Life as a military wife ADVICE

[Twinmummy22]

Hi, I’m going to try and keep it short and sweet. Basically I am a mum to 4 month old twins and my partner is wanting to join the army. He has some army background, also family in the army, knows exactly what he wants to do, knows exactly what it entails etc so I’m not going to go into that. But for me, I need advice on what life is like for the wives and the family side of it. We would all be moving with him into marriage quarters but my issue is we both have massive families that we’re so so so close to and I have a huge amount of support at home so me moving away would be a huge shock! I’d lose the massive family support, I’d miss my whole family, I just don’t think I could move away from them! My twins would also miss out on having the family around us 24/7! This is the only thing actually putting me off going. Also the fact of the twins having to move houses and schools every couple of years and never being able to truly settle. Could I just have some real insight what it’s like as a military wife and raising a family? I want the good, the bad and the ugly!! However, most of what I have heard has been pretty negative but there’s got to be some positives in it considering many people do it and stay? Thank you! X😊

Although, from all I've seen, the RAF is a 'better' employer and closer to civilian life. So in that regard, we may well just have very different experiences.

My husband is in the RAF. We don’t live on camp; we have our own house and husband stays on camp during the week, coming home at weekends. We have recently been looking at moving on camp to save money but with my children settled in school, I don’t want to move them. Most of our friends either left the military when the children started school or the wife moved ‘back home’ whilst the husband stayed on camp (‘weekend warriors’).

I can’t comment on living on camp but I know people that love it and have made great friends. My friend, for example, loved living on quarters. There were baby groups she went to, she could use the on-site gym and swimming pool and had really good friendship groups. Her husband would come home at lunch time (they usually have long lunch breaks, 1-1.5 hours) and then was home 5 minutes after finishing. All bases are different though and some can be quite isolated. I can’t comment on army bases I am afraid.

My husband gets lots of annual leave so I feel like we get good family time. In the summer holidays he had 3 weeks off with the children. He is often the one to take a day off if childcare is needed. This is the reason I am worried about him leaving the forces, he gets so much flexibility.

It is very hard when they do a tour. I’ve developed anxiety on the last one and can’t shake it off. Word of warning, they very rarely come home on the day they are meant to!

As others have said I sometimes feel resentful because it is me that is making the sacrifices. Like a previous poster I am also better educated than my husband but have took a step back to let my husbands career progress. He goes interesting places, has a good social life and they do provide them with some great opportunities, he is studying for a degree part funded by the RAF. Some of his family make comments about me not using my degree but it is so hard looking after children, a home and a dog on my own away from my family. His family offer me no help despite living in the same town. I love having lots of time with my children though.

DH is currently away now. He had a weeks notice and was meant to be gone for 10 days. It’s now turned into a month. Last year he went away twice with less than 24 hours notice, both for unspecified amounts of time. He is in the army so perhaps different to the way RAF operates? And he definitely isn’t withholding information. I know about exercises well in advance. It’s all the other stuff.

He provides a good life but free gym memberships and coffee mornings don’t make up for the fact your plans will inevitably go to shit at some point

Take your point about speaking to others re what’s app groups etc - I guess this is where the army/RAF bit kicks in, so suppose your experience different (and more relevant to OP.) A lot of RAF deployments are as individual augmentees rather than a whole load of people all at once, so it is less likely that other partners would be aware of activities ifyswim? Discussion would be with chain of command, and career management about whose ‘turn’ it was, whether they can go right now or have extenuating circumstances - and whether a deployment or posting is a ‘good career move.’ The classic move is the serving person saying ‘they have to’ take a posting/deployment to their partner, when the reality is they really want to because it is good for their career - not that they absolutely have to. So long as that discussion has been had at home and understood - then fine.