Voices of women in commuter marriages

Abstract

The goal of the present study was to examine the sites of discursive struggle in the talk of commuter wives and how the interpenetration of discourses construct meaning for those in the commuter marriage. Fifty individual interviews were analyzed using contrapuntal analysis to examine competing discourses. From our analysis, two sites of discursive struggle emerged from the talk of commuter wives about their marital relationships: (a) discursive struggles of integration and (b) discursive struggles of conventionality. The voices of these participants responded to and anticipated both distal (cultural) and proximal (relational) discourses along the utterance chain constructing meaning around what it meant to be in a commuter marriage. Additionally, these data provided theoretical expansion in highlighting the understudied aspects of the distal not-yet-spoken in meaning construction surrounding relationships.

Keywords

Commuter marriage contrapuntal analysis discourse nonnormative relational dialectics theory relationships

Commuter marriage, a type of long-distance marriage characterized by spouses living in different locations during the workweek (but sometimes for longer periods of time) to accommodate the careers of both partners, has become increasingly common in the past three decades (Bergen, 2010b). A frequently cited statistic estimates the number of commuter marriages in the U.S. at more than 3.5 million (Conlin, 2009), and during the most current period of global economic crisis, that number was speculated to have grown (Gardner, 2008).

Scholars from a variety of disciplines have studied commuter marriage, including researchers in sociology, psychology, family studies, family counseling, and communication (Bergen, in press). All have viewed commuter marriage as out of the norm, at best, and a risk to marital and family relationships, at worst. Jehn, Stroh, and Von Glinow (1997) even labeled commuter marriage as an oxymoron, referring to the historical understanding of marriage as spouses’ commitment to share a life together by forming a new household.

Each society has a notion of what particular relationships should be like, and individuals within those societies use a variety of tactics to question what they perceive to be “nonnormative” relationships. For example, Bergen (2010a) found that spouses in commuter marriages reported that others often thought they were getting divorced or having marital problems as indicated by intrusive questions about the commuting couples’ marital arrangement. Bergen (2010a) detailed how wives in commuter marriages went to great lengths to account for the difference between their marriages and the cultural norm. Commuter marriage is a nonnormative type of relationship that requires explanation to others, or in Galvin’s (2006) phrasing, is discourse dependent. Other types of discourse-dependent relationships include stepfamilies (e.g., Braithwaite & Baxter, 2006), lesbian families (e.g., Suter, Daas, & Bergen, 2008), and visibly different families formed through adoption (e.g., Harrigan, 2009). All of the aforementioned relational contexts have been studied in regard to both how families present their identities to others (external identity) and how families discursively construct their own family identity (internal identity). Bergen and colleagues’ previous research (Bergen, 2006, 2010a, 2010b; Bergen, Kirby, & McBride, 2007) has primarily focused on how commuting spouses construct and negotiate their marital identities with others (i.e., external identity); less attention has been given to how the marital partners themselves discursively construct their relationship (i.e., internal identity).

The notion that commuter marriages are considered nonnormative by commuter spouses themselves has been documented in previous research. Participants in Bergen’s (2006, 2010a) study clearly used the dominant culture’s frame of reference when describing their commuter marriages as “weird,” “unusual,” “out of the box,” and “not normal,” during research interviews, buttressing Jehn et al.’s (1997) assessment of commuter marriage as an oxymoron. In sum, previous research has explored how spouses try to make their commuter marriage intelligible to others. What needs exploration is how spouses in commuter marriages jointly make sense of their own nonnormative relationships, which is the goal of the present study.

Theoretical perspective

Baxter and colleagues (Baxter, 2011; Baxter & Montgomery, 1996) contend that relationships are fundamentally messy and full of contradictory tensions, but nonnormative relationships are even more so (Baxter, 2011). Baxter’s initial articulation of relational dialectics theory (RDT) focused on identifying the dialectical tensions present in relational talk, specifically the oppositional pairs of connection–autonomy, openness–closedness, and stability–novelty. Although Baxter and Montgomery (1996) urged researchers to recognize that these three pairs were not the only possible dialectical tensions, in practice, many researchers used these three tensions in cookie-cutter fashion (Baxter, 2011). Baxter and Braithwaite (2008) critiqued much extant research using an RDT framework as simply identifying dialectical tensions within relational dialogue, which embodied only the most basic proposition of RDT: “meanings emerge from the struggle of different, often opposing, dialectical tensions” (p. 351).

Baxter and Braithwaite (2008) urged researchers to add complexity to their analyses by going beyond identifying dialectical pairs and looking for how competing discourses interpenetrate to construct meaning in the relationship. Baxter (2011) further challenged scholars using RDT to not only describe the multivocality of tensions present in relational dialogue but identify which voices tend to be dominant (centripetal) and which voices tend to be marginalized or muted (centrifugal). Baxter also suggested that more complicated analyses using RDT should also seek to identify the sites of discursive struggle within the utterance chain that is composed of interwoven, ongoing conversations of both the distal (distant, culturally normative) and proximal (localized, relationship dyad specific) discourses. Those sites may be already-spokens or not-yet-spokens of either discourse. The proximal already-spoken refers to the norms of the specific relational dyad established by their past interactions. The distal already-spoken part of the utterance chain addresses established cultural norms regarding a specific relationship type (e.g., marriage). The not-yet-spoken addresses future interactions between relational partners. Finally, the distal not-yet-spoken is the dialogue that will be directed to cultural members at large, what Bakhtin (1919/1986) refers to as the superaddressee. Only a few scholars have responded to the call for this more complex analysis based on RDT, but researchers have found it useful for understanding meanings of relationships as varied as mother/daughter relationships (Harrigan & Ott, 2013), potential adoptive parents and birth mothers (Norwood & Baxter, 2011), and families with visibly different adoptive children (Harrigan & Braithwaite, 2009).

