For many years, I didn’t have the words to describe the life we were living. We weren’t a military family. We weren’t divorced. We weren’t in a traditional long-distance relationship. Yet for weeks, sometimes months at a time, my husband and I were parenting from different countries while trying to hold family life together.

There were airport goodbyes. Important moments missed. A parent trying to stay connected from another time zone. A partner at home managing the everyday rhythm of family life while also carrying the emotional weight of someone’s absence.

We were living work travel.

Sometimes because we had chosen to live apart for non-family postings and sometimes work meant miles between us for multiple weeks at a time. Either way, we were constantly learning how to stay emotionally connected while living in different places. Over the years, I learned that this experience sits somewhere between traditional family life and a long-distance relationship. There is the longing for connection, the effort of maintaining closeness, the constant adjustment of finding “us” again after time apart and children to parent together across time zones.

My experience of being the spouse at home

My understanding of this topic began personally. I have spent many years accompanying my husband on his internationally mobile career, including periods where his work required significant travel, time away, and living arrangements that meant our family was not always physically together. I became very familiar with the invisible parts of this lifestyle: the planning before he leaves, the practical responsibilities that continue when he is away, the emotional preparation for children who miss their parent, and the adjustment when everyone comes back together again. And perhaps one of the hardest parts: navigating the intense and mixed emotions.

Because these careers can bring incredible opportunities. They can bring purpose, growth, financial stability, and meaningful work. But it is also possible to feel grateful and find something difficult at the same time. Both things can be true.

When business travel becomes a family experience

Much of the conversation around business travel focuses on the person travelling. We talk about flights, meetings, destinations, productivity, and professional opportunities. But every work trip also affects the people at home. Behind every frequent business traveller is often a family adapting too. A home-based parent who adjusts routines. Children who experience absence and reunion. A household that keeps changing shape.

This is where distance parenting becomes an important part of the conversation. A parent who travels frequently is still parenting but often in a different way. It is vitally important to keep the person travelling in the loop of what is going on at home. Otherwise their return becomes all the harder. This doesn’t mean constant communication. But an intentional effort to keep them updated, even via a weekly email. Ask them what they would like to be kept informed about. Observe what is a natural connection point between them and the children. They can also be helping with homework over video calls, reading bedtime stories from another country, making decisions from a distance, or finding ways to stay emotionally present when they cannot be physically present. At the same time, the parent at home is also doing something important: holding continuity, creating stability, and helping children maintain connection with the travelling parent.

Neither role is easy. Neither role is more valuable. They are simply different. The trick is to work together and view family as one unit, albeit not under one roof.

Why I started exploring the research

As I lived this reality, I found people who were also living it or who had been living it. They started giving us advice that I was so grateful for and that helped us avoid the major pitfalls of this life. I also wanted to find out:

• Why do some families adapt well to repeated separations while others struggle? What do those families do who are doing it well?
• What did some travelling parents do when their children were young that means that they have a good adult to adult relationship now?
• How can the home-based spouse not get overwhelmed? How can they support the travelling parent’s distance parenting?
• What helps couples maintain connection across distance?
• How does frequent travel affect family roles and relationships?

I became passionate with finding those patterns. Through my Master’s research interviewing adults who had grown up with a travelling parent, more than 100 podcast conversations, and hundreds of one-to-one discussions, I explore how repeated absences and returns influence couples, parents, and children and how the family system adapts.

One thing became clear: the challenges families experience are often not about one particular trip. They are about the patterns created over time, the attitudes towards travel and what both partners put in place to make it work.

Supporting families experiencing geographical distance

Today, my work focuses on helping the home-based parent and the travelling parent navigate physical distance while maintaining emotional closeness. Frequent business travel, international non-family assignments, rotational work, humanitarian work, split-location living, and other situations means work that regularly takes one parent away from home.

My goal is not to suggest that these lifestyles are easy, or that families should avoid them.

It is to help families become more intentional.

To ask:

• How do we stay connected when we are apart?
• How do we make sure both partners feel seen?
• How do we support children through repeated goodbyes and reunions?
• How do we create a family identity when we are sometimes living across different locations?

A reflection for families navigating distance

If your family is shaped by work travel or living between locations, consider asking yourself:

What is one thing we are already doing well to maintain connection — and what is one area where we would benefit from more intentional support?

Explore more resources for multi-location families

Many families today are learning how to love, parent, and build a life across more than one place. I can’t change the fact that some careers require distance. But I do believe that whether you are the parent who travels or the home-based parent, what you do to navigate that time apart is crucial to maintain connection across the distance. That’s why I do this work.

Want to find out more? Here are the resources inside the Apart But Together Resource Centre that will help you most.