Would I be unreasonable asking my partner to decline promotion now? Military & new baby on the way

[PockerMaus]

How would you feel in this situation?

For context.. my partner is 13 years into the military. We have an 11 month old son and are due our second in November 4th. A year before our son was born he moved to a really steady unit that works 9-5 and doesn't deploy. He chose this unit as it meant we had a bit more stability after a rough few years.

He didn't come off the board this year for promotion however he has since been offered a promotion from the reserve list so he hasn't got a choice on where to go. The unit he's been offered is a very busy and active unit and known as being one of the busiest units in terms of exercises & deployments.

He is keen to take the role as it means getting the promotion however I feel really nervous as we are due a new baby. I don't know what it will be like having two young children. I'll be on mat leave for 9 months but then I will return to my job as a firefighter and be on night shifts 2 x a week where he obviously looks after our son. I also worry as we have a good childcare plan where we do about 50% of the nursery pick ups/drop offs each to fit around our schedules.

We have discussed this between us and my partner understands where I'm coming from but I can tell he is still keen to take the role. He's going to find out tomorrow what the upcoming year looks like and how busy/deployable it will be.

Am I unreasonable for not wanting him to promote this time? I said it feels like the wrong time for it and could he not decline this job and then when promotions next come around he will have more choice on where to go.

What would you do in this situation? I do find the army a bit outdated in how it often feels like soldier first family second which doesn't really fit with how the world is these days.

I’m another thinking that you should think about getting married, sorry, it was the first thing that struck me from your post. You are mortgage free - do you both own the house. I wouldn’t want to go part time without marriage.

We own the house equally. I'm not sure how marriage makes a difference for us at the moment? But maybe I'm being naive

Yes, you need to get married. What about widows pension if he is killed?

If you go part time you will earn less but also get less pension. To balance this he needs to compensate you via a private pension or equivalent.

My husband is US military, and if it's anything like that, then I would look at getting married for the life insurance and pension benefits, just in case the absolute worst should happen.

You’re staring down the barrel of not just one year that’s going to be difficult but several years of difficult to organise childcare. I’m wondering whether you can develop, now, a good relationship with someone locally - maybe a nursery worker or a teaching assistant or a nonworking military spouse - who is prepared to come in and cover 48 hours on a fairly regular basis.

It will cost you. The first five years of my daughter‘s life before she started school were absolutely the most expensive. Everything went towards childcare. But this issue isn’t going away. He’s in the military, so at some point he’s probably going to be in a role that means he deployed. He needs to progress and move around, even if it’s not this year. And if you go part-time, you’ll be doing more of that work. That’s the reality. Both your career choices together are a childcare powder keg.

2 really young children, 1 toddler and 1 a baby? Yeah, that’s gonna be a lot to handle. Or for some reason you both might breeze through it. Good luck!

There is a way you can become undeployable, I forget what it’s called, it’s basically a type of flexibility you can be offered but you lose the X factor element of pay, not sure how it impacts career prospects. I have to admit it’s not something I’d ask DH to do, for all the pain of the military it’s been his ambition, we’ve always made it work around his career but we had kids much earlier on in his career (and mine).

I think this is why you need to have a longer term conversation to understand what you both want out of life, it sounds like your career is going to be challenging even if you stay if gets sent away etc, so without a change in flexibility for either of you the only way you’ll manage is throwing money at it.
He will likely get posted at some point it’s not usually possible to stay somewhere indefinitely so you need to have the conversation around your feelings on weekend dad etc.

Also out of interest I AI’d impact to partners if not married in regards to death benefits, obviously you’ll need to do your own more thorough research but from what I read it sounds like the main difference is things aren’t automatic for partners. You need to make sure he has recorded his relationship status on JPA, that he has nominated you manually for death benefits (married partners are dealt with automatically). I remember a story actually where a soldier had his brother listed and wasn’t married so it went to him instead of the mother/partner.

But I have to admit I am team marriage, it has impact on things like inheritance if something is to happen, I think the military has modernised a bit in this area though in terms of treating you like a long term partner. When we weren’t married 15+ years ago and we had our son he was told to get back to work after 3 days…3 hours away.

Are there not roles within the fire service that don’t require shift work - management / office based? As I see it your main issue is the night shift aspect

Agree re marriage - I hope you both have Wills OP!

There are but they're not firefighter roles so the career progression is different. I could get a job in fire safety etc but it's quite stagnant. So I guess that would be me dropping my career whereas he has more choice 🤷🏼‍♀️

True, although I'm probably more likely to get killed in my job 😂 but appreciate it works both ways.

Yes very true, I guess it's always felt weird making decisions based on finances as I've always been so independent. We're just getting used to this whole family/parent thing! But I totally get your point.

Yep totally get your point. We're UK so I guess I don't view the military the same here, my partner is signals so he isn't front line etc.

Yes we have thought about a nanny of some sort. We live in the town where the Norland Nannies are trained so I've had a look at them!

It will be difficult I don't disagree, it just sucks that it's normally the non military partner that adjusts their life and has to make sacrifices.

Hey ho, life is never simple!

I honestly have no idea how it works, so this is a rather simplistic answer.

I presume you both wanted a second child? And two children very close in age?
Sounds like he's currently an involved Dad who does his share.
Does he want to put his relationship with his children second to his career given that he'll be giving up a lot fo time with them?
Does he want to force his wife to give up her career rather than slow his down for a few years?
If he takes the promotion, you won't manage to work nights and it'll be on you to sacrifice your job.
What's his plan then financially and emotionally?

Ah yes I am his nominated person with regards to death benefits since his mum passed away. I am basically his only family tbh as the rest of he has a difficult relationship with his dad and no siblings.

I guess I've always been naive and assumed if something were to happen everything would go to our son (and new baby now too) and not really thought how I would manage in the meantime until they are both 18.

Hey ho, definitely something for us to talk about 😁

Yep I agree with all that you have said and appreciate your comments ❤️ we have some conversations to be had!

While you are in the thick of dealing with small children and one parent is the armed forces it’s unrealistic to think that nothing will change. It comes with the territory (I’m from a forces family). If there’s a way you can take a side step for a few years that might be the least worst option for both of you?

Oh yeah I do understand. It's just difficult accepting that it is assumed it'll be me? Whereas the military has lots of options where you can still prgoress. Whereas I don't really.

Is it helpful to consider that it’s the same for fathers with military wives? It’s no longer an exclusively gender based issue!

Oh yeah I just mean it's always the non-military parent. 🤷🏼‍♀️

It really isn’t the same, because of the culture in the military and the desire to increase female staff, female staff get a lot of support, I have a couple of RAF friends and they are on flexible hours, non deployable, men can technically get these…but culturally it’s still quite challenging, it’s looked at differently on male staff, speaking generally.

That’s the deal marrying into the military - I know it doesn’t suit everyone and one of my relative’s first marriage failed because if exactly this scenario, wife wanted to pursue her career. My DM on the other hand had a series of jobs as opposed to a career for the many decades DDad was serving

RN and Army have far fewer non deployable roles than RAF so not a great comparator

Ah yes I must agree I have heard this a lot

But why is that the deal? Why is that the default in this day and age? (Not firing these questions at you, I just think the military needs to accommodate modern living lol & stop moving people about every couple of years).