Baxter (2011) described RDT as “a theory of relational meaning-making … how the meanings surrounding individual and relationship identities are constructed through language use” (p. 2). RDT’s approach to relational meaning-making is inherently communicative created in dialogue between relational pairs. This communication lens privileges joint meaning-making as opposed to the internal psychological meaning-making of individuals that is often the focus of psychological research (e.g., Park, 2010). To illuminate this joint meaning-making process, we posed the following research questions:

RQ1: What, if any, are the sites of discursive struggle in the talk of commuter wives?

RQ2: How does the interpenetration of discourses at these sites of struggle construct relational meaning for spouses in commuter marriages?

Method

As a tool for studying RDT, Baxter (2011) developed contrapuntal analysis as a type of discourse analysis that allows visualization of how cultural and relational discourses interpenetrate to create meanings for relationships that challenge culture norms. “Contrapuntal” is drawn from a musical term that describes “the playing of contrasting or counterpoint melodies” (Baxter, 2011, p. 152). Translated into discourse analysis terminology, contrapuntal analysis examines how the discursive struggles (or struggles between discourses) within a relationship create relational meanings. Baxter argued that every utterance is inherently relational and part of a larger utterance chain that (a) responds to proximal and distal already-spokens and (b) anticipates proximal and distal not-yet-spokens. Baxter’s step-by-step process for contrapuntal analysis guided us as we sought to answer our research questions.

Conversations between spouses in commuter marriages provide a dialogically expansive text, one that acknowledges multiple voices (Baxter, 2011), given that this type of relationship challenges conventional thinking about marriage. Even though we interviewed only wives, Baxter (2011) argues that participants’ use of reported speech can serve to highlight the competing discourses, and the subsequent meaning-making between relational partners. A contrapuntal analysis of such a text could be fruitful in providing insight into how spouses in commuter marriages construct their relational identity within the utterance chain, while simultaneously expanding the corpus of research using this rich, complex analytical method.

Participants

This study is part of a larger study on commuter marriage based on interview and focus group data from women in commuter marriages. Participants in this study were 50 women who had been in a commuter marriage at least a year. Consistent with other researchers (see Bergen, in press), we defined commuter marriage as a marriage where spouses were employed in geographic locations distant enough that one spouse lived in a separate residence and spent at least three nights a week away from her spouse.

The original project was undertaken with all female participants. The notion of men living apart from their families has been widely accepted for centuries, but female-initiated commuter marriage is largely a phenomenon that has occurred since the 1970s (Winfield, 1985). The issue of how women in commuter marriages negotiated conventional expectations for wives and mothers with unconventional identities as commuting wives was an important emphasis in the larger project. Although we interviewed only women, they reported interactions with their spouses that provided insight into spouses’ perspectives.

Participants were recruited for both focus groups and individual interviews by placing ads in local newspapers and online listservs, posting flyers in the community, and referrals from other participants. Each participant was offered a US$25 honorarium for her participation from a fellowship awarded to the second author.¹

Participants were, on average, 48.5 years old (range = 28–66), and all but 5 had completed a bachelor’s degree, with 32 of the 50 participants having completed a master’s or doctoral degree. Participants were overwhelmingly in white-collar professions, with about 60% involved with higher education as either faculty or administrators. Nonacademic participants were engaged in professions such as law, nursing, dental hygiene, corporate training, and various administrative positions. All participants except one were in a heterosexual relationship, but all were legally married, on average for 19 years (range = 1.5–42 years) and had been in the commuting arrangement for an average of 4.6 years (range = 1–20 years). Participants reported commuting between 27 and 1,600 miles with about one fourth of participants reunited with their spouses weekly and nearly another one fourth seeing their spouses 1–3 times a month.

Data collection

After receiving approval from the institutional review board, the second author conducted five focus groups, involving a total of 25 women in commuter marriages, designed to identify salient issues for the individual interviews. All focus groups were conducted in a university classroom and lasted 1–1.5 hr. Focus groups were audiotaped with the informed consent of each participant and transcribed for a total of 148 pages of single-spaced data. Based on these conversations, the initial interview protocol was revised (questions were modified, added, or deleted). The second author then conducted 50 individual interviews using an in-depth, moderately scheduled interview protocol guided by a grand tour question (Spradley, 1979), “Tell me the story of how you found yourself in a commuter marriage,” supplemented by mini-tour questions (e.g., “Why do you think commuting has worked or not worked for you and your spouse?” and “What would you tell a friend who was thinking about a commuting to take advantage of an educational or employment opportunity?”) and follow-up probing questions (e.g., “Please give me an example of that?” and “What else would you want to tell me?”) as needed. At the beginning of each interview, the researcher briefed participants of their rights and obtained informed consent from each. Interviews lasted, on average, about an hour with a range of 40–75 min. All interviews were audiotaped and professionally transcribed, resulting in 875 single-spaced pages.

