DH working offshore

[perhapstomorrow]

Not sure if I've posted in the right place but my DH is thinking about working offshore. It would be an arrangement of two weeks working and then two weeks at home. The reason behind it is that financially we need the extra income. He is self employed and at the moment there isn't enough work around so he's managed to find work but has taken a drop in pay and is also working 7 days a week. If he doesn't do this then our only other option is for me to find a job but I have 3 DC (5,3,16months) and no family around so would have to pay for childcare so this would wipe out any financial benefit of working.

I was just wandering if any of you have any experience of your DP working away for long stretches and then being at home again. How did it affect your relationship and your DP relationship with their DC?

You posted this a month ago, so not sure if still relevant to reply, but I do have some experience of this. We used to live in Anchorage, Alaska, and whilst my husband worked normal M-F hours in the City (with a couple of 1-2 day trips a month up to "The Slope" where the oil was), friends I knew well had husbands working 2 weeks on, 2 weeks off.

It works OK.

• Kids do adjust to it fairly well. Even your 16 month old should be able to remember him from 2 weeks ago, even though they may be a bit clingy (to you) when Dad first comes home. In Anchorage you would see a lot of Dad's taking their kids to soft play, playgroups, etc, in the week - these were all the Oil Dads on their 2 weeks off. It was quite nice for them to be able to spend good quality time with Dad, not just late evenings and weekends.

• Relationship husband/wife can find it a bit hard, but if you both work at it it should be fine. Basically as the wife you cope single handed for 2 weeks, then husband arrives home "on holiday" for 2 weeks, and kids get very excited, and day-to-day routine gets difficult to handle. You also have to try to balance what you do in the weeks he is there, versus the weeks he is not. And husband can be exhausted when he comes home, so expect him not to be brilliant witty/helpful company for the first couple of days.

As a friend I got very used to having Oil Wives want to see you loads for 2 weeks (because they were lonely/struggling on own with kids) and then just want to do nothing for 2 weeks because husband was back. That was OK, and as a mate you understood it.

If the money is a lot better, I would go for it, provided husband wanted to as well. It does work OK, and the fact you have 2 weeks together every 4 weeks, means actually a lot more Dad-kids time than might otherwise have been.

My DH did this when DD was 2. He used to work 4 weeks on, have about 2 days at home and then another 4 weeks on. I think in the first year he came home 12 times only for a couple of days each time.

It was tough but we did it. If your DH is going to be home for 2 weeks it should be a lot better.