Oregon Public Broadcasting

This Valentine's Day, Zack Cline of Seattle is in love.

Zack Cline: "She's really a beautiful lady, but it was her mind that attracted me more than anything else. I mean she's brilliant. She's one of the funniest people I've ever met in my life and she's my best friend."

But Cline is "Sleepless in Seattle."

His girlfriend Regan deVictoria recently took a job in New York.

Regan deVictoria: "I miss coming home at the end of my day and there is Zack at the front door, waiting for me to tell him all about my day. Without him everything I did that whole day, means nothing."

Cline and deVictoria are not alone. This Valentine's Day many Northwest couples might eat dinner together, bathed not in candlelight, but in the electronic glow of online video conferencing. 

Anna King brings us the story of one long-distance couple in Cle Elum, Washington.

These are the quiet family moments that Clint Quinn misses the most.

Clint Quinn: "Vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom."

Conner Quinn: "Vroom."

He rolls a plastic toy truck across the tiny lap of his son Connor, who's nearly one.

Clint and Amber Quinn, of Cle Elum, Washington, hold their young son Conner. The couple says they were split up by the economy, when Clint had to take a job in Omaha, Nebraska, to keep the family afloat.

Clint's home at the moment with his wife Amber and three kids. But he hasn't spent a lot of time here lately. He's been on the road.

Clint Quinn: "Yeah, he was four weeks old when I first left. So that was really hard. As a matter of fact that has been the hardest experience going through being away from your family. You feel like you are supporting your family but at the same time you are not being the complete husband, and there to help the family too."

Clint and Amber say when the economy was good they could easily whack down the everyday bills. They bought a modest house, a 2008 Mustang and even a boat.

Amber Quinn: "The kids like inner-tubing. So we'd go down to Vantage and there's a really nice sandbar out down on the river, we'd take them out tubing there."

Clint was working on huge computer data centers in the Eastern Washington berg of Quincy. He had ten years of steady work ahead of him, at more than $50 an hour.

But along with the economy, that reality fell apart. Building stopped.

Clint had to go with his company to Omaha, Nebraska, to keep up with the mortgage and the bills. Even though he would fly back for the occasional weekend, Clint says depression set in.

He didn't know anyone in Omaha. And the stress got so bad his eyes started twitching.

Clint Quinn: "I spent probably 90 percent of my time crying on the phone or trying to be strong and then breaking down afterwards, so."

Amber says the worst was last Easter. Clint was in the hotel in Omaha watching TV and making Top Ramen.

Amber Quinn: "It was hard for me to talk with him. Everyone's running around having fun. And he's asking what we are having for dinner, and I'm describing the Easter ham that grandma is cooking. And he's just, you could hear that in his voice that he was really torn up."

This economy is leaving many families and lovers stranded just like the Quinns. That's according to Pepper Schwartz a University of Washington professor of sociology.

Schwartz says they are being pulled apart by homes that won't sell, and jobs faraway. She says sometimes absence makes the heart grow fonder and sometimes it doesn't.

Pepper Schwartz: "The daily-ness of life is often what creates the intimacy. And you start experiencing life in parallel ways. Oh, he wasn't here for this, or she couldn't go with me for that. Or, I'm developing these friends over here, and he or she doesn't know them."

And there's an economic price too.

UCLA economics professor Matthew Kahn, says the economy is forcing long distance relationships here and across the globe. And Kahn says there are hidden costs to living apart: Dueling mortgages or rents, the carbon footprint of travel back and forth, and the social strain.

Matthew Kahn: "Are people comfortable with this? Or is there this fundamental tradeoff between having economic security but being at risk to having emotional problems as you don't see a loved one much because you live in two different cities?"

Both Schwartz and Kahn say there aren't any current numbers on how common it is for couples to live apart because of the economy. But both of them know about it from personal experience.

They've both lived through long distance relationships because of their jobs. Schwartz says if the shaky economy continues, the effects on American families could last longer than even empty bank accounts and upside-down mortgages.

Back in the small town of Cle Elum, Clint and Amber know four other families who are going through the same long-distance struggle.

Clint says he's just landed a job with Washington's Department of Transportation. It'll pay about one third of what he was making during the "good years." And he will still have to live apart from the family in Seattle for half of each week. But it's better.

Clint Quinn: "I think our experience is just a microcosm of what the United States is going through as a country."

Like federal and state lawmakers, the Quinn family has begun to seriously cut back spending. They're selling their newer cars. Getting rid of the boat. Turning down the heater.

Clint Quinn: "We have definitely learned a lot about planning what is important for our money  issues, what's important for our kids and you know what's important for our relationship."

Amber and Clint know things will be tight for a while. They say it doesn't matter.

What does? This Valentine's Day, they'll be together. They plan to stroll through town holding hands.