Data analysis

For the current project, we used the procedures outlined by Baxter (2011) for conducting a contrapuntal analysis: (a) preparing data; (b) identifying discourses; (c) identifying which, if any, discourses compete; (d) identifying the interplay of competing discourses; and (e) describing the relational meanings created by the interplay of competing discourses. After we each had read all data, we both performed initial coding on five interview transcripts, using RDT as a sensitizing concept (Manning & Kunkel, 2014), seeking to identify themes and potential discourses relating to the meanings associated with commuter marriage as constructed within the family unit (participants’ spouses and children). We reached consensus by discussing discrepancies and co-constructed an initial coding scheme. On the basis of this initial coding guide, the first researcher coded the remaining interviews to identify discourses. In the process, he adapted the coding scheme, collapsing some ideas while expanding others. While he completed this process, he estimated that saturation of themes, where findings started becoming repetitive with no new nuanced differences (Manning & Kunkel, 2014), occurred at the 11th transcript.

After coding all data, he provided the discursive themes and all exemplars to the second author for review and verification. Together, we refined the analysis and examined how the discourses competed and interwove, while also identifying participants’ dialogically expansive and contractive practices. Specifically, we used Baxter’s (2011) examples of discursive markers (e.g., but, however, and although) to analyze how participants reinforced, negated, countered, and entertained the centripetal/centrifugal discourses surrounding commuter marriages. Finally, both authors assigned pseudonyms to participants and family members and chose the exemplars that seemed to best capture each theme and the discursive struggles in the results.

Results

From our analysis, two major discursive struggles emerged from the talk of commuter wives: (a) discursive struggles of integration and (b) discursive struggles of conventionality. The struggles of integration dealt with managing a relationship where spouses did not always live in a shared residence. As a result, the discursive struggles of integration were located within the proximal (localized and relational discourses) portion of the utterance chain, although some distal (larger cultural) discourses emerged as well. The discursive struggles of conventionality, however, focused more on the distal portion of the utterance chain: the cultural discourses of marriage and normative evaluations of being in a commuter marriage.

We found several discourses present in the talk of participants, including marriage, motherhood/family, patriarchy, rationality, community, individuality, and expression (see Table 1 for an explanation of discourses). As Baxter (2011) argued, discourses frequently intersect at multiple points weaving knots of contradiction. Often, multiple discourses appeared in one unit of data, and although each discourse could be identified, we could not easily separate them and they mutually informed the tensions. For example, discourses of connection and individuality are often in tension; discourses about caring for others often compete with discourses of individuality. Conversely, in the U.S., discourses of marriage and family (especially for women) often are aligned with discourses of community. Further, discourses of marriage/motherhood/family are often part of a larger patriarchal discourse, where the emphasis on community is more dominant for women than men. Baxter (2011) argued that an examination of how particular discourses are voiced and intersect in dialogue allows researchers to unpack meaning(s) in particular relational contexts; therefore, in what follows, we describe how these competing discourses interpenetrate to construct the meanings surrounding commuter marriage.

Table 1.

Explanation of discourses.

Marriage	Dominant notions of partners being bound, living together, idealized romantic love, permanency, etc.
Motherhood/family	Dominant notions of physical closeness, the provision of care, etc.
Patriarchy	Dominant notions of gendered roles within marriage and the community
Rationality	Culturally reasonable explanations for particular behaviors
Community	Connection to/responsibility for others in a variety of contexts, from marriage, to family, to larger communities
Individuality	Notions pertaining to the satisfaction of individual wants and/or needs
Expression	Notions regarding the appropriateness of communication

Discursive struggles of integration

In commuter wives’ voiced experiences, we found that issues of integration manifested in two discursive struggles: (a) presence versus absence and (b) independence versus dependence. At the center of the struggle of integration was the couples’ negotiation of how they were going to “do” a marital relationship and live in separate spaces for periods of time. Much of this discursive work was done at the proximal already-spoken site in the utterance chain, as participants were co-constructing their private relational culture (e.g., rules and norms). While many discourses emerged, the discourses of community, individuality, and expression were in the forefront.

Presence versus absence

The tension between presence and absence manifested itself in a variety of ways: Tensions between physical and emotional presence/absence as well as the role of communication in constructing presence. Many participants talked about the importance of physical presence because they experienced more physical absence when living in different residences. In talking with other commuter wives, Julie reported:

We talk frequently about how much we miss our spouses but how we look forward to seeing them or we can’t wait for our time together. It’s precious … you value that other person more. We’re grateful the time we have together.

In this example, Julie’s words draw on the discourse of community by emphasizing connection with her spouse. In doing so, she also highlights the importance of physical time spent together. Often participants spoke about how important the physical time together was and how it made them appreciate each other more. For example, Brooke said:

On our own … things are okay. But when we’re together … coming back home … It makes our time together that much nicer, important. I can appreciate more what he’s doing … I think he probably appreciates [me] more when I’m home. Too many times we forget what the other one does and don’t appreciate [them] … but when we’re apart we all of sudden realize that “oh yeah, we are better together than we are apart, individually.”

