A hardware store owner in Syria before the civil war, Hussein Zoubi, 40, took up arms against the government almost two years ago. Since then, like thousands of Syrian men in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, he has been leading the life of a commuter rebel, a fighter inside Syria and a family man across the border.

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Ramtha is the twin city to Dara’a, the birthplace of the Syrian uprising just across the border from here. Errant mortar shells from Dara’a fall with regularity inside Ramtha, and the intensity of fighting over there can sometimes be gauged by just lowering the television volume here. Just as significant, Dara’a’s ability to tap Jordan’s mobile phone network allows the divided families to engage in a nearly constant stream of text and instant messages, not to mention calls.

Like Mr. Zoubi, these part-time fighters, part-time refugees, belong to groups linked to the Free Syrian Army, the association supported by the United States and Jordan.

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In Syria, Mr. Askar found himself participating in firefights and using his seniority, at age 36, to try to unify the troops.

“To be honest, I spend most of my time settling differences inside the brigade,” he said, adding that he was able to do this from here, over Skype, because of the fast shared mobile network.

For his wife, Madjoleen, 29, strong connections were a godsend. “I know he’s O.K. because he calls every few hours when he’s away in Syria,” she said.

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In a room where she was observing the Muslim mourning period, Qassem’s widow, Fatima, 28, remembered how they had met as teenagers and how one day, dressed in jeans and a white shirt, he had visited her parents to explain his intentions. When he was fighting in Syria, the couple exchanged constant messages on social media applications like Viber and WhatsApp.

Two days before he was killed, he sent her a portentous video message on WhatsApp. He assured her, “with all my love and respect and nostalgia,” that the road ahead for her was “spread with flowers.” The video went on, “In your absence my sky is not blessed with rain.”

Later, Fatima received a cellphone photograph of her husband’s grave in a rebel cemetery in Dara’a.

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