Can someone on here give me some advice to help me advice my sister who's in a relationship with a chap in the forces.

[brogan2]

Hi,
Sorry for long title but wasn't sure how else to word it.

Had a long chat with my sister last night. She's been seeing a really nice guy. He's an army officer. She met him at uni a few years ago.

She'd had a few drinks and she admitted that although she thinks she loves him she's holding back. The reason being is she's just not sure how being married to an army officer would affect her career. (she's a management consultant)

He has told her that lots of army wives carry on but also (she feels) implies that he'd rather she didn't.

She's not really sure how to go about finding info so I wondered if anyone on here could help.

So, do lots of wives/partners carry on with their careers? I know she loves her job, worked hard for it and earns good money. She really doesn't want to give it up though I'm fairly sure she's in love with him otherwise I think she'd leave to avoid the situation. Thing is, he is a lovely guy and would make a great unclt to my DCs but I wouldn't want her to be unhappy.

Is it the case that she'd just have to give it up? Would she be expected to travel with him? Would she need to live on the site? If they had kids is their adequate child care facilities for working mums?

Sorry for all the questions, just want to give her as much info as possible. Thanks

"i do think that there is still a requirement for the unpaid voluntary work/ community cohesion/ welfare side though - in the absence of any formal/ paid provision of the same..."

Oh God yes! One posting the husband got issued with a proforma that asked "what does your wife do during the day" and stated that "Charity/voluntary work will be allocated". You got exempted if you had small children or a full-time job.

No, this wasn't the fifties - it was 2003!

My husband's capbadge isn't stuffy, thankfully, but there is an expectation that wives will chip in where required. Until we had children, I did do all the formal entertaining etc. I enjoyed it (mostly) because I'm a keen cook and like having company in the house.

Since having children, we've weekly (currently fortnightly) commuted and the entertaining has fallen by the wayside. There are some aspects of patch life that I miss and there are some that I don't. We haven't ruled out a return to quarters in the future but, for the moment, we're pretty settled.

As for the career thing - well, I haven't managed it. Partly due to a niche job before I married and partly because we moved seven times in the first six years we were together. I did do some voluntary work here and there and I did enjoy some of the social things that went on but I was never a paid up member of the coffee circuit.

I will say this, though: the women that I know who have sustained a career throughout a Service marriage have been married to men who were/are prepared to be less "thrusting" in their careers in order to reach a kind of balance with the wife's career - if the husband/serving partner doesn't do that at least some of the time, then it makes it more difficult.

"I will say this, though: the women that I know who have sustained a career throughout a Service marriage have been married to men who were/are prepared to be less "thrusting" in their careers in order to reach a kind of balance with the wife's career - if the husband/serving partner doesn't do that at least some of the time, then it makes it more difficult."

Agree wholeheartedly. Someone's career has got to give - I took the decision that it would be mine (at least for the moment) although it doesn't have to be the non-serving partner's, but then the serving partner needs to compensate appropriately at some other point.

Again - that's the difference between the RN and the other two services. As we can't go with them when they're at sea, and we weekend more; having your own house and your life apart from the RN is the norm, and most of the RN wives I know in the UK work. It doesn't stop them being 'thrusters' career wise.

Dh is moving from an international job back to a more Brit based one (although still over here), and I have a nasty feeling that I'll have to do the coffee circuit and the wives bazaar and all the rest of the crap, that I hate doing. I am armed with all the stuff I do for ds's school, my MA and my GCSE marking to avoid it at first, and then hopefully they'll leave me alone, as it doesn't appeal at all.

By 'them' I meant the blokes.

"Dh is moving from an international job back to a more Brit based one (although still over here), and I have a nasty feeling that I'll have to do the coffee circuit and the wives bazaar and all the rest of the crap, that I hate doing."

And that's why I'm desperate for DH to get a NATO posting or go for the UN

I couldn't agree more about one person having to really take the back seat.

DH has a very very demanding job at the moment and I just don't see how it would be possible for me to have the same. If he works away Mon-Fri and goes away for weeks on end how would I ever manage to look after DS and have a real career?

I'd never be able to go on business trips as I cannot EVER rely on DH to be around. He doesn't have that, he says 'I'm off on Monday for 3 weeks' knowing full well I'll be around to care for DS. He has totally security knowing that in a way I could never have right now.

If he had been willing to take one of the much less demanding posts then it may have been possible but right now he's not prepared to do that

ROFL laughing at
"Oh God yes! One posting the husband got issued with a proforma that asked "what does your wife do during the day" and stated that "Charity/voluntary work will be allocated". You got exempted if you had small children or a full-time job."

jcscot - what capbadge is that with? I'm not ROFL at you - just the thought of getting a form saying that! That's what annoys me though about the army; sometimes they assume and expect wives to conform and I'm so not a conformist! Last year, our CO's wife popped round the square selling tickets for a fundraising night. It was going to be in the mess and raise money for local preschool (our children didn't go to it and I was the chair person for a local village preschool). When I said I didn't want to go (not that I couldn't), I don't think she could quite believe what I'd said. When I told other friends and asked if they were going, they said of course they were as the COs wife came to the door and they couldn't say no!

It wasn't down to the capbadge - it was the posting (Army but multi-capbadge). I got mentioned on the husband's OJAR that year (very 50's!).

In that environment, it was really the extra-curricular that affected the OJARs, even for the serving personnel. If you weren't a team player, it showed.

So far, my husband has shown no sign of pushing for less demanding jobs. If they keep waving a carrot in front of him, he'll keep working and with the Pink List (next year) looming, he's working hard.