In this excerpt, Brooke illustrated a common theme from these data—that spending time apart made these couple appreciate each other more in their time together, highlighting the competing tension of time spent together and apart. In doing so, participants often drew on the cultural discourse of community, emphasizing the norm of closeness and time spent together for spouses.

However, other participants challenged the bias for physical closeness (bias toward living together) that is often part of the discourse of community. Rebecca captured this theme:

Maybe because we are not young … we don’t need to be close to each other to express our love. It’s not necessary the physical contact, you know. [However,] Oh, we talk, we talk almost every day on the phone … and you know it’s so good to listen to his voice, you know, yeah. when he doesn’t call, I miss that.

Rebecca’s comment illustrates the competing tension of physical presence/absence in the discourse of community. She undermines this discourse (because we are older, the physical contact is not as important) but highlights emotional connection (missing when he doesn’t call and feeling good listening to his voice), even if the physical presence symbolizing the discourse of community is lacking.

Although many participants believed that physical absence made them appreciate physical copresence even more, participants also expressed frustration when they or others were emotionally absent when there was physical copresence. For example, Melissa talked about feeling the need to do laundry, cleaning, and meal preparation for the week during her time in the primary residence on Saturdays, and her husband responded, “I am sick and tired of you doing all of those things on Saturday when [you’re] gone all week … we have no time together.” In their communication, we see responses to discourses of community. Often (drawing from cultural discourses of patriarchy and marriage), women’s way of doing community is by taking care of family (e.g., Wood, 1994), but her husband expressed his preference of community (connection) in the form of real time spent together—her emotional absence even while physically present did not fulfill integration for him. Marjorie reported that her husband and teenage daughter preferred she not leave on Sunday nights to go back to her apartment because “it makes the weekend short for them,” but she expressed frustration: “but … we don’t really spend time together, it’s like Melanie’s doing her homework, but, it’s still … they feel cheated I think when I do that.” From this example, we see a tension between the physical and emotional copresence versus absence. These participants drew on discourses of individuality and expressed gratitude for time away and alone (that made physical presence even more valuable); however, Marjorie’s husband and daughter still wanted the physical presence even if they did not take advantage of the time to be emotionally present. Physical and emotional copresence are often assumed to go hand in hand; however, these participants illustrate that although physical presence and absence is a primary tension in commuter marriages, it cannot be assumed that physical copresence and emotional copresence always coincide. In other words, couples can be physically distant but emotionally close, or they can be physically close but emotionally distant.

An additional strand in this site of struggle is the discourse of expression. Even when participants reported that they were fine not seeing their partner every day, they also reported “it was good to listen to his voice” and many talked about the importance of frequent communication via phone, e-mail, and chat, suggesting that a commuter marriage could not survive without frequent communication, clearly centering the discourse of expression as centripetal. However, participants also expressed frustrations resulting from the lack of physical presence in expression. Joan said, “Say you have something great happen to you at work, and the first person you want to walk in and see is your husband or your wife and tell them what happened. Well, we don’t have them at home.” Joan highlights the tension between physical copresence and absence; however, she also demonstrates the interplay between the discourses of community (presence–absence) and expression.

Even though there were many examples of the discourse of expression, as a way of creating emotional presence in both physical copresence and absence, there were also many participants who spoke to the discourse of nonexpression. Reese said:

One thing that made our commuter marriage work is that we planned for a large phone bill, we talked almost every night … (but) some nights it was very frustrating if one of us was grumpy we sort of hung up the phone, say well that was worthless … a waste of money. “Boy, I wish I hadn’t talked to him tonight.” It got me in a bad mood … and we both had our moments … it wasn’t just me or him.

Reese’s reflection exemplifies the knot of contradictions surrounding the discursive struggle of presence and absence. Because of the lack of physical presence, they planned on a large phone bill for their marriage to “work,” reinforcing the dominant discourse of community and expression. However, concomitantly, Reese challenged these discourses with the centrifugal discourse of nonexpression, acknowledging that communication did not always provide the emotional connection to substitute for the lack of physical copresence.

Independence versus dependence

In addition to the discursive struggle of presence versus absence was a struggle between independence and dependence. Like the discursive struggle of presence/absence, independence/dependence seemed to take place primarily at the proximal site of the utterance chain as the couples were negotiating new rules and what it meant to be in a commuter marriage. Many of these issues manifested themselves in coordination efforts that were taken for granted when living in the same residence. In giving advice to other commuter couples, Edna said, “you need to really sit down with your spouse and think it through and put scenarios on the table. ‘How are we going to do this … and what if … we plan to get together and can’t?’” Thus, “getting together” in a residential marriage is more taken for granted, as both individuals usually end up in the same house at the end of the day, but in commuter relationships, there was an added tension between independence/dependence. Since they lived alone for extended periods of time, people in commuter marriages clearly had times of independence (drawing on the discourse of individuality), but even in their time apart, they were still dependent (drawing on discourses of community and marriage). Ava summarized these competing tensions when she said:

The way we see it, our relationship is like a third actor. I’m empowered to make plans for myself, and she is empowered to make plans for herself, but neither of us are empowered to make plans for us as a couple … we need to check with the other person.

