Means to an End

For some of them, it’s about perspective. Sara knew that this would be the tradeoff for making aliyah. “I knew what I was getting into. I knew it would mean that my husband would be traveling for work. Eretz Yisrael nikneis b’yissurin, and this was just going to be one of those trials. But I’m so happy to be here, and that makes it all easier.”

For Gittel, it was about her husband’s job fulfillment. He works in a manufacturing industry, and he was given an option: keeping his local job near Lakewood, or taking on a new job in production and sourcing where he could visit factories in China and around the world. “He was so excited about it,” she says. “The opportunity made him so happy. So I said, ‘If that’s what you want to do, then go. I’ll just have to learn to be happy with it.’ ”

Elisheva’s husband travels from Israel to the United States to fundraise for organizations. “I wish people wouldn’t assume that this is our l’chatchilah,” she tells me. There is a default assumption, in many cases, that husbands have chosen to travel as a tradeoff: travel and financial comfort in exchange for their absence. “And then they’re like, ‘Well, I guess money is more important than having Tatty in town,’ ” Elisheva says. “But that’s not the case.”

When they first moved to Eretz Yisrael, her husband struggled to find a job. He has a degree in business, but it didn’t help him in Israel. “It got to the point where we needed something to change. We went into it together, eyes wide open.”

Elisheva remembers once, years ago, when her husband had been around and able to attend Avos uBanim with one of their sons. They had relished the learning together, and then, her son won the big raffle at the end of the session. “My son was so excited. He was beaming as he went up to get his prize. And then, from the back of the shul, some man called out, ‘Yeah, like that kid needs it.’ It was like a slap in the face.”

Elisheva has made peace with this life. “We’ve always been on the same page on this. We’ve worked hard to get here. It’s always been for a meaningful thing, and that makes it worthwhile for us. He’s doing work for the klal. He’s doing work that he’s really passionate about. He’s not Israeli, and he can’t do that kind of work here. He’s American, and that’s where he’s going to be able to have an impact. That’s where he needs to be. That’s where Hashem put him.”

Gittel’s biggest pet peeve is when people find out that her husband travels for work and immediately jump to the certainty that it’s about money. “People of all types will say to me, ‘Oh, I hope you’re getting something good out of it.’ And I’m left looking at them like they’re crazy. It’s a curse since Adam that men have to work for money. Like, yes, some men have to travel, and some men are in the office from morning ’til night, and maybe you work and your husband learns, but… I don’t know. This is the way it is. This is what I got. My husband traveling doesn’t mean that we can get whatever we want.”

Shoshana has a pragmatic perspective. “I’m grateful that he has a parnassah,” she says about her husband, who was traveling between the United Kingdom and Israel for a week each month until recently. “I wouldn’t give it up. I’d rather he do this than not have a parnassah. But there are definitely challenges.”

To Compensate

For the women with young children at home, the loneliness is one of the most difficult parts. “My husband and I came to the understanding that the home is my territory,” says Sarit, whose husband has been traveling for work for many years. “Of course, he’s always willing to lend a hand. But when push comes to shove, the house is my responsibility, and his responsibility is our parnassah.” She has worked some small jobs over the years, but she’s primarily at home with the children.

For Sarit and her husband, it’s those set roles that give them peace of mind. “He’s able to build himself up because he doesn’t have the responsibility of home weighing on him. And I’m able to be successful because I don’t have the burden of how we’re going to pay the bills on my mind.” But she’s dependent on him for emotional support, and she misses that when he’s away. “I miss having that partner with me. Like, if I’m giving the kids a bath, he’ll be hanging out with me, or we’ll do it together. I just miss him being around.”

“The summer is much more challenging,” says Sarit. “In the winter, everyone gets home, you do homework and dinner, and then it’s already baths and putting the kids to sleep. You’re just very busy, and by the time you’re finished, you’re exhausted. I usually go to sleep early when my husband’s away. In the summer, though, the kids are outside, the nights are superlong, and it does become lonely.”

