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Forces sweethearts

If you have a family member in the Royal Navy, RAF or army, find support from other Mumsnetters here.

What jobs suit Army Officers wives????

183 replies

Wifey1 · 23/03/2011 23:29

A simple question here:

What jobs can Army Officers wives successfully hold down despite all the joyous compromises which come from marrying an officer???

I keep hearing that teaching is a popular choice, any advances on this

OP posts:
SnapFrakkleAndPop · 30/03/2011 09:48

1662 Book of Common Prayer all the way. It balances out - he promised to worship me and endow me with all his wordly goods whereas I just slipped a ring on without saying anything extra.

vintageteacups · 30/03/2011 09:53

hf - equality and expense I'd imagine but more about equality and men being 'new men' rather than expecting wives to stay at home.

I do actually like flower arranging Grin

SnapFrakkleAndPop · 30/03/2011 09:57

I'd say it was an indicator of how life is getting more expensive Grin given the progressive increases in pay for the careers you mention there!

I wish I'd trained as a doctor, although I'd be terrible at it, because they seem to get paid shedloads even for part-time. Probably would have been a better medic than a florist though. Artistic arrangements are so not my forte. I have several very nice 'single flower' vases for this reason.

hf128219 · 30/03/2011 10:00

I like flower arranging too, and cooking, and laying the table for dinner parties! But its the education levels that have changed. Wives that are now in their 50' married to brigadiers and generals, did nothing more strenuous than a chalet season. And I mean 1 season!!

vintageteacups · 30/03/2011 10:04

Yes hf, you're right. Pretty much everyone is able to go to uni and get a degree today - if they want and that's good (well, apart from the 12 hour a week drinkingphotography degree my lazy bones cousin is doing!).

SnapFrakkleAndPop · 30/03/2011 10:08

I agree that on the whole women are more educated but I also think there's an element of 'class' (deliberate inverted commas) in that it's much more egalitarian now and 'nice, well-bred gels' don't just marry chaps who were always going to go to Sandhurst because that's what the family did. In the UK.

I think the notion of military families where generation after generation has gone into the Forces, probably the same regiment, has gone and a wider range of backgrounds also means a wider range of marriages.

SnapFrakkleAndPop · 30/03/2011 10:08

Your cousin gets a whole 12 hours a week?! That's quite a lot Grin

I got 4 contact hours in my final year. RG uni as well...

hf128219 · 30/03/2011 10:10

Mmmmm, very true. Is that why I see KLP in the mess??

vintageteacups · 30/03/2011 10:24

Well I did pretty much 9-5 every day for my 'proper' uni course - 10-1 on wednesdays - times have obviously changed since 1996 Grin

Wifey1 · 30/03/2011 12:43

So another question for you all as I think I have had plenty of career/life advice.....

How, where and at what age did you meet your spouse? And how has it panned out from there? (If you feel like sharing)

OP posts:
vintageteacups · 30/03/2011 12:51

I knew my dh when I was 10 Grin. He was best friend's brother!

However, we finally got together when I was 19 and he was 23.
We moved in together (own house not far from his posting) once I'd finished uni (jul 99) and then got married in Dec 2000.

How has it panned from there??? Okay Grin.
we now have two little monkeys. I'm glad I had my first dc when I was 24. I didn't want to have a huge career and have kids in my late 30s/40s so we decided we would have children earlier and I'd have a career later. To be honest, I feel better going to train as a midwife having had previous life experience since than if I was doing it fresh out of uni.