Ava highlights the tension between independence/dependence in commuter marriages but privileged the discourse of individuality when saying if it was individual plans, it was an individual choice since marital discourse often suggests that members of the couple “become one” upon marriage. However, many others complicated this independent/dependent tension by acknowledging dependence even when physically separated. For example, Charlotte said:

Do you need to tell them, “okay honey I’m going out with X and I’m going to be doing this?” Like for example, uh, Frank [her husband] called me and said, “I’m just checking in … I’m on my way to the metro” and I said, “okay I’m going home and mow the lawn … I’ll talk to you later.” Well I got home … there was a message from a friend who said, “… you want to come over and have some beer and BLT’s?” I called her back and said, “got to mow first … then I’m there.” And you know I didn’t feel like I needed to call Frank … but I called him and said, “hey … you know if you decide to call, call later or, you know … we’ll talk tomorrow because Lisa just called and I’m going out.”… but … it wasn’t like I felt like I had to call him to tell him.

This example illustrates the tension of independence and dependence that stems from couples’ own proximal negotiations but also larger distal already-spoken discourses of marriage and community. In the interview, it was clear Charlotte and Frank checked in often, thus they were responding to the proximal already- and not-yet-spoken utterances in keeping each other informed of plans (even if the plans did not involve the other). The discourses of community and marriage (where couples are supposed to be dependent on each other—e.g., “the two become one”) seem to be dominant in Charlotte’s reported speech and voiced experience of calling Frank to let him know of her change of plans, however, she attempts to counter with the conjunctives (“but”) both before and after telling the interviewer that she called her husband by saying “but … it wasn’t like I felt I had to call him” (the discourse of individuality). In doing so, it is clear that her attempt to introduce the discourse of individuality is a marginalized (centrifugal) discourse in comparison with the centripetal (dominant) discourse of community (codependence) in marriage.

This tension between independence/dependence was not just an issue in negotiating the times of physical separation (absence) in the relationship but also emerged when participants talked about their time together. For example, Julie said:

We were just talking about how difficult it would be to coexist in the same home. We have gotten used to the idea of being extremely independent … but trying to reconnect and adjust with that prolonged reconnection, knowing that it wasn’t just going to be for a weekend or a week.

Reintegrating is a known issue in long-distance relationships (e.g., Gerstel & Gross, 1987); however, Julie’s voiced experience further explains this phenomenon to be an issue of independence/dependence, especially in extended periods of cohabitation after having had a commuter marriage.

Discursive struggle of conventionality

In these wives’ voiced experiences, we also found issues of conventionality that manifested itself in two discursive struggles: (a) choice versus no choice in regard to the commuting arrangement and (b) shared residence versus dual residence. Both of these struggles dealt with competing notions of what it meant to be married and what a commuter marriage should look like, based on the dominant discourse of marriage and motherhood. Unlike the integration discursive struggles, these discursive tensions seemed to be more of a response to the distal already-spoken cultural discourse and anticipated reactions from the superaddressee on the distal not-yet-spoken portion of the utterance chain.

Choice versus no choice

In attempting to discursively acknowledge the dominant discourse of marriage, participants drew upon discourses of rationality to explain their relationship. Baxter (2011) described the discourse of rationality as “taken for granted as the natural way to understand human action” (p. 58). In this case, participants called on the discourse of rationality to explain their actions as they deviated from the larger cultural discourse of marriage, where it is assumed nuclear families reside in the same home. Thus, the discourses of marriage and rationality interpenetrate in participants’ framing of their decision to enter a commuting arrangement as not a choice at all. For example, Macy repeatedly discussed her lack of choice in moving from a small town to a city for work:

my husband had been diagnosed with a rare cancer … so I was real interested in staying employed … because he was on my insurance, its not my choice but because of [his] illness … I’m doing it to make sure [he has] insurance, and it wasn’t like just a choice … “oh I want to, you know … move away from the community” or “I thought I was too good to stay in the community.”

Even though the dominant discourse of marriage includes living together, the discourses of community and marriage suggest that spouses take care of each other. In this case, Macy used the discourse of caring for her ill spouse as a reason why she had no “choice” but to move to another city for work. Additionally, Macy responded to a cultural discourse of small town, where people who leave the community are sometimes seen as thinking they are “too good” to stay in the community. Macy drew on this aspect of the discourse of marriage, community, and small town and used the discourse of rationality to frame her experience as “not a choice,” suggesting it is fine to live apart if you “have” to do so to fulfill caregiving responsibilities. Others utilized similar discourse in talking about saving money (“I could have driven back and forth everyday … but the [gas prices],” Loretta), earning money for children (“after my son graduated from high school … I wanted to help out with tuition since I only have one child,” Sonia), or if the commuter marriage was a temporary arrangement (“commitment for a certain amount of time made it a little bit easier,” Melissa). Especially in the U.S., time and money are rational explanations for human action. Many participants reported that their commuter arrangement was a temporary state in their longer marriage. In doing so, they used discourses of rationality (temporary fix for an external threat to their marriage) in conjunction with the discourse of marriage, which suggests that marriage is permanent. The above examples use the discourse of rationality to justify their decision to commute because of external pressures/resources (gas prices, insurance, health concerns, etc.). While these competing discourses do not deal directly with managing their own relationship, they do speak to how participants framed their commuter marriage, which is another way of relational meaning-making.

