“How do you stay connected with your husband when he travels?”

I’ve been asked this question more times than I can count. My husband’s job has a pretty hefty travel schedule, and through the past 11 years of travel, we’ve spent quite a bit of time apart. We’ve worked hard to stay in touch and emotionally connected, even when my husband isn’t here, and this is especially true now that we have a toddler. Because he travels so frequently, I’m always ready for his next trip. It’s become part of our routine. Here are just a few tips to keep you communicating with a traveling spouse, even when he or she is on the road:

How to Stay Connected with your Traveling Spouse

Text & send photos

This one seems obvious, but we text a lot when he travels. I fill him in on cute and fun things our son does, often with pictures of activities we’re doing. My husband sends me photos of his hotel room, the city he’s in, and updates about his travels. Occasionally all we trade is memes back and forth throughout the daym=, and sometimes all we have time to send is an “I love you,” but it goes a long way. 

FaceTime

FaceTime changed how we talk on the phone. We talk longer when I can show him things I can’t easily take photos of, like our on-the-go son! Oscar’s face lights up when we call his father at the end of the day. If I need help with something and YouTube isn’t offering advice, FaceTime also lets him help me troubleshoot! While I don’t love talking on the phone, I find video chat makes the distance seem smaller. There is just something special about seeing each other’s faces at the end of a busy day.

Remember the other’s interests

My interests are varied – I love interesting architecture, local breweries, and farm-to-fork restaurants. My husband knows this and when he’s in a new city, he tells me about the restaurants he’s visited and places he’s seen. I’ve gotten many fun photos of meals out throughout the years. Keeping his interests in mind, I send him articles I think he’ll find interesting, tweets about baseball, or places to visit when he is home. This lets us keep our shared interests in mind without leaving the other one out.

Handwritten notes

My husband carries a backpack for work. Back when I only had a basic flip phone without picture messaging, I would write him a small note and tuck it into his bag before he left for a business trip. I asked him not to read it until he boarded his plane. In response, he started leaving me notes written in washable crayon or dry-erase marker on the mirror. I’d find these when getting home after work and they never failed to make me smile.

What Not to Do with your Traveling Spouse

We don’t boast or taunt what we do while my husband is away, and he doesn’t boast or taunt either. Outside of a few business trips overseas, he has told me that if there is something he can do that he knows I will also enjoy, he won’t do it – especially if it’s an something we may do together one day. When he shares something he’s done for fun, it’s with joy and out of shared interest, not to brag. It goes a long way toward assuaging jealousy that could exist due to my husband’s jet-setting ways, and helps me envision what fun things we can do together one day.

Because the days can feel long without another adult in the house, I try to find special activities to do with my son that are often outside of our normal routine. However, I don’t brag about the things we do when my husband is away. When we tell Oscar’s dad about his day, we share it with eagerness, joy, and the expectation that one day we’ll go and see those things together.

Do you have a traveling spouse? How do you stay connected through the distance?