She finds that she craves adult communication. Now that some of her children are teenagers, it’s a little bit easier. The teens are up later, and they can have the conversations she was lacking. But still, it’s not the same.

Sleeping at night without the security of a man in the house is something that she still struggles with. When she wakes up in the middle of the night and knows that she’s alone, she feels that anxiety and vulnerability.

Gittel’s husband is usually out at work all day even when he isn’t traveling, so the weekends are when she misses him most. “That’s when I really get to spend big chunks of time with him, and when he isn’t there, I just feel lonely and out of place.”

Shoshana has some friends whose husbands have been out of work for a while, and it was a constant strain on their marriage. “I feel like I can’t complain. Even if there are times where it’s lonely and stressful, I’m just so grateful that he has a job. So we have to be apart for a few days? I count my blessings.”

Shoshana and Gittel both find that they’re just so tired at the end of the day. “I think it’s just the emotional thought of him not being there,” Gittel says. “It’s exhausting, the mental burden of holding everything together. I’m fine, but it’s so draining.” She doesn’t sleep well when her husband is away. There’s this silent stressor that lurks, the fear of sleeping through her alarm. It’s all on her.

When one of Elisheva’s sons was in second grade, his rebbi called the house. “Your son is great, he’s doing very well, but I do want to mention one thing.” Elisheva’s son, the rebbi said, had been coming up to the rebbi every other morning and asking for a hug. “I don’t mind. I’m happy to give him a hug, but I know his father’s away… maybe you should hug him more?”

It hadn’t crossed Elisheva’s mind that her son was missing his father’s hugs. “I’m not naturally a hugging kind of person, and my husband is very, very affectionate. And sometimes, when your husband is away, you have to be constantly thinking: What is my kid missing right now? What can I be doing?”

She incorporated spontaneous treats for the kids when her husband was away, like ordering pizza or going on a family trip. “When they’re little, that was enough to make them happy. I needed to be fun once in a while and treat them a little more.” Now, the kids are older, and she finds that what they really need is connection with their father. A year ago, she opened a private WhatsApp chat for each child with her husband. The kids send voice notes to him, and he responds when the time zone allows it. Sometimes he’ll snap a photo of something and send it over, too, like a picture of a cool sports car for their ten-year-old.

Sara and her husband are able to pick the exact dates when he leaves. “If he leaves on a Wednesday and comes back the next Thursday, it feels like two full weeks, because we’re already preparing for him to leave earlier in the week.” Instead, they’re careful that he leaves early in the week and returns halfway through the next week, which makes it feel like less emotionally.

She also makes sure to treat her kids and herself. “He eats healthier than most of us, so we’ll eat some foods that he doesn’t usually eat. It’s a nice little consolation.”

Elisheva remembers asking an experienced friend for guidance when she first started out. “I was like, ‘Wow, I feel like I’m buying them treats at the makolet every day.’ And she said, ‘Yeah, that’s okay. You’re not spoiling them. Their father isn’t home, and that’s hard for them. And if you need to give them a little something extra in the morning, a little bribery, then that’s fine. You need to do this for them.’ It felt as though she was giving me permission to treat them.”

Shoshana’s husband is careful to travel during the week and be home for Shabbos. He’s also adamant that he calls the children every evening before bed, usually on a video call. “He’s makpid to tell my son a bedtime story when he’s here, so he tries to make a point, if the timing works, to tell him one over the phone when he’s away. We have that constant connection with him, even when he’s away.”

When there were sirens in Israel last year, she was alone with the kids, though she remembers that it was more stressful for her than for her children. “I had one teenager tell me, ‘Ima, you’re making everybody stressed, everybody’s fine when you just relax.’ ”

Her children are better behaved when their father is home, though she’s the strict one. There’s a certain measure of security and stability that comes with him. When he’s home, he’s very hands-on and present in their lives, and Shoshana contrasts it favorably to before he began traveling, when he was working long hours and had a long commute and was rarely around at all.

