Most spouses I’ve met and talked to haven’t even considered the effect of commuting on:

- the family
- the finances
- themselves
- you

We are schleps and we’re willing to put up with all sorts of crap to insulate our spouses as much as possible from this career. After all, we’ve put our spouses and kids through deployments/PCS orders/chasing regional upgrades/moving for a corporate aviation job and now that we are at a career company, out of guilt, we tell our spouses “OK honey, you choose where we live and we are done moving. I’ll commute and make you happy.”

Of course, any sane spouse will be the happiest ever. But sit down with her/him and give them the FULL story i.e. explain to them the true cost of commuting in terms of additional separation (a month or more per year) and uncompensated time off as explained further up the thread, and ask them if they’re willing to lose that time and leave that kind of money on the table for the duration of your career. Just think what kind of a place you’d be able to pay off with just that lost income over the course of your career. Give them the full disclosure of the opportunity cost of commuting. Mind you, I’m also not even going into our happiness factor and our additional time away from our loved ones over the course of our careers, and the effect on our health, morale and happiness... all out of our own self-imposed guilt.

See... I don’t think most spouses know the full story of commuting and the associated opportunity costs in terms of time, money and the effect on the family. If they don’t care even after explaining this to them, at least they can’t complain later on down the road... they were given the full disclosure.