Careers for military spouses - did you manage it?

[toucan12]

My husband recently left the military, although remains in the reserves and still works for part of the MOD. I am still serving.
Currently we live together and I am deployed for about half the year. My next posting will be next year and its 50/50 whether I will be posted near the area we currently live (where my husband works) so that we can remain living together. My next posting will definitely involve at least 18months of long unsociable hours (nights/weekends).
We had hoped to start TTC, but I am worried that he will end up having to give up his career to move with me to make childcare possible/easier, and he doesn't want to be a SAHD. Do any of you manage to have full time careers and children with a serving partner while living apart? If so, how is it?
I am not sure there are many serving mums on here from the previous threads - but if there are, I would love to hear how you found it!

Sorry not a serving mum but spouse, I've always managed to work. It helps that I work in a field that is 9-5, but actually his career has only fuelled mine, although I've often had to commute due to the rural nature of the postings. I've been lucky in that the right positions have come up at the right times at the postings we've been to, moving around has meant I've got a varied CV which is a positive in my line of work. It's different nowadays in that CVs with lots of jobs aren't treated with the suspicions they used to be, jobs for life are a rarity now. It means sucking up the childcare bill (especially as we always had to plan childcare as if he wasn't around, even if we knew he was off Friday afternoons, just in case he got called in for example) but now our kids are in school we are reaping the rewards. It's difficult when they're ill but tbh I've found when my husband isn't deployed the RAF have been very flexible at letting him pick the kids up etc when needed. It's worked very well for us, I think it would be more difficult if he wanted a job that was outside of 9-5 and therefore more difficult to find childcare, but I personally have had no issues working, just have to suck up the childcare bill as I say!

Oh I'm sorry I've just read you'll be living apart, where would baby be?

@UserMe18 glad to hear its possible to move around and still build a career! My husband is keen to stay in his current job for at least a couple of years to get some qualifications and experience on his CV (it's a very different role to his military role). But hopefully after that he can move with me - although I feel a bit bad dragging him all over the country!

Deciding where baby would be is the hardest bit, I think if I am posted elsewhere, I would end up taking the full maternity leave to give us as much time together as possible. But after that it would make sense financially for my husband to have the baby as he will have normal hours and his work has an on site nursery - but I am not sure how I feel about that. I expect I will just have to hope that in a couple of years he will be in a position to move to a new job without having too much of an impact on his career!

I’ve worked for the MoD hoping that it would help me move around when DH gets moved - but I haven’t enjoyed working there as a civil servant and despite looking at Civil Service internal jobs it’s still been tricky to move around and no help has been provided by HR.

I seem to have fallen into office admin/secretarial jobs that’s fine in the short term. Longer term I plan to train as a primary school teacher which will hopefully give me a proper, flexible career too.