Posted by
Susan

Thirty years ago, in a different life I was married to a police officer who left our small family for extended periods of time for training. It was all so different in those days, airfare was far more expensive than it is today, there were no such thing as long distance plans and the Internet had not been invented for ordinary citizens. During the extended period of time that he was away, the kids and I shared short telephone conversations with him once a week and he returned home only once for a visit. When he finally did return, we had to reintegrate him into our lives. That was difficult and perhaps may have been a contributing factor to our divorcing a few years later.

Two of my children are part of military families, they face frequent separations of different durations. It’s a struggle for both the person who stays at home with the children and the one who is far from home, but things have changed so much in the past 25 years. The difference is huge and couples today have so many more tools that help to make the separation more attached.

I got to see this first hand today. I’m currently working on a short-term contract at a somewhat remote mine site. The world of miners, oil patch workers and dozens of other trades that develop distant regions is one of continual separation and reunion.  The average day is twelve hours and everyone lives in a camp far from home. While riding the bus from the mine to the camp at the end of shift, the conversations were not between co-workers. Almost everyone on the bus was engaged in a conversation via cell phone, or texting and emailing from their smart phone. The bus was quiet except for the hushed voices the father’s spoke to the children, and then switched to private conversations with their wives. Every aspect of parenting and loving their spouse occurs in those few available minutes between the end of shift and sleep. For these men and women, who work hard for twelve hours, every day, for weeks or months at time, technology has brought their families to them daily.

So often, we hear complaints about how technology is taking over our lives and we don’t have real relationships. However, for many people, technology is what helps them to feel present in the lives of their children and lovers. Probably the most heartwarming examples of this are those families that are benefiting from the work the military has done to improve the lives of their members. The military has encouraged deployed soldiers to take advantage of the internet and computers they provide for couples and parents regularly via Skype.

We should be applauding this and Tokii.com does. To help combat dropped calls and poor cell reception couples can play our DiscoveryGames. Even if they can’t actually speak on the phone by playing games together they can share their thoughts and opinions easily and playfully. They can share their mood, learn how each other feels on big topics that affect the world or those that just affect their home.

Cell phones, internet, texting, webcam, are not the enemy, anymore than radio, telephones and television were. The tools we have today allow a couple to connect far more frequently than any other time in the past. Never again does a spouse have to wait weeks for letters to be delivered from far away places. Today a couple can be separated by oceans and still blow kisses to each other every night.

Try These DiscoveryGames – discover yourself and your partner on a sexual, emotional and intellectual level and have fun while doing it.

Tantalizing Tokii Reads – to make relationship work into fun.

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