Anyone Living in their own house whilst partner works away at current posting?

[luciemule]

Hello - just wondering really if there are any other wives who have chosen to live in their own home whilst their DH moves around postings and comes back at weekends?
We recently chose to move back to our won home having lived in MQs all our 9 yr married life. We have two young children and my DH especially, thought that moving me and the children back to our family home town would be a good option mainly for the children. He works at his current posting about 3 hours away and usually gets home late Friday afternoon/evening.
I have my mum, sister and sister in law as well as some friends I knew from growing up here but I'm just not happy. I thought it would be great and just what we thought it should be like but I think the kids are suffering from DH being away. They pine for him constantly. DS (5) asks every day "is Daddy coming home today" and tbh, I reckon a 6 month deployment was easier for us to deal with than this. He leaves at about 6am on Monday mornings and calls each evening but the kids continue to miss him and it's now 9 months into this move. I'm longing to be back near other army wives and surprisingly I'm really missing being a part of the army family. Has anyone else tried this way of living and how long did it last?
Sending the children to public school isn't an option we want to pursue so it would mean them mvoing around with us every couple of years or living apart. It's pulling me and DH apart too it seems - always quarrellling at weekends; he wants to chill and we all want to do stuff as a family.

Lucie - the same goes for the RAF and the RN - you are appointed according to the needs of the service, the individual and then the domestics which come low on the agenda, and you don't always get what you want.

However, I am not convinced that Forces families need huge amounts of support whilst in the UK, as we use the civilian services for most things. SSAFA would not be my first port of call in a crisis. Abroad is different; I use the MoD medical care provided here, and the UKSU liaise between the landlords and those of us in SSFA.

I think you need to quit analysing what you are doing and give it a fair go. The grass is not always greener. Had I moved around, I would not have owned my own home, been able to work nor would ds have stayed in one place until he was 10. I'm enjoying being abroad, but I feel like life is in suspended animation, and will kick in when we move back to UK, and I can get my life and career going again.

I don't know how long your dh is proposing to stay in the Army, but you are putting down roots and will have somewhere to be when he leaves. There are also lots of buzzes about redundancies at the moment, so you will not have to scrabble for housing if he loses his job, or worry about where you are going to go when you have to move out of SFA.

Keep the kids and yourself busy; enjoy the time you have together during the week and change the pace for the weekend when your dh is back. I was more worried about living with dh again when we moved here, as we hadn't lived together for longer than 2.5 years at a stretch than I ever was about weekending. We have now done 3.5 years and I haven't throttled him yet, so it seems to be working.