Kleftico · 30/03/2011 12:57

I think "real life" has got in the way of army traditions a bit too. Owning your own home, wanting DCs to attend one school etc has meant that compromise has changed the trad COs wife and perhaps COs are becoming more opened eyed and realize flowers and drinks parties are a sideline or not for everyone. But my DH is RAF, we're very mobile move every 18 months or so and just starting to plan our final moves. A little way off yet but location and homelife are more of a priority now. DH very hands on parent and is not really looking forward to future 6 or 9 month dets. Hey ho!
OP we met when aged 23, married a year later, lived in our own home for the first 5 years, then DH commissioned and we've subsequently done 5 moves in 8 years. Including one overseas, which was technically 2 tours back to back, hoping to be in our current location until 2013. But that may not happen. It has panned out much better than I ever thought, but I am a forces brat myself, resilient, sociable and don't struggle to make friends or to be alone. I'm not a particularly rare breed, we're all fairly tough birds! Grin

SnapFrakkleAndPop · 30/03/2011 13:01

I was 21, he was 23. At university (he was doing his Masters, I was in my final year).

He joined up. I had a job in Brussels. We decided to see how it went....2 weeks into my job I quit it, the Eurostar had a fire, the airlines were chockablock, I ended up going to live with his grandmother in Paris for 6 weeks Grin til I found another job and we weekended for a bit.

He went away somewhere unsettled, I realised I missed him quite a lot!

He proposed, I started planning a lovely big summer wedding, he got posted away somewhere I couldn't go until we got married, I threw a tantrum pulled our wedding forward to the December and came put and joined him, that was 2 years ago and now we're expecting DC1. Currently waiting to find out if we stay or go this summer...

hf128219 · 30/03/2011 15:01

Are you sure you're not a journalist?!

vintageteacups · 30/03/2011 15:19

Hmmm - I'm so bad at spotting these journalist-types but now you've mentioned it hf, op could be one Grin

madwomanintheattic · 30/03/2011 15:19

lol, snap, i'm from the feminist board. Grin

i always find discussing being the spouse of a serviceman very interesting from a feminist viewpoint. Grin

i was wondering the same thing hf, and i really really hope not. if she is, though, i can write a much better article, starting with the old lynne dobroevsky (sp? from memory...) research in the 70s, pondering why military wives weren't more interested in feminism, when they would seem to be the very women that could be emancipated by being part of just such a movement... (and if i see that in print, wifey, i will know who you are Grin)

although mine would probably be a bit too academic for the sunday lifestyle mags women's section...

but i'm sticking to the fact that she's an anthropology student, and they are all, by definition, quite nosy. Grin

SnapFrakkleAndPop · 30/03/2011 15:25

Well if she's a journo I'm royally (or should that be republicanly) screwing with her article as it comes with a big fat caveat.

madwoman so in your opinion is it possible to really reconcile being a service spouse with being a feminist? I'm not a massively brilliant feminist, I'm more of the 'takes yer choice and I choose not to' school of thought when it comes to my personal life but I know plenty of people would say I can't possible have feminist views unless I live it.

But then I do wonder if DH were female and I were male whether it would pan out the same way and I would defer to the needs of the military or not...

madwomanintheattic · 30/03/2011 15:55

oh yes.

there are even feminist sahms who are nothing to do with the military y'know. Wink

it's more.... how you sahm. Grin and the beliefs you are passing on to your dcs etc. it would be a bit more problematic if you were teaching the girls to look nice, not get dirty, smile, and how to cook and iron, and one day they'll marry a rich chap, and getting the boys to be brave and not cry, because boys don't do that, and waiting on them hand foot and finger. (and of course how your model your relationship with dh... if like, a friend of mine, you greet him at the door with a g&t in a bikini every night, with dinner simmering on the stove - it might be more problematic)

but really, the understanding that (at least in the uk) society is very much set up for the woman to be the ft childcarer (in terms of parental leave and work practices etc - you only have to look at alan sugar's view on employing women of childbearing age...) flexible working deals, even pay for nursery workers or carers. there are of course sahds, but they are very much in the minority. it looks difficult to reconcile from a service pov, as there is more formal recognition that a woman plays second fiddle in terms of expectations to maintain the servicemans availability for work and deployment etc, but it's really very interesting.

i particularly like looking at the volunteer roles that wives take from a unit cohesion pov - and there's lots of us research on military spouses and employment (you can have a look at that wifey - try RAND, they have bags of it, all very depressing in terms of levels of employment and wage earning/ level capability, as well as educational attainment).

