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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.

Original poster

I may be totally out of order here...

37 replies

Skinit · 31/03/2011 22:13

But I wanted to ask the wives and partners of today's soldiers what it's like being married or with a member of the forces? I wanted to know what difficuties you and your partners face?

I realise it's a masive question and that people might not want to share with me..but I'm writing a play and hoped I could get some input from people who understand life in the forces.

I know there are some redundancies being announced...so the future is not certain for people, but what is life like after active service? How do men and women deal with things when they get home?

Hope I'm not prying...

OP posts:
emmymoomoo · 31/03/2011 23:04

You are a journo for the Daily Mail. I can tell by the atrocious spelling.

jenga079 · 31/03/2011 23:13

You're writing a play about the army and focusing on redundancies? Sounds great...um...

Original poster
Skinit · 31/03/2011 23:24

I'm not a journo...I'm a writer of drama, comedy and fiction; award winning actually.

I'm a regular here on MN. I have a crap laptop with sticky keys...and a hatred of editing as I do it for a living.

Jenga I'm not focusing on redundancies...I said in my OP that I was aware of redundancies as a way of avoiding that topic, to highlight the fact that I don't want to know about that issue particularly.

It's fine if people are not comfortable sharing. I just thought I'd ask.

OP posts:
FellatioNelson · 31/03/2011 23:40

Ah c'mon. She missed one S out of massive. That was all. Not atrocious spelling, just a typo. OP you do sound like a journo though Wink)

emmymoomoo · 01/04/2011 10:30

I know, it's just the kind of mistake journo's for the DM make Wink

Original poster
Skinit · 01/04/2011 10:33

God Fellatio....I don't know why! I don't write for newspapers ever. I write scripts and short fiction! I edit other people's fiction too...but no journalism.

I suppose my tone is deliberate in order that people can understand what I'm after...but not to worry, I can read up on people's expeiences online.

OP posts:
OfflineFor30Seconds · 01/04/2011 10:42

I think if you have a delve around in some of the recent threads you should get a flavour of what the biggest issues are - redundancy, frequent upheavals to families, uncertainty and inability to plan ahead, difficulty in having a career, having to take it on the chin when OH's sudden deployments/moves affect you, poor housing and maintenance, other people's misinformed views of the military .....

There are some good bits too though Smile!

hf128219 · 01/04/2011 10:55

What is the play about? Are you expecting a full-house?

Saltire · 01/04/2011 10:59

Offline - I think you've summed up in 1 paragraph how crap it is.

However OP, my DH is the RAF and you said you wanted Army/Soldiers.Grin

Original poster
Skinit · 01/04/2011 12:10

The thing is hf128219 it's not soley about soldiers.....or their families, but there is something within the plot which I wanted to research fully.

And yes, I will have a full house...more than one.

Smile

Thank you offline...I will have a look. It's really people's experiences after active service which I'm mostly interested in.

Thanks Saltire.

OP posts:
ben5 · 01/04/2011 12:16

have had a great week being a submariners wife. had a phone call Monday morning at 8 am saying dh is coming home to pack bags as he's sailing at midday. left me really looking forward to telling boys when i pick them up from school. didn't want to tell them before school.
luckily i didn't as dh was home for dinner! but then went on tuesday and can home today( friday)
He's home for the weekend and then goes again on monday. bloodly hate weekly running but the sun is shining and the boys( 5& 7 ) have taken it in there stride

hf128219 · 01/04/2011 12:24

'It's really people's experiences after active service which I'm mostly interested in. '

The person serving or their family?

Original poster
Skinit · 01/04/2011 12:34

Both hf128219.

ben5 that's nice to hear...it's not the same but my DH worked abroad for almost the whole of last year...being without them is awful at times but I can't imagine what that's like if you combine it with the fact that sometimes they're in danger.

OP posts:
hf128219 · 01/04/2011 12:40

My dh has done active service in a variety of locations. The longest being 9 months. When he's come back it's like he has never been away. All families are different though.