In addition to using discourses of marriage in conjunction with a discourse of rationality, participants also used a discourse of community with rationality to privilege the no-choice pole of the discursive struggle. For example, many participants discussed how it was a mutual decision. “I think we both sat down and talked … and uh … it was kind of a mutual consent thing” (Melissa), “we decided that it was a joint decision … that it would work” (Roberta), and “we just kind of started rolling along, but it wasn’t my idea to look there … I have looked in the newspaper for [local] jobs … but there was never anything” (Marjorie). By emphasizing the joint decision making, participants were again drawing on discourses of marriage (doing what is best for the marital relationship) and community (making conjoint decisions rather than individual) in their discourse of rationality to explain behavior. Marjorie used conjunctives (“but”) to highlight that the decision was not individualistic but communal. Later Marjorie also said, “low and behold … they offered me a job and I hadn’t applied for any other jobs in the meantime. And I just didn’t know what to think … but he said, ‘you know … go for it’.” Taking these utterances in conjunction, it becomes even clearer that Marjorie is trying to absolve herself in her use of the dominant discourse of community and marriage. Marjorie was not looking widely for jobs (had not applied for others), was surprised to get an offer (“low and behold”), and sufficiently resisted before her husband decided (“I didn’t know what to think … but he said, ‘go for it’”). These participants used the centripetal discourses of community and marriage to counter the centrifugal discourse of individuality, which is often framed as selfish, especially in patriarchal discourses about women’s roles and the expectation to care for others over caring for one’s self. To counter this discourse of individuality, participants used discourses of rationality to frame their commuter marriage as no (or at least not their) choice.

However, participants also used the discourse of rationality in conjunction with individuality to construct the meaning of personal fulfillment or development in their meaning-making of commuter marriages, which privileged the choice side of the discursive struggle. For example, Ava spoke about her partner being “anxious for me to have a sense of personal fulfillment and … pleasure that you get from having a career.” Anissa said she would encourage others to have a commuting relationship for “career development … if you have an opportunity for career development I think even for a short period of time … it’s important.” Often these personal growth moments were a response or challenge to the dominant discourse of marriage and motherhood: “without kids at home … why shouldn’t I?” (Brooke), and “where is it written that to be a wife you have to be just one thing?” (Reese). Even if participants did not use this discourse of individuality as a reason to commute in marriage, they often used it in retrospect as a benefit of commuting. For example,

I think it’s made me more self confident and able to handle plumbing problems, TV problems … you know … because I left those to him most of the time … and I think it’s proven to me that I can do some things that other people might not be able to do. (Anissa)

it was an excellent thing … I personally became more independent … I learned how live alone. (Aisha)

The discourse of rationality was often used with community to construct a “no choice” and the discourse of individuality to construct “choice,” but participants voiced these tensions as more complicated. Even Marjorie, whose husband said “go for it,” later said, “I guess I felt like we made this decision as a family … I didn’t give anybody orders or say this is how it’s going to be … but on the other hand, it was my choice, clearly.” Marjorie’s talk highlights the tension between community and individuality in framing choice/no choice. Macy, who reported that she had no choice because of her husband’s cancer diagnosis, when discussing how she would advise a friend considering commuter marriage, later said:

Consider if they feel comfortable or think it’s in their best interest because it’s their life … their choice. Like, uh, you know I’m taking advantage of having the time … being here, you know, to go back to school. I do think that my situation is a lot different than someone who is really career-oriented … not that I’m not.

Macy’s excerpt is another clear illustration of Baxter’s (2011) notion of a knot of contradictions. While Macy says she had “no choice” but to commute (calling on the discourses of community and marriage to care for her husband), she took advantage of the situation to continue her education (discourse of individuality) and also emphasized that it was a choice one could make. Additionally, Macy reported that her situation is different from someone who was career oriented (who might choose to commute) but then countered that statement with “not that I’m not,” again highlighting the complex, competing discourses of community and individuality interpenetrated with rationality in this discursive struggle of choice/no choice.

Finally, this discursive struggle of choice/no choice manifested itself in another way. Participants were quick to talk about how the commuter marriage works well for them but might not be a good choice for others. In doing so, these participants suggested that the “choice” pole of the dialectic might be problematic for others considering a commuter marriage and should not enter a commuting arrangement unless there was “no choice.” For example, “I like to be alone … I like to do something by myself, I like to have the control of my life” (Brooke), “I was very independent … I’m the oldest child. I liked doing things that weren’t typically done” (Julie), and “my family had always known me … you know, I always loved to go to school … so that determination has always there … I love challenges … I just love to keep going” (Joanna). All of these exemplars highlight a discourse of individuality and make an argument for why these participants see themselves as uniquely suited for a commuting relationship. To add to this discourse, participants, however, hedged and stated that it might not work for others. For example, “I’m never going to tell people that no you can’t do this … it just might take a little more effort to make it work” (Carol), and “I think in my case it works … but I don’t think it will work every time … you know” (Brooke). Not only did participants pull from the discourse of individualism to frame how it works uniquely for them, but when saying that commuter marriages would require “more effort” or not work “every time,” they reinforced the dominant narratives of community and marriage as a single shared residence.