Sarit sees this in practice. When her husband is home, he’s working, too, and the kids aren’t getting much time with him, either. “He’s just going to be home for a couple of hours at night, or he’ll be there in the morning for a little while to say goodbye to them.” But when he is home, he makes sure that he’s 100 percent present with them and gives them the time that they need.

Sarit’s husband is careful about when he travels, but this past Chanukah, circumstances dictated that he’d be missing the last day of Chanukah. So they made Sunday as exciting as possible, with a big trip to American Dream. “They knew Monday was going to be a little more chilled.” Sometimes, Sarit will take the kids out for ice cream when her husband is away, if she thinks they need it. But she finds that, the majority of the time, they really don’t.

“If life becomes completely different when their father is away, then yeah, it’s going to have a huge effect on the kids. But if life looks similar and the house is still running and the kids feel like they know the schedule and what’s going on, they go with the flow.”

But Sarit knows her limits. Play dates outside of the house are off the table most of the time, because it’s too difficult for her to collect all the children to do pickups.

Gittel’s husband is also out 12 hours a day when he isn’t traveling. “The kids got used to it. I run a very structured home, so they don’t feel it so much.” But on the weekends, when their father is away, they feel his absence more. She goes to stay with her parents nearby, and her kids are kept busy with uncles and cousins. “I tell their rebbeim, too, and the rebbeim definitely give them extra nachas notes so they feel like they’re getting that positive attention, too.”

When her husband is in China, he’s exactly 12 hours ahead, so he can call at his evening and catch them at breakfast and vice versa. He sends the kids pictures of interesting Chinese towns that he’s seen and tells them funny stories about what he did that day.

She remembers, though, a time when her husband was away and she made plans to go out with her friends at night. “My kids were livid. At first, I didn’t get it, but then I understood them. Their father wasn’t home, and now their mother was leaving them. I don’t go out at night anymore. I used to feel like running away at night. But if I’m home, they feel safe. At least Mommy’s here.”

The Risks

When Elisheva’s husband first began traveling for work, people would host him for Shabbos and ask, “Nu, what’s your story? Are you single?”

“I’m married with five kids,” he would tell them. It was almost as though he had an entire separate life, in another country, without his family.

It was funny at first, but one comment came as a shock to Elisheva’s husband. It was early on, while Elisheva and her husband were still trying to figure out how to maintain a close and supportive relationship while constantly at a distance. He was meeting with the rav in one town. After several visits, the rav asked him, “Are you married?”

“Yeah,” her husband said.

“Eh, for now,” the rav retorted. It was a horrible thing to say, of course, but at the time, Elisheva’s husband was only taken aback and bewildered. “What are you talking about?”

“No, come on,” the rav said. “We get these guys who come in a lot, and after a while, they’re here more often than they’re at home.” In his experience, he explained, most of these men traveled for work because they weren’t good at being at home.

“I think the spiritual issues can be very significant when you’re traveling,” says Rabbi Pinchas Chatzinoff, a Five Towns-based rav. He once spoke to a young man who worked for an international business and spent a lot of time in Europe. “After his sixth or seventh trip, he told his bosses that he couldn’t do it and eventually left the company. He just felt that life on the road was too overwhelming, and he had some significant temptations.” He didn’t act on them, but he felt like stability is often extremely important when it comes to growing spiritually.

Others, Rabbi Chatzinoff says, immediately look for that stability when they reach a new place. “They immediately find out where the closest minyan is. They touch base on that familiarity — they go to minyan, they put on tefillin, and they feel like that keeps them on the straight and narrow.” Some, he finds, will keep up a chavrusa or attend even more shiurim virtually than usual because they’re looking for an anchor when they’re outside of a wholesome environment.

