude physical togetherness. The use of technology to bridge physical space, but its inability to do so fully, likely resonates with other types of couples who rely on these mechanisms—for example, not just commuter spouses and other long-distance couples, but also geographically-separate friends or couples who work long hours or incompatible schedules. Indeed, research on other types of relationships suggests that, just as in the case of commuter couples, such technologies can help geographically separate individuals to manage tasks together, but they are not a panacea. One 2012 study of divorced co-parents by Lawrence Ganong and his colleagues, for instance, found that such emergent technologies could facilitate joint planning and decision-making—but not always, especially if the co-parent relationship was contentious.
Regardless of their limitations, these technologies are not just coping mechanisms for spouses who live in two different residences but are integral parts of life now for all types of families. Commuter spouses, who live in separate physical spaces from their primary partners and who carry out large portions of their relationships via such technologies, sit in a key position to illuminate these much broader dynamics. Both individualistic and interdependent, both freed by technology and bound by its limitations, commuters tell the story of a changing institution that still remains rooted in the past, and about the social mechanisms that pull us apart and bind us together.