Marrying a Traveling Man

Mr. Hawk works in retail. More specifically, he is a District Supervisor for a chain of retail stores. If any of y'all have ever worked in retail or have been in a relationship with someone who worked in retail full time, I'm sure you have an idea of what his job entails: long hours, working holidays, and (my least favorite) travel. (Lots.Of.Travel.) He is gone so often that sometimes it feels like we are in long distance relationship even though we share the same address. In the off-chance that he can actually make it home, it still feels like we're just crossing paths. He walks in the door around nine, and being an early riser myself, I head to bed around ten or ten-thirty. Come morning, I wake up earlier than him to head to work. When it comes down to it, we're lucky if we've actually spent over an hour of (conscious) time together!

Image via Long Distance Relationships

So how do we make it work? Well I think most people would say, "the phone is your friend." But Mr. Hawk and I kinda suck at that too. Neither of us are particularly phone-chatty, and we still face the issue of our conflicting schedules. Our saving grace is our lazy Sundays. Church and brunch/lunch at home, followed by hours of lounging and cuddling with movies or football on TV is how we make up for lost time. It's the one day a week that we close ourselves off from the rest of the world. (And it's wonderful!) I must admit that lately the wedding planning bonanza has begun to interfere with our lazy Sundays, but we've kind of started to take advantage of lazy Friday nights, so maybe that can serve as a temporary replacement. It doesn't really matter the day or time, the key for us is to have alone time to reconnect, preferably without tons of wedding talk.

Do you or your significant other travel frequently? How do you stay in tune with one another?