Having a night job is not considered a traveling job. But he does not advocate working night jobs because they are often an opposing shift to the spouse AND people on night jobs tend to grapple with depression.

The general principle is to find a career that complements your marriage. If it doesn't complement your marriage, then don't take it.

When I first joined here my DH was on the road 5 days a week. On the radio show Dr Harley said we may maintain, but we wouldn't be able to improve our marriage much (it's been years, that's how I remember it!).

It took almost 2 years for DH to find a job where he was home every night and the difference is amazing! Totally amazing. We did manage to improve our relationship some while he was on the road, I would take time off and spend time on the road with him, he took weeks off and didn't travel.

In hindsight, there were things like my car breaking while he was on the road and out of touch that I had to deal with, or me being sick and needing help at home on our farm that were huge withdrawls from my love bank because he wasn't there for me to depend on. Having a truly integrated life is impossible on the road, no matter how hard we tried, we both had lots of IB.

Sam says his wife had an affair and he wants to make sure he is taking the right steps for recovery. His wife of 33 years was a love at first sight, they have children and grandchildren. His wife took a better job 4 years ago that involved traveling, while traveling she met another man and moved in with him. She had filed for divorce last year, but broke off the affair because of the other man's young son. She continues to live in the home the other man had purchased for her.

Radio Clip
Segment #2
Segment #3
Segment #4

The idea of no overnight travel sounds great, but it unrealistic in today's world and the job market. And what about military? A military person should give up their career, pension and benefits? That harms not just the military person, but the entire family.

Divorce and adultery are epidemic in the military. Divorce is very harmful to families. We have had hundreds of military people on this forum over the years who were devastated by an affair. Their children were devastated.

It is unrealistic to expect to maintain a marriage if you don't live together. It won't sustain a marriage.

Why don't you start a new thread and let us know how well your concepts for marriage are working in your own marriage.

LH, if you want to play chicken with your marriage, that is your business, but most people here have learned or are about to learn that Dr. Harley's advice is usually what it is for a very good reason. Nights apart lead to emotional separation at best and are an invitation for affairs to happen.

We are here to help people learn and implement Dr. Harley's advice, so please do not advise others to take such devastating risks or tell them that the advice is unrealistic. Many people have started where you are and have gone on to build a great marriage by figuring out how to do what Dr. Harley recommends. It is not "unrealistic." It's just that it is new and awkward for many people. But after all,

60% of marriages will go through an affair
40% of marriages end in divorce
20% of marriages end in permanent lifelong separation
20% of marriages stay together but are miserable

Only 20% of marriages stay together and are happy. Obviously what most people do does not lead to a happy marriage. What we want to do here is to encourage people to change their life and do what this happy 20% minority does.

I didn't advise anyone to do anything. I asked a question.

So your "advise" is if my spouse has 18 years in the military and cheats he should GET OUT IMMEDIATELY, throw away his retirement pay and benefits and we start over ENTIRELY?! Wow, talk about some added stress to an already stressful situation.

So according to you and Dr. Harley, no military person should ever be married. No firefighter, EMT, nurse, doctor or ANY OTHER profession where the person works nights, shifts or might have to be away overnight should NEVER be married.

Deployments nearly cost us our marriage. In our case, H self-reported his affair, took an Art-15 punishment, along with a fine and disenrollment from Army War College. He took an early retirement. He had been on track for promotion to BG. One time, I figured that his affair cost us about half a million dollars. But, I have no regrets about how we recovered our marriage.

I used to think the old saying "If the Army wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one" was totally silly. I don't think so anymore. The change in our culture and in the volunteer military added families to the military. But it still doesn't make a favorable environment for marriages.

Do you advise that a person throw away their marriage over a little job? Is that what you are saying? Becuase if you are divorced because the traveling job destroyed your marriage, how much benefit will you get from that job anyway? In most instances you would be competing with another woman for your H's income and wouldn't get crap anyway.

Like Dr Harley says, anything that comes BEFORE the marriage will eventually come between you. That is certainly the case here.

**EDIT**

Mainly helping people with their marriages, any of whom might attack me at any time.

What I think is that people should not suffer if it can be helped.

As for advising others, yes, when you get onto a thread that is not yours and argue, you are advising everybody who is reading, which is a lot more than the people who are writing.

whatever markos.

This is obviously NOT the place for me.

I suspect you could benefit from some things Dr. Harley recommends:

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8122_neg.html

If you don't want to be here, it's easy to just stop posting. Do you feel that you have trouble making yourself do what you want to do? If so, the information in that link might be helpful for you.

Jenna writes asking if the Harleys have tips on how to deal with traveling spouses
Radio Clip on Traveling Jobs

This is an interesting thread. I've worked in the IT industry for 27 years, for some of the largest computer and software companies in the world. Given our online-connected world, IT teams are nearly always geographically dispersed. Every team I've been with the last dozen years had at least one yearly face-to-face offsite team meeting that required 3-5 days away from home. Some years had multiple offsite meetings or else training to attend in other cities.

On those business trips I never considered being unfaithful to my wife. I'm never one to drink to excess (I'll go months without a drink of any kind), but on probably two occasions I had one too many beers or glasses of wine while on one of these business trips. Not enough to be drunk, but enough to notice I'd had too much, and choosing to stop immediately and go back to my hotel room. Knowing what I now know, I can see that there was a risk for A on ANY of those business trips, regardless of my intentions or morals.

If I were to ever recover my M, or in a future M, I would try to find a way to avoid business trips completely. There are ways to attend these business offsite meetings virtually, though managers prefer that we attend in person. If it becomes a problem with that manager, then unfortunately it would mean looking for a new job.

In the end, why take a chance with temptation?