Convince me I can do this?

[Roxswood]

Hi, I've only just found this site and am really hoping for some help dealing with things right now.

DH has just started with an airline after 2years training and then 6 months or so unemployed. I'm having major doubts (well actually have had them since he first mentioned wanting to train as a pilot) about whether I want to live this life. I'm 8 months pregnant with our second child and worrying he won't be around when I give birth, although thankfully the airline are being accomodating so far and we think he'll get a base fairly close to home while he does his line training so he will be home most nights.

I am feeling really left behind, like his life is expanding so rapidly and he's achieving so much, and having such exciting wonderful new experiences and I feel like my life is closing in around me. All I've done for 2.5 years is follow him around and haven't been able to stay in one place long enough to build up a support network or even have a life of my own and now I'm having another baby and won't be free to do much at all for a long time now if its anything like our first child. We're all living with my Mum at the moment until he finishes line training and gets his permanent base so I'll have some support while I have the baby and for the first few weeks but then we'll have to move somewhere else unknown again.

I never wanted to be married to a pilot, unfortunately we were already married when he told me he really wanted to do this and I couldn't possibly stop him from following his dream, I love him so much but I just don't know if I want to continue living my life following HIS dream.

[katbuad]

I can see across the ocean that you are a strong person. You've made it this far. Your going to make it even further.

It doesn't surprise me a bit to hear the worry and anxity in your post. A lot of people's first post sound like yours. We are all so proud, but so lost and left behind. It gets better. Some days will be good. Some days will be horrible. Jetgirls really helps me with some of the "pilot family" loneliness.

Stick around and hang in there.

I dug up my first post (7/9/07) for you to read and maybe not feel so lonely. . .



Hello all! My name is Kathy. I am entirely new to the commercial airlines way of life. My husband has just started flying for Chautauqua Airlines. In fact he was on his first day of IOE yesterday when I was feeling pretty lost and tripped over this forum on the internet.

We have been married for six years. We have two dogs, which are our children. I am an accountant and work some pretty long hours.

Aaron just finished six weeks of training in Houston and is currently out on four days of trips. My my, how our lives have changed since April!

I am so proud of him. He is enjoying every min. the things he is learning, the people he is meeting and the places he is going. But I am sad to be without my best friend.

We live in Nashville, TN. He is based in Colmbus, OH.

I am not sure what else to add, but I am already greatful to have found this forum. I read a lot of post and I don't feel quite as alone. Thank you so very much!

[FilleBelle]

I suspect that, now that he's got a job with an airline, you all will have a considerably more settled life. Not like a "regular" family's, of course, but better than the past couple of years!

As far as I can tell, most pilots' wives have very active lives of their own. We are writers, accountants , teachers (that's me!), nurse practitioners, flight attendants, students, musicians, engineers, insurance agents, pilots (yes, that's right, we can be pilots, too!), administrative professionals, bankers, research assistants, physical therapists, real estate agents, moms, sisters, daughters, and best friends. We volunteer, we go to church, we drive kids around to their activities, we exercise, we look after our dogs.

Sometimes we have to do these things without our significant others. We get through, though, and so will you.

Welcome to the forum.

[SeatClutcher]

I can understand why you might feel "left behind," but you'll feel less left behind if you look less at what he's doing with his days and more at what you would like to do with yours.

It feels better to work toward something when you can, even if it's slow-moving. Work on finding a way to get your own place. Work on finding something you want to do, and can do, even while home with two kids. What are you into? What are your interests? Whatever they are, let yourself get into them. Find something to do for you, and try not to let what your husband is doing consume you. You can go crazy if you continue to view him as "free" and yourself as "trapped."

What is it about the life, exactly, that you are most worried about?

Is it the moving? Him not being home? If he had another job, would you live somewhere else? Would you have a job and not be at home with the kids while he moved on with his career? (I'm not being snarky - I'm genuinely curious to know where the problems are, for you personally. They're different for each person, I suspect.)

[Roxswood]

Thanks everyone, its just such a change for us I think and its scaring me. We've moved around a lot even before this but have always been such a huge part of each others lives, I've never really had chance to build up a support network anywhere, my friends are scattered around the country if not the world these days and we won't end up living close to any of them when we move.

I've always been able to rely on DH, knowing that I could call him at work at any time and he would be home within an hour or two if there was a problem, our family has always come way before our jobs or careers and I've always known the places he works and at least met the people he works with, and when I was working he knew the people I worked with too.

We've always been everything to one another, not really had outside friendships that we've relied upon for anything and have lived a long way from our families (not that our families are much use anyway).
At the moment things are still so up in the air, I'm due to have a baby in 3 weeks and I still don't know where he'll be based by the time I go into labour, it could be an hours drive away which would be wonderful but he's just been told that is looking less likely all of a sudden so I'm panicking about him not making it back in time for the birth and I really don't know how I can do it without him there. My dd was a fantastic home birth, with no pain relief and I know that so much of that was down to him being there, I felt safe and he was the only person I wanted to talk to me or touch me when I was in labour. I'm petrified of having to do it without him and not having him around to support our 3 year old too. He will be able to get some time off we believe (unpaid) once the baby is here, or he could choose to schedule time off and hope the baby turns up at the right time but we don't want to risk wasting the time off before the baby is here.

My daughter was an intensely needy baby and I didn't get any time off from parenting and without help if he's not around then I'll be on my own with two of them and then when he is around I won't want to go out and do things seperately because I'll want to be with him.

I'm so sorry for rambling so long.

[Mistress Trista]

Trust me. You really do get used to this lifestyle, although it may not seem like it at the time. When I first started dating my husband, I thouht I had lost my mind. There was no way I would marry a pilot, but here we are...LOL. Now, the attitude is pretty much, he's home when he's home...

Once your baby is born and you feel up to it, start figuring out what you would like to do. That's the key. You really need to have a life of your own, whether it be a job, or hobby. I won't say friends, because if you're like me, I have a really hard time making friends face to face, so I have very few here where we live, but I have lots that I've met through forums like these and we keep in touch through emails.

Hang in there, it does get better and much easier as time goes by.

[katbuad]

Originally Posted by SeatClutcher

You can go crazy if you continue to view him as "free" and yourself as "trapped."

AMEN! Wonderful statement. 100% true!

[Roxswood]

I'm feeling a lot more positive today, still freaked out about not knowing where he'll be or if he'll be here when the baby is born but coping better with the future and knowing that I am making a choice to stay with him. We had a long chat where I basically told him I was feeling I had no control over my life at the moment and I now know he's feeling pretty much the same as he just has to do as he's told and go where they send him regardless of how much he wants to be here with me now I'm getting so close to giving birth.

I told him that I had been having thoughts of telling him I couldn't do it anymore and was chatted and cried together for a bit and I realised there is no way my life would be better without him in it, even though I didn't choose this life and didn't want it, a less than ideal life with my soulmate is so far preferable to living without him.

[katbuad]

Someone very wise once told me support systems are kinda like a house. You have a foundation and you have walls. You can move the walls around in a million different combinations, remove and add walls at will. But the foundation is different. You only get one and it is firmly rooted in place. Friends, jobs, locations those are all just walls. Hubby and family are the foundation, the most important support system of all. You have already added Jetgirls as one wall of support. Be patient and work on establishing other walls of support.

[FilleBelle]

I loved that, Kat. Thank you.