Commuter Spouses: New Families in a Changing World

by Danielle Lindemann

Overview

What can we learn from looking at married partners who live apart? In Commuter Spouses, Danielle Lindemann explores how couples cope when they live apart to meet the demands of their dual professional careers. Based on the personal stories of almost one-hundred commuter spouses, Lindemann shows how these atypical relationships embody (and sometimes disrupt!) gendered constructions of marriage in the United States. These narratives of couples who physically separate to maintain their professional lives reveal the ways in which traditional dynamics within a marriage are highlighted even as they are turned on their heads. Commuter Spouses follows the journeys of these couples as they adapt to change and shed light on the durability of some cultural ideals, all while working to maintain intimacy in a non-normative relationship.

Lindemann suggests that everything we know about marriage, and relationships in general, promotes the idea that couples are focusing more and more on their individual and personal betterment and less on their marriage. Commuter spouses, she argues, might be expected to exemplify in an extreme manner that kind of self-prioritization. Yet, as this book details, commuter spouses actually maintain a strong commitment to their marriage. These partners illustrate the stickiness of traditional marriage ideals while simultaneously subverting expectations.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781501731204
Publisher:	Cornell University Press
Publication date:	03/15/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	198
File size:	804 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Danielle Lindemann is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Lehigh University. She has a husband and a feisty preschooler. Currently, they all live together.

What People are Saying About This

Melissa Milkie

Danielle Lindemann's Commuter Spouses flows beautifully. Lindemann skillfully weaves research on commuter marriages into compelling stories and shows how these unique relationships can help us learn about the contours of gender, work, and family life.

Anne-Marie Slaughter

Lindemann skillfully uses commuter marriages as a lens to examine larger social forces. Her findings highlight the ways that independence and interdependence can coexist and reinforce one another, a salutary lesson for couples everywhere.

Laura Stafford

Commuter Spouses is an engaging read and gives us the comprehensive examination of commuter marriages that has been needed for decades.

Editorial Reviews

Winter 2018

Lindemann (sociology, Lehigh Univ., PA) provides a thorough exploration of the causes and consequences of long-distance marital arrangements in a scholarly yet accessible and straightforward style. Drawing on extensive research into commuter marriages via structured interviews, the author brings into focus the reasons married couples choose to live separately, as well as the problems and surprising benefits of such situations. While individual couples have various reasons for deciding to live apart, most boil down to an attempt to accommodate dual careers. Although this is a particular problem among academics, Lindemann's subjects are not drawn solely from an academic pool. Sections on how spouses use technology to communicate, gendered differences in the experience of "single" living, and assessments of the overall happiness of commuter spouses attempt to create a full portrait of the risks and rewards of these arrangements. Lindemann carefully differentiates between the trends that are revealed through the interviews and the theories that might explain the trends, avoiding the "correlation equals causation" pitfall. As befits an academic work, there is a description of the author's methodology, notes, and extensive references. VERDICT With few comparison works, this book will appeal to those interested in modern social trends and family dynamics.—Rebecca Brody, Westfield State Univ., MA

Library Journal

An extraordinary, original, and seminal work of meticulous and rigorous scholarship, "Commuter Spouses: New Families in a Changing World" is an unreservedly recommended and core addition to college and university library Contemporary American Sociology collections in general, and Modern Marriage, Family, and Labor Relations supplemental curriculum studies lists in particular.

Midwest Book Review

An extraordinary, original, and seminal work of meticulous and rigorous scholarship, "Commuter Spouses: New Families in a Changing World" is an unreservedly recommended and core addition to college and university library Contemporary American Sociology collections in general, and Modern Marriage, Family, and Labor Relations supplemental curriculum studies lists in particular.

-- "Midwest Book Review"

From the Publisher

"An extraordinary, original, and seminal work of meticulous and rigorous scholarship, "Commuter Spouses: New Families in a Changing World" is an unreservedly recommended and core addition to college and university library Contemporary American Sociology collections in general, and Modern Marriage, Family, and Labor Relations supplemental curriculum studies lists in particular."

midwest Book Review

"Lindemann skillfully uses commuter marriages as a lens to examine larger social forces. Her findings highlight the ways that independence and interdependence can coexist and reinforce one another, a salutary lesson for couples everywhere."

Anne-Marie Slaughter

"Danielle Lindemann's Commuter Spouses flows beautifully. Lindemann skillfully weaves research on commuter marriages into compelling stories and shows how these unique relationships can help us learn about the contours of gender, work, and family life."

Melissa Milkie

"Commuter Spouses is an engaging read and gives us the comprehensive examination of commuter marriages that has been needed for decades."

Laura Stafford