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But the commute isn't the thing that absolved you from those responsibilities. I suppose you either stopped doing them or outsourced them, which you could have also done in your commuteless life.

Work expands to fill time.

Only if you let it - with some exceptions of course.

Reads like “We could have finished our chores and baby duty early, to have conversations, but we opted not to. Commuting forced us to dedicate this time to ourselves, freeing our conscious from not spending time home with baby because nobody is going to judge our commute time as being irresponsible to our children”

Did you and your wife commute together? If so, the comparison is not very valid; everyone else is talking about solo commutes.