Shared residence versus dual residence

Finally, there was a discursive struggle of conventionality in the form of shared residence versus dual residence where participants concomitantly used and countered dominant discourses of patriarchy, marriage, and motherhood in meaning-making about commuter marriage. Often in describing their marriage, participants would discursively point out similarities to shared-residence marriages. For example, when talking about the need to stay up on “boring details of day-to-day life,” Myah said it “was part of the fabric of any marriage … just the stuff that goes on … but you have to plan for when you see each other.” In doing so, she highlights a dominant discourse of marriage and reinforces the discourse of community in noting the added planning to maintain the connection in the discourses of marriage and community in a commuter marriage. When asked if they would suggest a commuter arrangement to others, participants often talked about commuter relationships being more work and warned against them.

Be sure that your marriage can take this … because if you have any doubt in your mind that he’s not going to be faithful to you … or that the marriage is strong enough that it’s going to make it through this commute … don’t do it. You have to have a relationship that can weather a lot of storms. There are many times that I’ve cried, I’ve called George and cried. And there’s not a thing he can do … except just listen. If you’ve never ever been apart, this is going to be really, really hard. (Melissa)

In framing the commuter marriage this way, Melissa is reinforcing the idealized, romantic discourse of marriage that assumes that single shared-residence marriages are not work and are free from concerns of fidelity, and so on.

Even with these cautions, participants encouraged a commuter marriage while also discouraging it because of too much distance (“I mean I would never say you could you know commute from China … [but] if it was just such a golden opportunity … I just say go for it,” Marjorie) or children (“Do it! Only if you [have] small children then I wouldn’t do it … but if your children are grown up, yes, do it. But also if your husband agrees with you, then do it,” Joanna). These examples illustrate the competing discourses in the tension between residential/commuter marriage. The discourses of marriage, motherhood, and community all interpenetrate in a dominant discourse. Participants might challenge centripetal (dominant) discourses of marriage and community and say, “do it,” but they follow-up with caveats to undermine their marginalized notions of commuter marriage and individuality. These participants also highlighted the patriarchal discourse related to marriage and community when saying things like

it’s not traditional … even though the opposite has been true a lot … that men had jobs where they were traveling all week … and no one ever thought, they might say ‘well, you know, poor them,’ never thinking about the one left at home. (Emily)

Emily noted that commuting situations in marriages are not new—men have done it often; however, the fact that women are doing it in these situations makes it nontraditional since patriarchal discourse emphasizes the preference for women to stay at home, or, if she works outside of the home, to stay in the same city so she can provide care for them.

While these marriages were dual residence for varying periods of time, they were also shared residence part of the time, and participants voiced that their relationships were still “living.” For example, Aisha reported how a friend, whose husband was deceased, tried comparing their situations: “She was trying to equate her loss … the death of her husband … with the absence of mine. First, I tried to explain it was two totally different things … mine’s still alive, we talk, you know, we see each other on a reasonably regular basis … so it’s not like he’s gone gone.” Similarly, Brielle said:

We’re like two circles, you know when we’re apart but then when we come together we are good … and I think we can be apart and okay with it … but then when we come together we’re really okay with that too … and I think because we can be apart, it makes [us] stronger.

Brielle’s explanation provides a counter to the discourse of marriage. She indicates that proper marriages are built on community/connection, but she highlights individuality as strength for a marriage and also suggests that conventional, shared residential marriages are not necessarily “stronger.” Similarly, Reese talked about how her commuter marriage provided her daughter a different model for marriage:

I think it’s given Alice a different model for a relationship than, you know, a traditional kind of thing. Of course it remains to be seen whether that’s good or bad … uh, I never really had any doubts that I could, you know, function on my own … but it’s shown that I can and that he can … that although we come back together and everything we both, you know, have reasonable lives separate from each other … uh … not to say any of it’s been easy.

Even though Reese says it has provided Alice with a different example of marriage, she entertains the dominant marital discourse by hedging with “of course it remains to be seen whether that’s good or bad” and by following up the positive centrifugal (marginalized) messages about commuter marriages with, “uh … not to say any of it’s been easy.” Taken together, these examples highlight the competing tensions of living in commuter marriages in light of the distal already- and not-yet-spoken discourses of marriage and community. Participants countered and entertained alternatives to traditional shared-residence marriage but also reinforced the shared-residence components of marriage, even in their own lives.

Discussion

The goal of the present study was to examine the sites of discursive struggle in the talk of commuter wives and how the interpenetration of discourses construct meaning for those in the commuter marriage. Using RDT (Baxter, 2011), we teased out strands of dominant discourses of marriage and community and articulated how participants attempted to use discourses of individuality and rationality to negate or counter dominant discourses or entertain other marginalized discourses. While different strands of discourse could be seen in various utterances, the discourses were so intertwined that it was impossible to completely separate one from the other. For example, Baxter (2011) and others have noted how the discourse of individuality often competes with discourses of community, however, in these data it also competed with other discourses, including marriage and motherhood. Further these competing discourses appeared at various points of the utterance chain—both in response to the distal and proximal already-spoken and in anticipation of the proximal and distal not-yet-spoken.