I so know what you mean about the team player bit Jcscot!

Our first posting the OC came to me and said how pleased he was that we'd got married as DH came to a lot more functions now he hadn't got to go visiting me, a what an improved team player he had become!

The remaining single Officers who didn't come to all the functions are were off visiting their girlfriends were regarded with more suspecion as not making enough effort... They didn't want to come to families day and things like that alone you see

DH does still recall with dread one OC though who had recently been divorced and demanded that all the single officers come to his house every single saturday night for drinking etc and plently more week night 'activites' as he didn't want to be alone

I am currently a CO's wife and I seem to manage! I do think times have changed - no flower arranging here thank heavens.

There is a lot of give and take (more give!) to make it work.

Frakkin - it ain't the UN he's going to, but the other one (again)!

Katty - it depends what you do. I did a Local Authority job and then taught, as I could combine a career with dh being at sea/JFHQ/DS at Bracknell/Shriv from when ds was 2 until he was 7, and then from 2004-2006, dh was in Brussels whilst I stayed in Cornwall and we six weeked it.

"I do think times have changed - no flower arranging here thank heavens. "

Agreed. The posting I mentioned (with the proforma) has been the exception rather than the rule throughout my time as an Army wife. However, I do think it can be hard to maintain the kind of career that's possible when one is married to a civvy - compromise is more difficult when the Forces are involved. If your partner/husband is a thruster, then the "give" seems to be more on the non-Service spouse. It's not impossible to have a career outside of Army life, but it is difficult. All depends on the couple I suppose.

six months ago i got told i was letting the side down by getting a job. by another wife.

i think she was joking...

P'raps she felt guilty that she's still in the coffee morning club whilst you were off working madwoman .

"six months ago i got told i was letting the side down by getting a job. grin by another wife. grin

i think she was joking..."

Y'know if someone here said that they'd be being deadly serious. As it is they make comments about how nice it is for me to occupy my time as we don't have children yet [look of pity mixed with sheer nosiness about when we will] Then I want to slap them.

frakkin - its weird that the French are so 1950s when in general as a society I thought they had one of the highest % of working mothers in Europe? Forces must be holding out against that trend.

Are you another BSG fan ?!

Perhaps it's the french army as my friend who's DH is in the Navy doesn't portray her life as that - although she's french and was a working mum so maybe that took the pressure off her. She had a fab job in marketing for a french beauty company and still managed to be a good wifey, work and spend time with her DS. Not quite sure how she did it though! She's not working now and has moved to the south of france (lucky girl).

Yup. How'd you guess?!

All the non-progresive union hating misogynists who want women to stay at home get concentrated in the military

It's just officers wives and they tend to be pretty BCBG anyway.

I jest...

Lucie - 35 hour working week and state subsidised childcare, that's how they do it.

Maybe it's just here and it'll be different when we go back to métropole? Please?

what's BCBG????

I've seen no evidence of my husband taking a back seat in his career to allow me to advance mine. He is on the pre-selection list for pinking on first look, which even if he doesn't pick up suggests he is somewhere near the top of his peer group, but still encourages me and supports me to keep advancing myself, doing what I can to get my next promotion etc. Although he is unlikely to get an overseas posting in the foreseeable future, we have discussed what we would do, and agreed that I would stay in the UK with the family, and he would commute, assuming it were somewhere in Europe. If it were further away, e.g. US, we'd think about it again.

Maybe I'm stubborn, but he did know what he was getting when he married me, same as I knew what I was getting, and I don't think it would make either of us any happier to expect the other to compromise on careers. He openly admits to liking having a wife who is at least his equal when it comes to contribution to the household coffers! I won't pretend its always been easy, but we've always managed to find a way to do it so far.

I think my point for the OP is that it is possible, but you've got to both want it that way, and the couple in question need to be upfront and honest about what their expectations of each other, not work on assumptions and implied messages.

Soapsy - you're not a Defra vet by any chance are you?
I know I'm not working but Dh's career is very important to him to (on pre-selection list hoping to pink first look this year too) but I know that if he becomes a CO of a regiment, he would love me to join him (we live in our own house currently). He says it's the entertaining thing that will be a mare if me and the kids don't go. I don't mind doing the good little wifey thing for that sort of thing but on my own terms! I know though that DH would have been supportive if I had carried on with a career.

Bon chic, Bon genre!

The more I think about it the more I think it's just overseas postings (and I'm unlucky to be here first) because working is so much more difficult and people entertain themselves by inventing offical things to attend but they're a fact of life and more so for the FN as you're sent to a DOM/TOM at least once if not more in your career. If you're AEM or RI you spend even more time away. Someone here did New Caledonia, Tahiti, Paris, Northwood, Brest and then here that's 2 mainland postings in nearly 15 years. It's just not possible to settle if you're doing that. Certain trades are more stable, obviously, but you settle for what you get! DHs father has had a similar run of postings. I guess the Brits don't have so many overseas bases.

frakkin - where are you now again - france??

lol frakkin, we've spent 7 years o'seas (18 mos in germany, the rest north america at diff times) and 5 years in the uk (of which 2 years was glasgow, and the other 3 two diff postings). not quite so bad as your friend, but sort of belies the 'nice wifely career in the south-east' pipe dream. i commuted from germany some of the time, and from glasgow. they looked at transferring me over here, but the actual job would have been a 2 1/2 hour drive away with no public transport, so i turned it down. this time they offered to find me something in the country, but the nearest option i could come up with was 6 hours away (again with no transport links)

sometimes i wish i'd gone into IT like my sis, lol.