Introduction

Abstract

Martin and Lucy were one of the couples I interviewed for the study that forms the basis of this book. Interesting, as I found all the couples, they were the one who perhaps made me think most about intimacy in distance relationships. They clearly knew each other very well, having formed a close and apparently loving relationship over about 20 years. When I spoke to them, they had an ease of familiarity with each other, but were also keen to show the careful efforts they made to be kind and considerate of each other. Martin and Lucy talked with affection and humour about their grown-up children who lived nearby. They told stories about past struggles, and they talked quite a lot, especially Lucy, about washing and ironing and shopping. One of the ways in which Lucy emphasised how supportive Martin was of her was to say that he ‘never said [he] didn’t want to go shopping’. Indeed both Martin and Lucy thought that doing food shopping together was an important time to talk and to bond, to forge intimacy. Are these colossally boring people? The rest of their story suggests not. Lucy and Martin were ordinary in many ways, but they were unusual in that they were academics who for 16 years had lived and worked in separate towns, reuniting at weekends and holidays. Lucy’s job was prestigious and yet rare, and when she got it, they decided the family would not move to the city where it was based, but she would travel to and fro.