He quotes the tefillah that a guest makes for the host in bentshing. “The brachah we ask for is that he should have a parnassah that’s krovah la’ir, that’s close to the city. That he doesn’t have to travel much, because it takes such a toll on family and spiritual stability. And if the reason why you’re traveling is because you don’t do home well, then it is a point of concern.”

Elisheva recalls the rav’s throwaway comment to her husband as a wake-up call. “That was really hard for us to hear. It was hard for us to realize that a lot of men, when they’re traveling, their families don’t survive it. But that wasn’t going to be us.” She describes her husband as her best friend, someone she’s deeply connected with.

I ask a question I’ve asked almost every woman: Does she feel as though her relationship with her husband is weaker with the continued distance, or stronger because of the constant maintenance that these couples have to do?

“You actively need to be there for each other,” Elisheva says. “You actively need to be supportive. And a lot of times, you definitely need to stretch yourself. Both of us are stretching ourselves a little bit extra. We need to make sure we’re there for each other. It’s like… we’re on the same team here. We’re on the same page. If there’s a struggle, we’re going to get through it together.”

Shoshana doesn’t necessarily think that her relationship is stronger because of the distance, but she sees a payoff. “When we have to make an effort to call each other every night to talk about our day, and that effort is successful, there’s this potential for the relationship to be stronger.”

Gittel’s relationship is definitely stronger. “It’s because we’re forced to really focus on it, so we don’t live our own, separate lives.”

Sara compares it to other separations in Jewish marriage. “There’s a separation, and then there’s a coming back together. There can be a beauty in it.” When her husband is away, they communicate in a more targeted way. He works from home the rest of the time, so they’re constantly around each other, orbiting, without having nearly as many genuine conversations.

Because of the time difference, Shabbos comes much earlier for her than for her husband. So he’ll send her voice notes throughout his Friday, updating her on his day, so she has messages to listen to after Shabbos. Then, after Shabbos, Sara will send back voice notes about how Shabbos went for her, and they each get to hear each other’s voice after Shabbos is over for them.

Sarit is circumspect about making any sweeping comments about her relationship. “I don’t think it really changes for us how much you have to work on a relationship. People who have a strong relationship will have a strong relationship, and people who are struggling are going to struggle more.” But she’s sure that you have to make the effort to go out and spend time together as your family grows, traveling or not. And she does speak to her husband every night, sharing the events of the day.

“We’re still a part of each other’s lives. I still share with my husband what’s going on in the house, and he shares with me how his day was. We still have that time together; it’s just over the phone.”

Their Bond

Nearly all of the women I speak to have a system in place, a certain level of confidence in their relationships and their husbands’ role in their lives. Sara tells me that it makes perfect sense. If a woman can’t handle this lifestyle, she points out, then in a good relationship, the husband would either stop traveling or they would hire help to make his absences more manageable.

The one woman I interview who isn’t confident in the lifestyle is Faigy, who’s been doing this for a year and can’t see herself living like this long-term. “Maybe it would be different if my husband was making a great living and I could have full-time cleaning help and babysitting. But right now, I’m working full-time, plus taking care of the kids, and I feel like I don’t have time to breathe.” Her husband didn’t have a choice; he took a remote job after Covid that became in-office in 2024, and he is gone every Monday through Thursday. “At least he’s home for Shabbos. But he gets back just as exhausted as I feel.”

When Shoshana’s husband comes home, he isn’t ready to jump right into parenting, either. First, there’s jet lag that has him worn out, and it takes a few days for him to return to the swing of things.

“When a person travels for business, they’re working very hard and living out of a suitcase,” Rabbi Chatzinoff notes. “When they get home, they think, ‘Okay, now I can relax a little bit and take it easy.’ But in the meantime, they don’t always realize that they left behind a wife who’s been holding down the fort and juggling carpools, homework, meals, and running the house, and she’s waiting for relief. They have to work this out and discuss it in advance.”

