WOW !! thats a real good question. it takes a very special mate, to be conected, to a over road driver i was married for 25yrs. all was good untill i got hurt, could not work, ( a 4-wheeler wanted to be 1st. ) to keep it short, as long as you make your mate your first priority, when you get home, do things with them when you are home, call home nightly, keep them informed that you are ok,it may work. but it,s tough, i have a son he is 27 now but when he was younger i took him when school was out, we made a vacation out of it, and even that was trying at times,mom was at home ( co would not allow children to young or over age 17,)you have them on your mind esp. when you are on dock, they are not allowed on dock with you,i say if you get your mate interested in what you do and take them with you when you can it may work out.good luck WOODSTOCK

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/ retired but not lost

that was great advice, i would bet a dollar, you miss it? don,t you ,i know i miss trucking very much, i am retired i always prayed for the day i could retire, lol lol, now that i am i have a lot of fun, but with the gas prices what they are i cannot travel like i would like. you have a great day, be safe WOODSTOCK

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/ retired but not lost

Thank God for cell phones, I've been trucking for 26 years and my wife and I have been married for 33. We have 2 kids and now we have grandkids. Cellphones make it easy to stay in touch daily. Not like back in the day when we had to use payphones, hoped they worked, and had to wait in line for hours. Some truckstops had phones at the coffee counter or in the booths in the chokeateria, if you didn't mind having every one around you listening in while you tried to explain to your better half why you didn't get paid this week or, worse yet, telling your kids a quick bedtime story so they will go to sleep.
Another big thing is trust. You have to have it or else it won't work. People back home will delight in relating horror stories that they have heard about lot lizards and drivers, and if your significant other hears enough, they may start to believe them. If either one of you is not totally trustworthy, there's a good chance trouble may be just down the road.
When you're home, be there! Don't be all about the job, that's why you're home isn't it? Quality time with the family is more important than quantity. Make plans to do things together before you get home, That way everyone at home has something to look forward to when you get there, and so do you.
Do your laundry before you go home, Your wife/husband won't be so joyful when you walk through the door with a sack full of dirty clothes, and you would have spent the money on video games anyway.
Don't be afraid to ask for a little bit of downtime, you may need to adjust to being out of the truck for a while before you jump into the family thing. Just don't take that time in a bar somewhere. Take a nap, shower, sit with the kids and just hang out for a bit. It may take a while but the folks at home will get used to it and you will have had time to adjust to a world that isn't moving past you at 65mph.
You may be King of The Road, but check your crown at the door. Everyone at home has some sort of routine, and just because you're home doesn't mean everything changes. Being the Breadwinner only means so much, and since you probably don't have to deal with getting kids to school, broken appliances, nosy neighbors, grocery shopping and what all, don't think that you can just walk through the door, issuing orders, get in line driver. You are just visiting, remember that. That's part of the price we pay for our lifestyle, If you want to run things at home, you'ld better just stay there to begin with.
My last piece of advice consitsts of 2 words, "YES DEAR!". These words can soothe the savage breast, they might even save your life. Seriously though, you aren't the only one with problems. The ones we leave behind have issues too! Be sensitive to their needs, after all, they are FAMILY, right? Good Luck

bigdogmarty, seems you got it going on with family relations, do not worry about what other people think about your conversations, with the family, hell i read bed time stories a lot from a counter, ha ha ha i sung happy birth day to my son at a wal-mart waiting room when i was done a bunch of drivers clapped thier hands, mostly they UNDERSTOOD!! its family first company second always, have a super day where ever you are going, WOODSTOCK

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/ retired but not lost

with your attitude, I wouldn't leave town!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

When my wife got pregnant I went into another line of work. I did not go back to driving until the youngest was almost grown. I have been married going on 32 years. My wife is a self retired truck driver.
I would suggest to anyone not to drive OTR if married especially with a family. If you are the jealous kind then DO NOT drive OTR. The divorce rate for OTR drivers is far worse than the national average. This does not even take into account the lonely wives that keep things hidden and never get divorce.
Jody may not be a threat or he can be a drivers best friend that he never knows about. Rest assured that he lives just around the corner. Of course the proverbial "Jody" is not a threat to causing a wife to leave. That would be Bob, Earl, Bill, or someone else. Jody does NOT want to get married or take a wife. He just wants fun.
I have been happily married over 30 years so if my wife met Jody I do not care or want to know about it. She is a good wife, mother, mate, and fantastic looking so if he has become my unknown best friend I guess I am thankful.

y'know - I'm not really sure how to respond to that, Otr. (Congrats on 32 years, by the way). My wife and I have spent long (by most person's defiitions) periods apart (both of us are ex-military, and I started a company in another town from her last duty station).

The kids were a bit of an issue - but I had the help of my parents on that one. For the first 5-6 years or so of the younger boy's life, he had 3 and a half parents...

Now.. boys are in their teens. Wife is a paramedic (schedule, what schedule?), I drove a desk for 15 years with my company - and spent a lot of time as on-call tech...

Long/short? We're an odd family, and used to long separations. I'm not in the least worried that my wife will "step around the corner". The boys are (don't tell them I said so) very well behaved, upright, and I'm damn proud they're mine. As long as we keep in touch (text message, computer chat) we roll right along.

But.. to be honest, it's my opinion that if a wife )or husband( steps around the corner, odds are pretty good that the marriage was already in trouble.

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Keep the big doors at the back!

That's gonna be my theme song doing this truck driving job, lol. I think they wrote for being on the road touring but I don't think they realized how well it fits truck driving.

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One Jedi is not worth a hundred battledroids, more like a thousand.

The best confidence builder is experience.