We've been doing this about 3 years now and at first it was a huge adjustment. When you work a 9-5 job and you get offered a position with WAY more money AND you get to work from home, you're ecstatic. And we were. I was working as a nanny and we were just getting settled in a new place so it felt like a fun and fresh start to our new life. But all good things must come to an end... of course.
At the time we only had one car between the two of us and it was pretty worthless to me because I couldn't even drive the damn thing. It's a stick shift. Um... I get in accidents WITHOUT the added distraction of complexity. No thank you. So Chris would take the car to the airport and I'd be stranded at the house. Literally. The parents I nannied for would have to pick me up and I felt like a big ol' doofus for needing a ride. Not to mention, being stuck in the house knowing you can't go ANYWHERE is the absolute worse feeling in the world. Even worse was still adjusting to being apart and sleeping alone. So when he came home, I'd run into his arms in a tender embrace and we'd hold each other and talk about how much it sucked being apart...
...did you buy that? Good, 'cause it's Grade A bullshit. Let me tell you what really happened:
Me being the firecracker I am would take my anxiety about being stranded, my loneliness from sleeping by myself, and my disappointment at not being able to drive the stick shift and, while Chris was gone, I'd bottle it up in cute little jars. When he finally came home, I threw them right in his face like the emotional equivalent of a malakoff cocktail. Adjustment is not my strong-suit.
Now don't get me wrong, our fights weren't always about my own baggage, but his, too. It was a big job and he had a lot of new responsibilities. Our fights were just the a-typical "newly wed" fights where you are just learning to adjust to living AND loving another person. We stuck it out no matter how difficult because at the end of the day, there's nobody else in the world we'd rather be with than each other. The new job and the traveling and the adjustment was just one more obstacle. We did eventually, as all hurdles go, get over it.
I buckled down and learned how to drive a stick. (Coincidently, I'll never drive an automatic again. I'm hooked). He learned the ins and outs of traveling and what to expect and I learned how to take advantage of the time he's away to focus on myself. I'm back in school and he's loving his job more everyday. It took a while, but we made it through the hard part and now everything is just, well, life.
A friend of mine who just recently got married asked me how I handled Chris leaving so often for work because her new husband was gone for the first time and she was sad. I told her it was hard at first but that now we look forward to it because it helps us appreciate each other. I wondered why she asked since her husband works in retail and there's usually nothing to travel for in that profession. She said he was leaving for a couple days for a convention. A couple of days? I thought. Ha. Welcome to the minor leagues, girl.
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