In science couple, there are many strange situations. I had a friend who worked in research in Washington, d.c., and his wife did research in Chicago, IL. She was upset over the marriage penalty, and they got a "Divorce Of Bed And Board." I had never heard of it, but it seems they could then file separately with the IRS but not marry someone else. They still talked over the phone for a long time every Friday evening and took a two week vacation together around Christmas. That seemed to be enough togetherness for them. They eventually got a real divorce because she wanted to retire to a small town in Indiana that she had ascertained was the safest spot in the U.S. from natural disasters of any kind (and nuclear power plants too). He wanted none of it.

The two scientist couples often lived far apart. In one other case, the wife became the provost of the Univ. Nebraska and the husband a professor at Univ. Vermont. Previously she had been the State Geologist of Minnesota. Spending Christmas vacations together seemed to be the norm. In some cases they were close enough that they could be together on weekends too.

brucedoe