Frequent Flyer? What is Your Spouse Doing While You're Gone

I recently posted about the dangers that overseas assignments can do to the family left behind. This is a dangerous and under-reported side effect you need to consider before accepting an assignment that is going to split up you from your family.

But several readers suggested this same family-killing effect may apply to any exec who travels frequently. I wrote a deliberately enticing headline above with no facts to back it up. No facts, but plenty of anecdotal evidence tells me that frequent business travel in general can unthread the cords of family. Even if nothing is happening, suspicion can grow in the darkest places.

My advice: if you travel a lot, also spend a lot of time at home.

Any tips from you frequent flyers out there on managing this lifestyle?

Sean Silverthorne

Sean Silverthorne is the editor of HBS Working Knowledge, which provides a first look at the research and ideas of Harvard Business School faculty. Working Knowledge, which won a Webby award in 2007, currently records 4 million unique visitors a year. He has been with HBS since 2001.

Silverthorne has 28 years experience in print and online journalism. Before arriving at HBS, he was a senior editor at CNET and executive editor of ZDNET News. While at At Ziff-Davis, Silverthorne also worked on the daily technology TV show The Site, and was a senior editor at PC Week Inside, which chronicled the business of the technology industry. He has held several reporting and editing roles on a variety of newspapers, and was Investor Business Daily's first journalist based in Silicon Valley.

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