Guest post: Army families - 'your life can be turned upside down in weeks'

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I have lived 24 years of my life with the Army. I didn't sign up and join, but I married my husband, who did. People tell you what to expect when you become part of the Army family, but everyone faces their own challenges and the life can be very tough.

My husband served in an infantry regiment which took us to many different postings around the UK and even some through Europe. We lived in remote garrison towns in Northern England, near sunny beaches in Cyprus, on big bases in Germany and in relative normality in the Home Counties. For the most part, it was enjoyable and safe, and we always had a roof over our head. But I also met plenty of families who didn't have this experience.

Many junior soldiers get married at a young age. Their new wives are thrust into a new life away from their families and friends, with a husband who is hardly there. Army accommodation is allocated to you, and it may not be something you like. If you are young, with no family or maybe just one child, you will get a small apartment. You can say no to the first option given to you, but that will mean waiting for another one to become available.

These homes are not your own - you have to sign an inventory when you move in, which is then signed off once you leave. Everything has to be left how you found it, which is a near-impossible task when you have young kids.

When you leave, the process is called “marching out”. Someone from the housing office, usually a former soldier or someone close to finishing their service, comes to inspect your home before you hand it back. They inspect your house with a white glove, checking every nook and cranny, marking you down for scuffs and scratches. No matter how long you spend cleaning, it is never clean enough for them.

This can all be very tough on new marriages. Having little support when you most need it – when you're starting your own family – can cause lots of strains. With the recent combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, some young women found themselves alone for anything up to nine months at a time. There are welfare and family teams at the Army barracks, but for most this is no substitute for family and friends.

An Army family can never make long term plans. Either through new deployment or promotion through the ranks, your life can be upped and moved to pastures new in as little as six weeks. That's everything in your house, your kids and their schools, your friends in the barracks, the life you have become used to – all of it changes, and you have very little say in the matter. The constant change and upheavals can be tough on the kids, and it's really difficult to see them go through it. Luckily the schools they attend are used to this and so are the kids at the schools. I guess it feels tougher on the parents - we want them to have the stability we had as children.

My life as an Army wife has not always been what I wanted or expected, but it was mostly enjoyable and has given me lots of experiences I never thought I'd have. You can see the difficulties faced by young families, but those who embraced the system always fared better than those who didn't. It was a challenge, but then whose life isn't?

The Independent and Evening Standard have come together in partnership with ABF The Soldiers’ Charity and Veterans Aid to support veterans and their families struggling with housing issues. You can find out more here.

My eldest son has followed his dad's footsteps by joining the military. He is in the Army. He said when he was 7 or 8 that he was going to be a soldier. All the way through secondary school his teachers would try to push him down the university route because he is incredibly intelligent. (All his GCSES are A*s and As and he has AAB at A level).

He started on 7/7 last year. It has been the making of him. It's like he has found the missing piece of his puzzle. He has made some great friends and is highly thougt of in his troop. He rings me full of enthusiasm and excitement about what he has done that day. He has so much confidence which he never had before. The day he passed out he told me he was proud of himself because it was the first time he had ever had to really work to acheive something.

DS2 would have joined the Forces too had he not been a serious asthmatic.

But his life won't be his own. And whilst I could cope with me coming second best to my husbands job, I couldn't cope with DS also coming way down husbands list.

I don't feel that me or DS come second best in the slightest, the moment DP can come home he does, even if this means driving at the small hours of the morning to get to us. Every deployment is hard, guaranteed, but that's part of the job and you have to accept it as such. At the moment he's on standby, this means in a matter of hours he could. be gon, no months preparation or leaving paty, just gone, but you deal with it because that's part of the job.

If you start to view yourself as second best you will feel second best.

I think where you come in your DH's priorities is an individual thing. I know plenty of people outside the army who prioritise their jobs over their families, and plenty of people in the army who put their families over the army (DH included - who has made career choices to suit our family and help me stay at work because that's important to me)

Passthecremeeggs, assuming your post was to me, DS1's descion to join the army was all his own. He has wanted it for years. I don't understand how that means he is way down "DH's list of priorities".

DS1 is 20, he joined up at 19 after doing his A levels. He isn't daft and he has a very good idea of what being in the military is like because DH is in the RAF. I didn't try to talk him out of it becuase DS2 wants to be a nurse and I have no intention of talking him out of that, so it would have made me a hypocrite.

IMO you spend a long time at work so you need to be happy and doing something you enjoy and DS1 is. I support him because he is a great kid, he thought about this a lot, he has chosen a difficult job and military life has all he has ever known, so again it would be hypocritical not to, and he would have joined up anyway. If I didn't support him and something happened to him I wouldn't be able to live with myself.

The problem is that my husband cannot always put me first. He would not have chosen to leave me for 9 months when I was pregnant / newborn had a toddler and was depressed. He would have given anything to be with me. Arguably at that moment in our lives I needed him way more than the army did.

Of course we discuss posting preferences and career choices but ultimately I don't get the final say and nor does he. At my worst points it has felt like the army was a malevolent force trying to break me. Of course that's not reality but god it felt like it.

"It is impossible to know the reality of bring an army wife before you enter into it."

100 times this. Partly because the experience of every Army spouse is different. We've moved more than some of my friends, but since being married DH has been away less than a lot of them. We've had better experiences with housing than many, but it's all very unpredictable.

As with everything, there are positives and negatives. It annoys me when people say we can't complain about the negatives because we made a choice, if that was the case people wouldn't be able to complain about much!

There is a saying "if serving personnel were meant to have families, they would have been issued them"

It does often feel like that.

And for whoever said that we could just buy or rent privately, we have been moved from the north to the south east commuter belt, with no reflection of that in his pay, so how would that work?

Fairy no it wasn't directed at you. It was directed to coalscuttle who said she couldn't cope with her DS being way down her husband's list. So no need to get cross!

Norma It would be done by making choices to either buy a house in these places if you really can't bear to live in forces accommodation, or by not moving and your partner commuting. As both my partner and I are in the forces I see both sides of the story. This post is extremely frustrating to read as a servicewoman, there is a considerable amount of the 'woe is me' attitude forced onto service people by their civilian partners - not just here but in RL, many of my colleagues' views aren't represented. I think some military wives think their partners actually enjoy being separated from everyone they hold dear in order to pay the bills.

Sorry, passthecremeeggs my post was meant to be directed to coalscuttle too. That will teach me to try to do too many things at once!

We are an Army family, my husband retired last year after 20 plus years. I knew exactly what I was getting into as I was a serving soldier when we met and married. I found it much harder being the wife than being the soldier. I was fine when I deployed out too Iraq. Sitting at home and waiting for DH when he was there was much, much harder.

I feel it was for us a great life, we moved worldwide had some amazing experiences, have made some amazing lifelong friendships with a bond I never can replicate with our civvy friends. Our housing has been a mixed bag over the years but generally affordable and adequate.

I always knew we were DH's priority and now he is working for a civvy company I find it really tough that he can't get time off for medical appointments for the kids, sports days etc. I have seen many couples crumble under strain though. I am sure if you have lived in your hometown your whole life surrounded by family it is veery tough to be dumped in the middle of Germany with a husband away for long periods of time.

Just I completely agree with you, we choose the separation and commute, it seemed far more stable for family life, and better for DS on our opinion. it's hard, at the moment with DS so young, but as time goes on it will get easier. DP hates being away but does so to provide.

MPs calling for the government to have British forces do more against ISIS

At present, it appears to me more combat air missions, not any land operations. So RAF, not Army, so perhaps critical concern to OP and other Army wives.

But may your loved ones never be in an orange jumpsuit and starring in a video if the government goes down that line.

