to move or not to move?

[luciemule]

Hi - have kind of asked a similar thing before but this is different in that Dhs circumstances have changed.
Basicaly, we've been living in our own house for over a year and dh has been weekend commuting.
Having been selected for promotion, he could possibly/hopefully be loaded onto a course from september until next June/July.
We are having huge problems with DD (8) at the moment (calling me fat pig/wish you'd die etc) and when I asked why she behaves like this towards me, her reply is that all she wants is to live with daddy again.
If he got onto the course though, it would mean moving from here in the summer, where she's made somoe nice friends, and then moving again next summer somewhere else.
Dh thinks it's unnecessary but I just don't like seeing dd behave in this way. She was quite angelic until we moved here and now seems to point all of her anger at me as I'm the only one here. At weekends she's fine as DH is home so he doesn't get to see what she's like without him here. I'm just not sure what to do.

Admit it, it was the burgeoning JW community that sold it you, wasn't it?

I'm pleased for your dd though - hopefully she will be a happier little girl when she knows daddy is just down the road. even if she's asleep he'll be able to go in and kiss her goodnight

oh, i wanna go and have lunch in faringdon

well- it's all change this morning.
Looks like we'll be staying put for one more year.
I can't believe how up-in-the-air it all is. Me and DH were on the phone last night discussing the little niggles we have about moving from a lovely place/school when the course is soooo intense and we don't want him to get crap grades due to coming home early and missing study sessions to have tea etc. DD was stroppy about it but think it's for the best. Someone else told me yesterday they weren't moving with their dh purely so he can work like a trojan during the week and then have fun back at home with them at weekends. I was mainly focussing on DD but actually, when I told DS (5) yesterday we might mvoe, he said "but then I can't play with Harry". His little face was so sad.
This is one of the trickiest decisions I've had to make regarding moving but think it'll be better to move on his next posting next summer and after the intensity of the course.
Thanks for your advice though girls.

Think you're doing the right thing. I didn't post earlier but followed thread.

I don't want to be harsh but 'missing daddy' is an unfortunate part of service life. Your DD will have to get used to it. AT least she see him at weekends and hopefully have his undivided attention then.

Thanks 2old4thislark. Last week was a rush of high emotions; badly behaved kids, DHs'promotion and me being ill and run down. With all that, I clung to any chance of moving but to tbh, with him studying all the time, we might as well not be there and I know from being at shriv previously, I made DH come home for tea every night and I was pregnant and wanting his constant attention and so we argued a whole lot as he was missing out on syndicate studying etc etc so I think I should be braver and stick it out here for another 10 months.

Lucie - your description matches the discussion we had. Seems to be a lot of uprooting for a 10 month course - when they will be working so hard that they will barely see the DCs during the week anyway, even if you were living there. I had a freind who moved with her DH (it suited themn as a family as she was a serving officer and got a good post locally), however she said that she saw him (apart from in bed!) for 30 mins a day max during the week. He would get home at 7 30, v tired. Say hello to the kids/quick kiss, and then straight to the study with dinner, eating as he worked. Bed at midnight - up at 6am and straight back to college.

He, like DH, is fairly driven and wanted to get good results on the course. She reckoned it would have been less pressure all round if they had not been there....I got the impression a few rows had been had about how distracted he had been all week!

glad you posted that NY. I know D is cross with me for saying we're not moving but I know in the long run, it'll be more settling to stay.

You never know - there is always that 0.001% chance he could go and do the Staff Course abroad. A friend did the French equivalent of ACSC; a Romanian colleague of dh's is going back to Shriv tomorrow for his MA Graduation, so people do study in other countries. Could even be the NATO staff course in Rome.

Not sure if that's the same for his year of birth. He's going to be one of the first ones to ACSC as a former ICSCL student, rather than 'old' staff college. He said that the foreign staff colleges werenn't as good for his career as doing ACSC here. (I'm not dissing the foreign courses but just what DH said). I think the ACSC that your DHs friend is doing is under the old staff college system, yes? Where you do it as a major? From now on, the army are having Lt Cols do ACSC rather than majors, as the navy and RAF do.

My friend did the Staff Course in Paris as a Lt-Col RM; mind you, he is fluent in French, so that helps. I think those who have done the foreign staff courses might take your dh's comments amiss, especially those senior to him.

My dh's Romanian Navy colleague had finished ACSC ; done six months working for the Romanian CDS and is now an SNE to the EUMS.

I don't know what the Army do Lucie; I am married to an RN Officer, however, there are Lt-Cdrs who do ACSC, not just Cdrs.

Apparently the foreign staff course thing can very much depend on which staff course it is i.e some are considered more prestigious than others. The way it works in the RAF is that the very top people (i.e those selected as the top 5 RAF candidates for staff college) are not offered foreign staff college because they want to keep them here. The next group - i.e very good, but not quite top of the tree - are offered foreign staff colleges. This is done on a ranking system i.e the highest scoring of them gets offered their pick of the foreign staff colleges, with some guidance on where is more prestigious, and the people further down the list get less say over it.

scary as I said, I was dissing the foreign courses; just though that doing in the army, doing a foreign staff college can hold back your career by an extra year.
Until now, the army only did ACSC as old system staff college as a major but now it's the first year that those who have picked up lt col and lt cols in rank, can do ACSC, as the navy and raf have been doing.