This study explores how family members experience their lives when family breadwinners must be absent from home because of their jobs. Informed by general systems theory and contextual perspectives, we described wives' family work that supports the breadwinner role and maintains the emotional connections among family members. From our findings about how families of commercial fishermen and long-haul truckers manage their time and their paid and unpaid work, we applied their challenges and strategies to other families experiencing difficulties related to time and work involvement.