Happylander · 01/04/2011 12:52

I think biggest problem is being left with all the childcare for long stretches, being worn out and not having anyone to make you a cuppa of an evening or pass/top up the Wine. Having little time to yourself and not just being able to nip to the shops quickly as their is no-one home to keep eye on kids so you either go without or have to take them with you. All small things but after months of it become rather annoying!
Obviously not having someone to share things with easily, watch your children grow. While my DH has been away my son has learnt to crawl/walk/run/speak a lot more and throw some whopping tantrums. My DH has missed these although with the wonders of technology I have been plastering pics and video clips up on facebook.
Unlike a lot of military wives I chose to move back near family and my job and not follow him around once our baby was born. So I still have a career but I can understand how annoying this would be for wives that follow their DH around. Particularly as some people will decide what you are like or how intelligent you are based on your husbands rank and not what career you have/had before marrying.
Lack of planning is a big one too. Sorting holidays etc and plans changing at last minute. My DH leave might change but I won't be able to change mine so easily so holidays together can be difficult. I have also planned a surprise welcome home party as initially told he was coming home 10 days before he is now due home and so allowed plenty of time for delays etc. Now though he is coming home a week later and most flights out of Cyprus are getting delayed by 24-48 or more. I won't know exactly when he will get home until last minute which means I may have to call everyone up and say party is cancelled.
Good points - can slob around in what you want, don't have to spend money on grooming, maintain a level of independence my civilian friends don't have with their partners because he goes away. I am very much looking forward to having DH and the excited feeling I have is great. My friends don't get this as much with their DH as they see them all the time. I appreciate my DH when he is home and cherish the time we have together. The sense of community in the Armed Forces is generally good.

Happylander · 01/04/2011 12:54

'having DH home' not just having him..although I am most certainly looking forward to having him too LOL

Original poster
Skinit · 01/04/2011 13:22

Thank you Happylander and H128

Can I ask if it takes long for your DH to settle back in? Do you find it's all exciting for a few days and then settles back to normality?

OP posts:
MrsSnaplegs · 01/04/2011 13:31

Skinit - although we are in the minority there are serving women on here so it's not always "men" coming back to wives. Sometimes it's us ladies coming home to Dh who has been home alone with children.

My dh is ex army although I am still serving if you have any specific questions about when they leave the forces ask away

Original poster
Skinit · 01/04/2011 13:39

I know MrsSnaplegs....but the plot I'm working on features a male who has been serving and his family...left at home are the ones who feature more heavily.

Thank you for talking to me...I wonder if I can ask about your DH? Where did he see active service? How long has he been out of the army...if it was army.

{your user name makes me shudder!}

OP posts:
OfflineFor30Seconds · 01/04/2011 13:52

When they return from active service they go back to work for a week, I suppose to try and normalise them slightly. But it took a good couple of weeks after that for DH to relax when he got back; the most difficult thing for him was the drop in tempo - he'd been on edge for 5 months (so much so that he'd ground down his back teeth in his sleep), and under the burden of huge responsibilities, but when he came back the complete absence of this came as a shock, and tbh I think it was a bit of a downer. Does that make sense?

MrsSnaplegs · 01/04/2011 14:35

I will pm you so it's not on a public forum

What's up with my name?

Original poster
Skinit · 01/04/2011 14:36

Yes Offline...I can imagine the change in envionment alone would be a massive adjustment. The stress must be huge when they're serving and then they're coming back to a domestic situation...do you feel the stress or have you adjusted to it all now?

OP posts:
Happylander · 01/04/2011 15:51

I can tell you that when I came back from a 6 month tour in the A and E dept at Camp Bastion that it took some time to adjust back to normal life. I found it quite hard to have any sympathy for people with minor problems/illnesses. I also had a slightly destructive pattern of behaviour e.g. drinking and partying more than normal as after seeing so much death and severely injured you want to feel alive and do things. I wanted to be on the go all the time and couldn't settle. I spent two months travelling about seeing friends as I couldn't bear staying in one place. This was before I had my son and DH. I think for those guys who are out on the ground it must be harder. I was relatively safe and didn't fear getting shot at and killed. Plus on a totally stereotypical view I think men try harder to hide how they are feeling whereas I just said to people that I saw some horrible stuff and this is how I'm getting over it and adjusting to going back to normal. Plus I didn't have a family at the time so was free do to do as I pleased. It must be very hard for those with families that feel burdened by what they have done and seen but also have family to look after when they come back.

I do think that the decompression in Cyprus helps and also the fact that they have to return to work for so many days after no matter how annoying it seems at the time.

Original poster
Skinit · 01/04/2011 18:09

Thank you Happylander....it's so helpful to speak to people like you. As someone who has never known anyone in the forces, it's incredibly difficult to grasp some of the complicated issues surrounding soldiers etc during and after service.

I don't know about Camp Bastion...what and where is that please?

OP posts:
Original poster
Skinit · 01/04/2011 18:12

Oh good grief I just googled it Happylander..that must have been extreme at times.

OP posts: