I’m not a mom yet, and I won’t be for a while, but I’m looking for whatever advice I can find. My boyfriend and I have been together for a few years, and will probably be getting married next year. He has recently decided that he wants to be a pilot (I guess to be fair, he has always wanted be one, but he was focusing on other things for the last few years), and that the best way to become one will be to join the Air Force, because they will pay for his school and guarantee a job.
All of that sounds really great, but I’m not totally comfortable with it. I don’t know much about the military, which is a problem. I’m a little worried that he’s focusing more on the short term (they’ll pay for school) kind of stuff, and I’m hung up on the long term stuff like the long ish commitment after school/potential deployment/how this will affect our family, because we will probably start one in the next few years.
He’s been very good about trying to keep me involved in the decision making process so far, but I feel like we aren’t making much progress because we’re looking at it from different angles. Also, his brother is currently in the Army, and is kind of pushing him toward it, which definitely isn’t helping (his brother is another issue entirely… AGHHHHH!).
I’m not in any way opposed to the military, but I want to make sure we’ve thought it out all the way, and that I know how his decision to join would affect me and our future family (beyond the helpful “if you’re married they’ll pay him more if he gets deployed” argument that his brother offered… seriously, he’s the worst!).
Anyway, I’m just wondering if anyone here has experience with the military, and any advice on what to expect for myself and my family? If this is what he really wants to do, I won’t stop him, but it would really reassure me if I knew a little bit more about what it was like. Sorry for such a long post!
I am pregnant, and my soon to be ex husband is in the army. Let me just say that a lot of lower enlisted have very poor family values, and in my case, my husband got sick of watching all of his friends go out to bars and sleep around while we did family game nights with friends, and asked for a divorce as soon as I got pregnant. SO there’s my mini-rant.
You only get an additional two hundred in separation pay while he’s deployed, there are no extra monies involved.
I’m pregnant with my first, but my friend was a mom and her two year old had only known her dad a total of six months. Some people don’t get deployed at all, but there are some times where you get deployed, PCS, and then get deployed immediately after, so you never know how long he will be around.
Being a military wife is a huge commitment, and while your husband may be around all the time, there may also be times when you don’t see him for a year or more. You really need to decide what’s worth it for you, and make sure you are both ready for the responsibility of it all, and a full year without sex during deployments.
I’m sorry, that’s awful! I will take all of that into consideration. He’s starting in rotc, so he doesn’t have to commit to anything yet, so we have a while to go over everything. Thanks for responding! Anyone else?