Trojanwhore what an awful last sentence. No need for that at all.

Army life can be tough but it can also be great. As a PP said earlier it is what you make it. That aside though, it is hard being separated from DH, but this is the same in any job, civilian or mil.

The housing can be hit and miss at officer level too folks, it isn't all rosy at the higher ranks but on the whole the houses we've had have been lovely. March outs are blooming awful though!

Of course we discuss posting preferences and career choices but ultimately I don't get the final say and nor does he

He doesn't get a choice over posting preferences if he choses the military as a career choice but he does have the ultimate say over his career choice

Yes, that's true. We all have free will and if we felt the bad outweighed the good we would leave the army.

Personally we are playing the long game, in ten years DH should be able to leave and go into a well paid job and we will have saved enough for a decent house.

But in general, is it a bad thing for posters to discuss the realities and difficulties of being an army family? If we don't then how will the next generation of army wives / husbands 'know what they are signing up for'

At the end of the day we have the 'ultimate say' about a lot of things. People often complain about the weather in Britain, but it's pretty rare for others to reply that it's their choice to live here. People complain about their boss or working hours, and I've never heard anyone reply that it's their choice to work there, so they can't complain. It seems (in my limited experience) that the 'you choose to do this job' retort is reserved for forces personnel.

Agree with you totally, MrsGSR
In civvy street, it's incredibly easy to leave your job and find something new if you find you don't like it. Much harder if you've signed up to a military career. If you find you don't like it so much after all, you're actually pretty much stuck with it until the end of your term, or you can buy your way out.

I do get very cross when people say the old "You chose it . . . blah blah". Youngsters are often sold the "military dream" - secure job, training, etc. And it really suits some recruits and spouses. But it doesn't suit everyone. Hindsight and all that. But once you've signed up, it's difficult to get out.

On the contrary, mzzzf. I think it is vital to recognise that what is asked of armed forces personnel is often brutal, and the training regime supports that requirement. And I really see nothing whatsoever wrong with putting the dangers in stark terms (I really hope your objection is not to the main sentiments of admiration and hope that this never happens to anyone's loved one).

For that's what it comes down to, I think. Whether we want the 'system' to remove as many obstacles to family life for the military as possible? Whether the population as a whole will realise that soldiers/sailors/airmen are still people who might want a relationship and to have children during the typical child-rearing years? And not just dismiss the (intermittent) concerns of those families 'because they chose it'?

And, when the role of Armed Forces is in the news, as it was yesterday, to perhaps realise that, if we want UK to be able to act against ISIS, it's real people with real family lives who are doing it.

It wasn't until I emmigrated to Canada that I have met and made friends with quite a few women who's dh's are in the forces, snd I have to say that military families are treated with a lot more respect from the general public than they are here.

I have quite a few friends here that are military wives, and I am always in awe of how organized and strong these women are.

Well 'going over with a white glove' was EXACTLY how it was for us when we moved out of our quarter. Pickups included:
Three fingerprint marks on the stainless steel oven handle.
Footmat by the inside of the door worn (from wiping feet too much).
Door number dulled.
Bulb blown in the bathroom (we had reported this, we changed bulb but it didn't work so electrical issue. Still marked down and onus was on us to prove)
No Hoover tracks on the clean carpets, so said we hadn't hoovered recently enough.
Window cleaner had not been recently enough (3 weeks previous)
Inside window tracks had small part missed on cleaning.

We had lived in this house for 4 years. It was immaculate, and I have the photos to prove it. They wanted us to pay for professional cleaners to come in. The tipping point was the lack of Hoover track marks. This was because I had steamed the carpets post moving out two weeks previously as they wouldn't give me a March Out earlier than this.

I wouldn't call them an understanding bunch

Also MASSIVE sympathies to the poster who spoke about bitchiness on 'the patch'. There can be some really awful women on there, and unless you've seen it first hand you can't appreciate how isolating it can feel. to you.