If you travel frequently on business, and if you also have a relationship or a family, you don't need an expert to tell you that recurring separations are stressful. However, you might want the experts to help you and your spouse or "significant other" learn to deal with these stresses.

Chris Essex and Leah Fisher, Co-Directors of the Berkeley, California based Center For Work And The Family, offer a seminar for couples called "PROFESSIONAL LIVES/ PERSONAL LIVES: FINDING A BALANCE TOGETHER." Here, employees and their spouses discuss the challenges of meeting career demands while nurturing relationships and responding to the needs of families. Again and again, participants reported that separations and disruptions due to business travel were putting a major strain on couple relationships and family life. In response, Essex and Fisher designed a training seminar which addresses this issue and provides coping skills. The resulting day-long seminar, "COMING AND GOING: COPING WITH BUSINESS TRAVEL,'' is offered to employees and their spouses through businesses and corporations.

Recent trends in business travel include more intensive travel schedules, more women business travelers, and dual career families where both parents may have travel obligations. Some employees travel so extensively that their lifestyles resemble "commuter marriages," where two households are maintained. Stresses reported by couples include resentment, guilt toward the partner at home, reluctance to bring up conflicts or problems when there is so little time together, and competing agendas when the traveler returns. Over time, these stresses can interfere with communication and erode intimacy.

The six hour seminar consists of large and small group activities as well as one-on-one private conversations between partners about the experience of business travel. A major goal for the seminar is to increase understanding and empathy for one's partner. Participants examine the perks and the hardships of each partner's role, that of business traveler or of the spouse at home. In a supportive group setting, it is possible to look objectively at the other's experience without feeling so much guilt or resentment.

Feedback from seminar participants is enthusiastic. Hearing from other couples helps normalize the stresses that all couples feel; involving the non-traveling partner makes clear that entire families are affected by business travel. Participants have a chance to share best practices; together they generate some very creative solutions to common challenges. Most leave the seminar feeling greater understanding and empathy for their partners.

"COMING AND GOING" can be arranged at the workplace; it can also be scheduled as a conference presentation or spouse activity at professional meetings.

For Further Information, please contact:

The Center For Work And The Family
In Maryland (301) 309-0870
In California (925) 258-5400
Email: cwfseminar@aol.com

©1999 Center For Work And The Family