How to make a marriage work with 10,000km between you

TRACY Crisp lives with her two sons in Adelaide. Her husband’s home is in Abu Dhabi. This is a seriously long-distance relationship.

Tracy Crisp, Adrian Jones and their children Leo and Felix in Abu Dhabi.

TRACY Crisp lives with her two teenage sons in Adelaide. Her husband’s home is in Abu Dhabi.

There are more than 10,000 kilometres between the couple, but they say their love is strong enough to survive the distance.

Tracy, 47, and Adrian Jones, 48, will have been married for 25 years in February, but he won’t be in Australia to celebrate with her. He’ll be a 15-hour flight away, waking up as she nears the end of her day.

Adrian works as an engineer in Abu Dhabi, and Tracy and their sons lived with him there for eight years. But when Leo, 16, and Felix, 14, entered their teens, their mother felt it was time to bring them home.

The husband and wife speak at least once a week on Skype and message regularly on WhatsApp, but Tracy says they miss sharing their day-to-day lives. “It’s hard keeping in touch,” she told news.com.au. “The time difference is only five hours but it’s kind of awkward. He wakes up while I’m at work and once I’m home, he’s in the middle of his day.

“I try to wake up at 5.30am for a quick WhatsApp. Also, his weekend is Friday and Saturday, and Saturday is crazy with sport. He feels he loses touch with our daily life quite quickly.”

Tracy now lives in Adelaide with the kids, who are teenagers, while her husband remains in the Middle East.

When Adrian does come to visit, he doesn’t quite have a place in the family’s new home, which is in a part of the city he’s never lived in before. “He doesn’t know where the lunch boxes are, just simple things, the way to get to the shops, what day the bins go out, what nights the kids have cricket training,” says Tracy, a funeral celebrant and freelance writer and editor.

“He doesn’t know where their stuff is when they say, ‘have you seen this?’ There’s none of his stuff here, so it gets in the way a bit when he wants to put his computer somewhere. He’s got a few things here, but they look a bit forlorn.”

Tracy doesn’t regret moving back to South Australia. Her sons can now spend time with their extended family, and many of their friends at international school left the Middle East around the same time.

The mother of two says her husband couldn’t turn down the opportunity to work with a top architect on a new skyscraper, expected to be the tallest in the world, but she would love him to find something closer to home.

“I had a few dark months in August and September where I thought all these things,” she admits. “It’s been much more difficult emotionally than I thought.

“I think about being middle-aged, and am I missing him or just someone to share this with? All that 2am at night stuff.”

But she consoles herself that “plenty of women have it way harder, I’m not breaking up with someone, we’re financially secure.”

Tracy has written about her experience for the upcoming edition of literary magazine Griffith Review, confessing she told her husband: “Do you know my biggest fear? ... I’m scared you’ll die and then I’ll never have sex again.”

Tracy and Leo, who is now 16.

She told news.com.au the enforced celibacy isn’t easy, with her husband making just four short visits since their separation. “It’s about to be 25 years. A bit of space and distance is always nice after that amount of time but there is a degree of intimacy lost. It is different.”

Tracy has had to be practical, embracing her new independence and taking on tasks she hasn’t done in decades — or ever.

The family’s arrival back in Australia was tricky to navigate alone. “There was this container of stuff,” she says. “My father died and we had to put my grandfather in a nursing home. I still find moving difficult, it’s physically and emotionally draining.

“Every day for six months was intense problem-solving. We haven’t got Medicare cards, we haven’t got a hose. I had to go and buy my own car, which in lots of ways, I enjoyed. But in some ways I thought, someone just make a decision.”

Bringing up the kids alone has been hard too. “I underestimated the change in the boys,” she says. “They’re teenagers. They have more freedom but I don’t know how to manage it. Are they allowed out after 10? It’s just emotional bumps. Sometimes things happen and I don’t want to bug him, he can’t do anything. Sometimes it’s tiring and overwhelming.”

The couple hope to be reunited this year, but nothing is certain. And Tracy is a little apprehensive about what life will be like once they are both living on the same continent again.

“I think we’re both aware how hard that will be to start with,” she says, adding that she has sought advice from a relationship counsellor. “Just being together feels funny.

“I’m pretty good with my own company so, in lots of ways, I appreciate the opportunity to be by myself. I’ve been surprised how many women said, ‘you lucky thing!’”

She believes the depth of their connection is what’s kept her and Adrian together in spite of the enormous physical distance between them.

“I wouldn’t recommend it if your relationship isn’t rock solid,” she says. “Every little fracture in our relationship is magnified.

“We’ve been together since we were 18 so I don’t feel it’s under strain. In a way, I feel really lucky to have had the chance to understand how much we value each other.

“I really understand how much he loves me now.”

Read Tracy Crisp’s story in the Griffith Review.