Dear Dr. Romance:
I am hoping you can help. I made a query about maintaining a marriage over long distance and noted your book The Commuter Marriage. My wife and I have been married for twelve years and have had our ups and downs. We are both committed to our relationship. We lived in different states, but when we married, my wife moved here.
My wife went back to school to earn her degree but soon had some health problems and had to quit. She has been unable to work for ten years and I am the sole earner. She goes back home for three weeks four times a year. She misses her family and I understand that. But after a while, I think we both feel kind of detached from one another. It is hard to explain, but I can tell in her voice how, after a while, her tone changes. It is almost like a feeling of indifference. It bothers the heck out of me and like the idiot I obviously am, I get frustrated and angry and go into a stupid passive-aggressive mode. I understand that it would be better to communicate openly, and Lord knows I hate confrontations, but when I detect the “tone of indifference,” it hurts me. I think what hurts worse is my thinking that she has lost feelings for me, because that is how it sounds in her voice and speech patterns. We have discussed this many times and my wife agrees that being apart for 3-4 weeks is not good for us.
Recently, my wife’s sister was diagnosed with cancer. My wife wants to stay with her sister as she undergoes her chemotherapy (which is more pallative than anything at this point) and wants to provide hospice for her. I admire my wife for this; her ability sometimes to exhibit great empathy is one of her more endearing qualities in my estimation. We just spent a week with her sister and dad, and my wife was going to stay an additional week. Now her dad has become ill as well, and her brother and other sister want my wife to stay with their dad and watch over him during his long convalescence. The brother works and the sister is on medical disability. They have a lot on their plate right now. In addition, my mom was diagnosed with stage-three lung cancer a year ago, ran out of money, and hasn’t gone back for any tests and I need to save some of my vacation in case I have to deal with her health issues too. At this point, I am down to one week of vacation left.
So now it looks like my wife will stay and take care of her dad and sister. When my wife told me this, to be honest, it kind of made me angry. Which also makes me feel stupid, because I know why she is doing what she has to do, but nevertheless, it made me angry. In my perception, it was like our relationship didn’t matter. I told her that I was unsure how we could maintain a relationship dealing strictly over the phone. She thought that I could come down every few weekends. I would not mind if we can afford it, which at this time we can. But, and this is where none of this makes sense to me, after we have been apart for so long, our relationship seems “weird.” It is not like either of us has changed, but the fact of being apart seems to change us. Do you understand what I am trying to say? It is almost like starting to date all over again, afraid to be open with one another, much less intimate.
This depresses me so much. I am hoping that you can steer me/us in the right direction to be able to handle this. My fear is that after awhile, we not only will be estranged but that we will say something hurtful or not caring to one another. Can you please help us? I am so concerned about this. I greatly fear that unless we are proactive and understand what is taking place, we will end up being permanently separated, because we won’t care for one another any more.