in fact, looking at it all from a feminist pov makes it all far more interesting. Grin

i'm actually toying with putting together a short research project looking at military spouses and feminism - as i said, it hasn't been done since yonks ago. but as dobroevsky (or whoever it was) found out, it's quite difficult, because military spouses automatically feel it doesn't apply. or think because they are trailing they have automatically flunked feminism 101, or whatever. so are reluctant to even consider their life through that lens...

anyway, i'm pondering. i was due to write a paper on support networks for military spouses in the next couple of months (formal and informal), but i'm wondering if a feminism angle might be more... interesting.

wanna do an interview? Grin (note - always a qual girl. can't bear statistics)

Kleftico · 30/03/2011 16:09

Interesting thoughts Madwoman, I totally agree. It's mostly about expectation and managing your expectations in my view. The have it all argument I guess. I'm more of a do what suits me and my family at the time person I think. But I don't stereotype my DC and neither does their father. We kind of shut the door at night to the military too. And without any planning we don't have guns, camouflage etc toys in the house, more because DS not fussed about them. Bit of a tangent there....well we'll be reading about this in the MoS then I guess!

SnapFrakkleAndPop · 30/03/2011 16:28

I would do an inteview but I would skew your research massively! But I will happily be a guinea pig because it might actually make me think about it... I do get the 'trailing spouse therefore flunked feminism 101' feeling. Even though I work and I'm adamant that I want to work I know that I play second fiddle, that it will be my responsibility to sort childcare (and that if I didn't earn enough to cover it then it wouldn't be seen as economically viable).

I definitely don't do the bikini, g&t, dinner thing though! I don't remember the last time I cooked him dinner but it's been the exception rather than the rule throughout this pregnancy!

hf128219 · 30/03/2011 16:39

The only reason I thought journo was the very point that when I was that age, if I was considering my future, I would not suddenly think 'Mmm, I'll post on mumsnet Forces Sweetheart board, they'll be bound to help'

Similarly if you google the words army, wife, career etc - well the only landing page is this one!!!

SnapFrakkleAndPop · 30/03/2011 16:47

Well I might possibly have posted for advice under an old posting name....but i was on MN anyway Grin

Besides if you were looking for advice and google army wife career you'd end up here anyway.

V lazy journalism if it is...

scaryteacher · 30/03/2011 17:23

I did think the syntax was very good for someone who claims to be an undergrad....

jcscot · 30/03/2011 17:28

Passing out of Sandhurst is not a given. My husband was DS there for two years and the attrition rate is pretty high. About 10-15% of people don't pass out. Some get injured and a fair few decide that the Army is not for the them or the College decides they're not for the Army.

Has your fiance passed ASB yet or is he only at the fam visit stage?

I met my husband at uni while he was doing his postgrad and I was working (whisky industry - not a mobile career!). We got engaged before he went to the factory and married about six months after he commissioned (we were both 26). He went to Sandhurst sponsored by one cap badge but ended up joining another. Since then he's flown along - he commissioned in Aug 1999 and has just picked up an (acting) Lt-Col's job after his first look at the Pink List.

I'm a SAHM to three children (all under five) and have never worked in a career since my marriage. I have done some charity work (Riding for the Disabled and fundraising for some Army things) and some other interesting projects (embroidering altar linen and tutored whisky tastings) as well the obligatory throwing of drinkies/suppers/dinner parties. I don't know many wives who've managed to hold down a career exactly as they would have done had they been married to a civvy, but it is possible. I also know lots who have carved out niche employment for themselves via the internet.

As for the rank thing - doesn't really matter and can get backs up. I consider myself to be an Army wife - the officer thing is only secondary to that and really only for information. Some patches are pretty inclusive, some not - you just have to make the best of it wherever you are.

mpsw · 30/03/2011 17:36

Snap: I've just been following your suggestion and it doesn't bring you here! I was expecting Rear Party, but no, that's not on the first page either. The top result was ArmyWags (incorporating NavyWags and RAFWags). It does have forums, but they don't look that active.

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