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How is your commute affecting your marriage?
A study in Spain found that commuting to work in your own car is associated with poorer mental health. And the more time and money you spend doing it, the worse you rate on things like sleep loss, stress, and being unhappy or depressed. I suspect the aim of this study was to move folks to public transportation, which was, unsurprisingly, found to be less harmful. But the study looks to be well done, so the results are still valid, and all of those negative things are bad for you and your marriage.
A grad student in Sweden put a finer point on it, finding that those with longer commutes had a 40% greater chance of divorce. The author of the dissertation pointed out people do long commutes to improve their income. In the States, we also do it to live in a more desirable place. While these are good things that could benefit a marriage, we need to also look at the possible downsides.
This very much fits with my Do Less in 2024 theme. It also shows the difficult decisions that come with trying to do that. Reducing your commute may well mean reducing your income. That would require changes to your lifestyle. The real question is this: Would more time with your wife and kids and less stress and being happier offset the loss of income? If you accept society’s “wisdom” about success and money, the answer is no. If you look to the wisdom of the Bible, it might be a solid yes.
Image Credit: © Photo by Nabeel Syed on Unsplash
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I remember that when I had an hour’s commute, my weight quickly went up about 20 lbs as I found that it helped a lot to stop for a bite to eat and a Coke to make it home safely. When I moved close to work, the weight dropped quickly.
And yes, it wasn’t terribly fun for my wife to have me out of the house for longer, either. And one other side note; heart health and mental health are strongly linked. Want to have a clear mind? Take yourself for a walk or a run or a bike ride, or….
A lot of my family tree is in Chicago. Big city life is what people often associate with commutes. People decide to move to the suburbs and possibly take on a longer commute to their jobs,
I’ve been lucky and for the most part have had very reasonable travel times to my jobs, school etc. At one time as a young woman I had desired to live in Chicago but I think it would have worn me down. My daughter and I visited a few years ago and used public transport and it was convenient and fast to go from the suburbs to downtown but also, um, interesting.
My husband was raised in a very small town. As time went on there was simply no jobs, and one either commuted or moved. He and all of his siblings moved out of their small town, and eventually his parents followed. I would have never met him had he decided not to move away from his small town.
I work with a substantial amount of people from more rural areas. I don’t think we consider these people when we think about commuters. They aren’t looking for better income, they are just looking for a job, any job. Since I work in healthcare, a job with no snow days, the idea of traveling down a snowy interstate absolutely doesn’t appeal to me.
We are almost empty nesters. I don’t know how families are doing it these days. Having my son home for college break increased our grocery bill substantially. We happily paid for the groceries of course. But with health insurance premiums(our son is still on our insurance plan) and will be until he finds his first post college job and food prices going up every time you turn around not everyone can do it on a reduced income.