Although the discourses in this study were intertwined, it is the competition of the discourses, not only their identification, which provides insight into how commuter wives construct meaning through their utterances about their spouses and relationship. The discursive struggles of connection were places where we can see how commuting couples communicatively negotiated what it meant for these participants to be in a commuter marriage and specifically how they managed this new form of relationship. This management was highlighted when participants described their talk with their spouse about the choice to enter into a commuting situation and the ways they maintained connection in times of absence. The commuter wives’ utterances (both in the context of the interview and in reported speech with their spouses) responded to the proximal already-spoken discourses present in their relationship. These exemplars highlight the role communication plays in negotiating the day-to-day realities that shape the larger meaning-making and relational culture in marriages. Further, these exemplars provide an example of what Baxter (2011) referred to a “transformative struggle,” when two competing discourses, in this case physical and emotional presence/absence, are reframed in discourse in such a way that they no longer compete.

Meaning-making, however, is not limited to just utterances in reaction to localized relational culture, especially if relationships are seen as nonnormative. Even as those in the commuter couple could manage the internal tensions of connection, the powerful pervasiveness of larger cultural discourses created discursive struggles surrounding conventionality. In other words, these commuter wives’ meaning-making regarding their marriage had to respond to the large cultural discourse on marriage and motherhood (also buttressed by discourses of community and patriarchal discourses of the role of women). In having to acknowledge that their marriages were not conventional, participants vacillated in their talk about choice/no choice and the shared-residence/dual-residence aspects of their relationship. As noted in the results, even though some participants’ utterances reinforced dominant discourses of marriage, more often, they attempted to counter or negate these discourses or, minimally, entertain other possibilities.

In light of these findings, we must acknowledge the role of the expected addressee in the utterance chain. Although participants’ reported speech sheds light on the proximal site of the utterance chain in the relationship, not all of the participants’ voiced experiences were reported speech. Arguably, the interviewer could be seen as the addressee of participants, but the reality is probably more complicated. As presented in several exemplars in the results, the participants used a lot of conjunctives (e.g., “but”s) to counter both the dominant discourse and their own marginalized discourse of commuter marriage. While they did not have a relationship with the interviewer, it might be assumed that participants thought she was at least minimally supportive of their unconventional relationship, making them comfortable to challenge dominant discourses of marriage and community. More likely, Bakhtin’s (1919/1986) notion of the superaddressee becomes salient here. The superaddressee, drawing from the distal already-spoken cultural discourses, is the anticipated response of a generalized “other.” It is clear from participants’ voices that they are responding to the dominant distal already-spoken discourses while also hedging in their own discourse due to the anticipated superaddressee, who might judge their nonnormative relationships. Even in their discourse, the participants did not wholly displace the distal already- or not-yet-spoken discourses as they spoke of their commuter marriages as (a) temporary, (b) working for them, but not necessarily everyone, and (c) something that requires more work than other marriages. This study provides insight into our theoretical knowledge of this part of the utterance chain, which has been understudied according to Baxter (2011).

These data also speak to the powerful pervasiveness of the dominant discourses of marriage and the wives’ voiced experiences as they try to position their relationship within this discourse. Baxter wrote about the possibility for “transformative struggle” (p. 164) where people attempt to reframe discourse in some way, which was apparent here. Participants talked about their marriages being better for a variety of reasons (e.g., individual fulfillment, happier couple), but even in doing so they utilized dominant discourses in attempting to provide an alternative. Baxter (2011) theorized that often the marginalized discourse is granted power, but that does not seem to be the case in the context of talk about commuter marriage. We suggest that the distal discourses (of marriage and motherhood, primarily) are so entrenched that they cannot be fully displaced by proximal discourses. For example, many participants talked about how the commuter marriage was “right” for them but concomitantly said they would not recommend it for others. In the proximal spaces of meaning-making in the relationship, it seems as if these participants were more satisfied (or successful) with silencing the dominant discourses of marriage but they were less so when moving from their uniquely constructed relational culture.

This project also challenges some of the writings of dominant discourses. Discourses of individuality are often written about as dominant/centripetal in U.S. culture; however, these data highlight that in the context of marriage and family, the discourse of individuality, especially for women, is the marginalized discourse. Since “choosing” a commuter marriage is seen as more individualistic and counter to community in marriage/family, these women attempted to discursively construct themselves as not wholly individualistic by highlighting that it was (a) a mutual decision between the couple/family and (b) something that was for the good of the family. Participants also noted that men have made similar choices without the same discursive struggle, suggesting that discourses of independence as dominant may be part of a larger masculinized, patriarchal discourse, while women are expected to be central to the community discourse of marriage/motherhood.

Finally, although we have emphasized the contributions to RDT, this project adds important knowledge about the negotiation between spouses in constructing commuter marriages. First, this line of research has introduced a communication lens to the study of this relational context. Second, it provides additional insight about the relational context of commuter marriage to the communication literature that previously focused on how cultural norms surrounding marriage provided the backdrop for interaction between commuting spouses and social network members. Finally, from a practical perspective, commuting spouses, as well as marriage counselors/therapists who may be asked to help them to negotiate challenges, might find value in this articulation of the complex web of tensions within commuter marriages. Member-checking procedures postanalysis indicated that participants felt data validated their experiences and found it reassuring to know that others shared similar experiences.

Footnotes

Note

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