Without that communication and understanding on both ends, a homecoming can be a new stressor.

“As wives, we have to realize that travel is hard, too,” Sarit says. “Our husbands are also sacrificing a lot. Everyone plays their part in the equation.” Part of that is recognizing that you’re a team, she says, and looking for opportunities to make life easier for the other person.

Elisheva remembers how, early on, her husband would finally call late at night, and she would unload everything onto him. “I was crashing. I hadn’t spoken to another adult all day.” She would run through every hardship of the day, every single thing that had gone wrong, getting it all out.

After a trip or two, her husband finally admitted how hard it was for him to be away from home. “And then he’d call home and hear this laundry list of everything that’s going wrong. It wasn’t sustainable. It was too much for him.”

Now, when she gets calls from women whose husbands started traveling, she immediately gives them advice. “You need a sister, a best friend, someone who can be your designated kvetchee. Get it out of your system, and when you speak to your husband, give him the support he needs.”

For many of these women, having other people are key. Gittel spends a lot of time with family when her husband is away, and she is easier on herself. “I don’t feel the same pressures, and the house doesn’t need to be cleaned. I serve the kids chicken nuggets or grilled cheese for dinner and just get myself a salad. And in the afternoons, I’ll go to my sister’s house and spend time with her.”

Her neighbors and relatives check in with her when her husband is away, and that strong support system keeps her going. Sometimes, she buys herself little treats. Sometimes, she lets herself cry.

Elisheva appreciates all the help she’s gotten, but she took some time to establish her limits. When her husband first started traveling, she was invited out for Shabbos meals all the time, and she was uncomfortable. Her husband is the outgoing one; she found it exhausting to spend Shabbos afternoon with people. “I learned how to say, ‘Thank you so much for thinking of me, but I’ve learned that my kids and I prefer being at home.’ ”

Sarit is friends with the wife of her husband’s business partner, and when the men go away together, they would take turns making dinner and hang out together by the pool. “Find support,” she advises women whose husbands are traveling. “Finding other women who are going through the same thing is very beneficial.”

Women of Valor

“A lot of people tell me, ‘Oh, I don’t know how you do it,’ and look at me like I’m an alien creature,” Gittel reflects. “Maybe it’s just Lakewood culture, where people are so used to relying on their husbands that they can’t imagine their husbands not being home.”

But Gittel has changed over the past five years, since her husband began traveling, and she isn’t interested in pity or judgment. “Nothing stops me anymore,” she says. “Like, I’ll just figure it out by myself.”

Sometimes, when her husband comes home, it takes her some time to adjust. “I almost have to relearn how to live with a spouse again,” she admits. Coordinating parenting rules is especially tricky. “When he’s home, I’m much quicker to run things by him, but when he’s not home, I can’t always talk to him. I end up making decisions myself. But he’s also learned to trust me to run the house.”

When Elisheva’s husband comes home, she’ll take a day off from work and go down to Yerushalayim to spend the day with her sisters. “We’ll spend the whole day out, go to the Kosel and go shopping, and recharge and enjoy.” Her husband works from home when he’s around, so she doesn’t have to stress about afterschool plans or dinner. It’s totally off her plate.

But she never loses perspective of why this is how things have to be. “People don’t understand the burden that some men carry to provide for their family,” she says. She tells me about women she knows who see their husbands leave for months at a time. “They don’t like it, but that’s the only way that their husbands can make parnassah.

“Even if the wife is working, it’s the husband’s responsibility — and that’s a huge weight on their shoulders. And his wife needs to understand that this is his achrayus at the end of the day. To be that supportive person in his life, to be the support system that he so badly needs is crucial.”

Sara tells me that at the beginning, this lifestyle is difficult, but it becomes more manageable over time. “I think people are very adaptable,” she says. “We, as women, are very strong. We step up to the plate when we need to.”

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 982)