mtgreen

Hi all, This thread is so reflective of my current situation and I hope I can get something out of it. I am coming at it from a different perspective as I am the partner of the musician a.k.a 'the musician's widow'. To set the scene: my partner is in a band of his own. They have just released a new album in France and Switzerland after signing to a record label and have a few gigs throughout the year. They are constantly trying to enter the UK music scene. At the moment, he makes virtually no income from this. So, he goes away with other bands as a backline technician. He can be on the road for up to three months at a time. Our relationship is lovely but him going away has always been an obstable for us. However, I have always held onto the fact that he has told me it is a short-term thing and he doesn't want to do it forever. He told me that he had a reason to be at home now since meeting me. He has tried an Open Univeristy course (his choice, I had no input into this decision at all) to try something new but didn't take to it and instead got extremely stressed and has decided that he has to continue with being a technician on the road as he has no other options. He tells me that this could mean being away for 10 months of the year. We're currently having some time apart to decide what we want. I won't bore you with all the gorey details but I am devastated. He had told me he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me and he wanted children with me and such things are massively important to me. Is 10 months of the year realistic? Have any of you managed to reach a compromise? I can see that this is where his talents lie and it would be a shame to put that to waste. He is not in any state to think rationally about other options but surely there must be jobs that allow him to go away with his band and to nurture his talents but that do not mean going away for that amount of time? Could any family cope with only 2 months of contact per year until retirement? I'd be really interest to hear any (sympathetic) views on the matter.