Long-distance marriage

Post Reply New Topic

I've seen a few threads here on WP that mention long-distance relationships. Has anyone ever run into a long-distance marriage?

Let me explain.

My wife, after five years of marriage, has decided, although she and I love each other very much and we both care about each other and our daughter, that I just can't handle the hassles of having other people living with me. I'm an extremely high-functioning aspie and she's bipolar, so we're also on opposite ends of the emotional spectrum: she's very emotional and occasionally high-strung, I'm neither. If I express frustration over having to deal with her ever-present insecurities, it scares her because the nonverbal part of it, which I don't even notice, looks like that of people she has seen turn violent. In a Catch-22 situation, the cycle feeds on itself, getting worse and worse unless we manage somehow to short-circuit it.

She may be correct about me. I've had marriages and relationships fall apart before because of something unspoken, not easily forthcoming from me because I haven't the capacity to understand it readily, much less demonstrate it. The women in the relationships invariably haven't understood the absence of it. My current wife has also had great difficulty finding and maintaining the kind of deep. solid friendships that are endemic to her very close-knit family. Add to that a growing dissatisfaction with the constraints of living in a semi-suburban area (the city wouldn't let us keep chickens, for example) and willing parents (hers) for baby sitters whenever my wife needs one (she couldn't earn enough where we live to pay for regular child care), and she thinks that she could get her feet more securely under her there that here. Again, she may be right. She even has a job lined up already.

My wife has, however, repeatedly assured me that she is not abandoning me, that she does not want a divorce or legal separation, that we will visit both ways periodically, and that she doesn't simply want to leave me alone picking up the pieces of everything. We plan on daily phone communication: that was what most of our courtship was. She intends that our daughter maintain as close and regular a relationship with her father (me) as possible, too.

Anyway, my wife's plan at this point is to move back to where she grew up, which is a full day's travel from where we live. I'm of two minds about it: (a) dreading things becoming more complicated as they are coordinated long-distance, and (b) relieved about not having others in the house all the time whose capacity to create mess and clutter far outstrips my ability to keep up with cleaning it. Other differences exist between my wife and me, too, that make proximate coexistence difficult. Recalling that the courtship over the phone actually work, though, makes me think that a long-distance marriage might actually work well for us, too. I have no interest in looking elsewhere, and my libido is near zero. (Yes, that's another problem—for her, not necessarily for me. Enough said about it.) I've about given up on maintaining what NT society seems to consider a relationship. If we were to separate or divorce, I wouldn't even date. Why set myself up for the same breakdown to happen all over again?

Anyway, back to my original question. Almost anyone I've talked to kind of go "Huh?" when I mention what we're planning. I've also been told that my wife and I are the ones who will figure out what's best for us, and that what anyone else thinks doesn't matter. I take comfort in the latter. For demographics, I'm 53, and my wife is almost ten years younger.

Any comments or observations?

You don't need to adhere to any traditional expectations in your marriage. It sounds like if you both agree to these terms then it's a match made in aspie heaven.

There are many couples, both NT and those with one of the ASDs, that find living separately more suitable than living together...it's like that common phrase, "I can't live with him nor can I live without him." So, living separately, provides such couples with the "happy" medium.

It is also, one reason why some couples prefer not to marry at all...and remain separate entities.

I've worked in academia for roughly 20 years. I have seen many couples where one partner has a job in one institution, and the other has a position at another institution - often hundreds, if not thousands, of miles apart. They do just fine.

Do what works for the two of you, and ignore what's "typically" done. Some of the most miserable marriages I've ever seen have been those where both parties insisted on being "together" entirely too much.

This decision is between you and your wife, whatever works for the two of you is what matters.

I remember my Mom was telling me of an article about a couple that are both on the Autism spectrum and both persons have their own separate bedrooms too I guess.