To be nosy and ask if anyone is a Police wife here?

[Macbeth8]

My DH has taken on this new career path.
Hes had to do a 17 week training course which includes most weekends! He will hardly see us for the next four months.
Weirdly, met a woman at dds art club whose husband is a Detective..got talking to her and her words being a police wife is extremely hard! She then went on to mention all the affairs they have which is rife in the force!
This really hit me..Im already feeling low/worried. Not to mention I honestly feel like a single mum and its only been 3 days since hes gone away 😢
AIBU to think bad thoughts now about his new career?

Because they see their colleagues more than their significant other and they support each other through dealing with traumatic incidents alternatively because they want to and work hours/shifts than mean they can get away with being out of the house more and have excuses for not being home.

@itsthesoundofthepolice

Hi no I get how easy it can be to start affair due to the nature of the job etc but just wondering how its so common when theres so few female police officers? I know on the police course my dh is on theres only 2 women out of a group of 22. Rest are male. All the school of Policing courses have a ratio of 20 men to 2 women so it baffles me who they conduct these affairs with if that makes sense.
I was hoping the posters who answered they had first hand experience could elaborate on who they were having the affairs with.

I almost was. The hours were fine - you just get used to it but in my experience it’s true about the affairs. I went to a wedding where they were both coppers and my (then fiancé) now Ex pointed out all of the colleagues who the groom had slept with. The poor bride has no idea that her “D”H has cheated on her with half of the guests.

DH and I got together a year before he joined the police, we've been happily married for over 15 years now. The shifts were great when DCs were tiny, he'd come home after a night shift and stay up with the baby to give me some more sleep, and days off in the week are great.
I did have to change my job and become the primary carer when DC came along as I was working shifts too and my work weren't prepared to flex around DHs shifts. This did change my career but in my view not for the worse, just meant I moved into more flexible lines of work.
When the kids start school the shifts can be frustrating and weekends together become more precious. The main issue we found was friends who didn't work shifts didn't understand why we couldn't always join in with their plans and why we were less flexible as a family.
DH has sometimes struggled not to bring work home and it has impacted in his health at times, but he is amazing at his job and I am so proud of him.
There are bad apples in every barrel and I know DH has come across a few of the affair having types - it depends on the reason they want to be police officers in the first place, DH had always wanted to be a police officer and can't imagine doing anything else.
I do sometimes think how nice it must be to have your DH home every evening and be able to attend a regular evening class etc or have a set meal plan but that's just not going to happen for us and I'm suppose I'm used to it.
I hope it all works out for you OP, it did for me and my family and we have no regrets.

I work for the police and there are loads of female officers definitely more than your ratio would suggest. Some response teams are 50/50 and one I can think of has more female than male officers which is unusual. It's much more of an even spilt in my experience.

Certain departments are male dominated, firearms being one of them but they still have a lot of contact with general policing teams therefore meeting female officers.

Police wife here too 👋
It was harder In the beginning when he was training, and we had twin babies. Lots of ups and downs with the stress of learning and remembering everything he needed to remember! It wasn’t easy going for quite a few years and took a lot of work from both of us in the relationship as this vocation does impact on home life. However now I like the shift patterns, they work for us as a family. He’s very much a family man so even when there’s lots of overtime on offer he doesn’t often take it. I have heard of quite a few affairs and a lot of his colleagues are married to other officers, but I don’t worry, we have a very good relationship and talk about ‘us’ often. He very much does not like to bring work home.
He can do my head in a bit sometimes because he is very cynical of people, always was before the police but even more so now! He does however come across some of the very worst of people.
It’s important to get your family balance right, whatever works for you all as a family. I have in the past had to pull him up about how much I do at home with the children and also working, and he did listen and does pull his weight. Lots of communication is important.
I’m glad he does the job he does because as hard as it is he gets so much from it and for the most part enjoys it!

@itsthesoundofthepolice

Thank you for this info. Yeah you are right, he will be working alongside regular Police and doing patrols with them.

@Macbeth8 over the years I’ve known male officers have affairs with female officers, female civilian staff, some of which were much junior in rank. I’ve also known female officers to have affairs with Police colleagues. I assume your husband is joining mod Police. Regular forces don’t offer direct entry as an afo. That may also be why there are less females. The female to male numbers are not equal, certainly not in my force and probably never will be. There are definitely more female officers though then there used to be.

I'm 99% sure my ex had an affair with a probationer he was mentoring.

Oh, and totally agree with @Overthewine with the personality thing. It takes a certain kind of person to be a good police officer, and they're often not easy to live with.

@Overthewine as appalling a human as my ex husband is, I do genuinely worry about how retirement will affect him. He loves the job, despite some of the horrific stuff he's seen and dealt with, and he's bad enough with the drink as it is.

My husband and I have recently retired along with many of our colleagues. I think it’s a bit of a generalisation to think that we often struggle with the loss of authority and identity. In my experience of 30 years policing, the cops who get off on the authority, power and identity are in a huge minority. I always felt like it didn’t actually define me. I was a mother, wife and person and then a cop, that was my order of importance. Many of my colleagues and my husband felt the same. We were more than the sum of being a cop. We’ve had no struggle switching off and I’ve loved the release of responsibility. My job was very stressful and full on. It’s been a blessing to have completed my service and to walk away. My fight or flight reflex is slowly starting to relax instead of constantly firing. I feel like I’ve had the weight of of the world lifted off me.

I've been a Police wife for almost 20 years.

It's hard, sporadic shift patterns, short notice shift changes (they only need to be given 4 hours notice), honeymoon postponed, DH did some undercover work so we went 4 months without seeing each other.

It does harden them too, DH is suspicious of everyone and everything. But he's also so generous, will help anyone and despite dealing with terror attacks and horrific crimes he is still a big softie.

Raising young kids is tough when their shifts and overtime is all over the place, but it gets easier.

DH is now promoted and runs a police station and is mostly on mon-fri 8am-4pm shifts now, with a sprinkle of lates and nights depending on events.

In my experience, you cant be needy to be a police officers wife. You have to be independent and able to run the home as a single parent with the bonus of a husband when they're not on duty or sleeping.

A lot is asked of our police, they're hated and vilified for always doing too much or not doing enough. Yet they're the ones who run towards danger so the rest of us can run away. It's a thankless job but one of the most important jobs out there.

Be very proud of your husband.

There’s nothing tame about spending over 15 years specialising in rapes and sexual assaults, sudden deaths of children, acting as family liaison officer for several murders, dealing with domestic violence, child sexual exploitation, child abuse and all that entails. I’ve also worked on high profile murder investigations. I’ve had ptsd twice due to the horrors I’ve seen. I don’t consider that lucky. I worked many years on response before specialising. I’ve never worked on anything other than front line policing in my 30 years of service and none of that was in some sleepy tame backwater.

Ive been exposed to many many types of people who work within the job. Just because my view and experience is different than yours, it doesn’t make it nonsense. Don’t be so fucking offensive.

Reading with intrigue

I am too for the last 16 years and it has been hard at times.
I often felt sad that he missed out on family stuff but he also got to do school runs and other weekday stuff which was nice for all of us.
I worked shifts as well so we often had days off together and had daytime trips to the cinema or for lunch or sneaky daytime sex 😊
Now we are both 9-5 and I kind of miss the weekdays off and being able to do stuff with the kids and friends at weekends but it's still nice to be able to work normal hours.
That said, he's bored to tears in his current office based job so I'd imagine he will be back.on the front line as soon as he can.
I used to worry about affairs in the early days as I'd also heard there was a bit of a shagging culture, however my last dh cheated after 18 yrs and he wasn't a copper so I guess you can never be sure.
He is very loyal and has good.morals so I just have to trust him, no point worrying really.

Police daughter here. I remember my mum being far more bothered about cancelled christmasses, overtime etc than I ever was.

Obviously didn’t put me off too much as now also work for the police albeit in a staff role.

I think the only thing I’d say is that you need to be flexible. There will be late (late) shifts, there will be cancelled rest days, there will be times when you want to go on holiday but can’t because of a leave embargo or a court date. That puts the onus on you to be the flexible one in terms of the school pick ups / drop offs, days out with the kids etc. As long as you’re prepared for that I wouldn’t worry and just be proud your husband is following his vocation.

Police daughter here. Must have been lucky as dad was always around at Christmas. Lots of things he did miss though which as a young kid, really upset me.
Mum very resentful of all the childcare she had to do, saying she was practically a single parent.
Personally my dad is a complete softie and everyone loves him as has a heart of gold. He is very wise and will stand up for anyone in need. Very proud of what he does.

I was married to one for over 25 years and he changed massively when he joined. Went much more controlling and sexist. Went very aggressive eg when driving he would put our kids at risk to race in front of the other car or shout ' f*king cnt!!' at old ladies taking their time. Some of the ' jokes' between him and work pals re work were pretty dark and sick and it doesnt surprise me hearing of such in the news. It is embedded in the culture.

He had multiple affairs (we are divorced now), mainly with othet police, and all of his friends that were married before joining are now divorced and most have gone off with police women. He is now 52 and hangs out with 20 year olds and is a crappy father sadly. I dont know whether he would have been like this if he hadn't joined but it really was the death knell of our marriage. He really felt entitled to do what he wanted to whoever. He did become physically abusive also to me and DC.

One good thing is that you get well used to doing everything alone so when he left it was no different.

Am sure there are decent ones out there and my ex always wanted to work in the response type jobs in big cities. Maybe it is quieter in other areas and more family orientated?

@pinkpupZ

Sad to say this but my DH is already like what you described way before starting his PO career.

Hmm, doesnt look good for me. He has always been a bit kf a chauvinist slash sexist and a touch controlling and aggressive.
I think if anything this role is going to make him worse 😔