Care to confirm &/or calm my worries about a travel job for DH?

[Sheeniac]

I can give some perspective from the traveling side. Many traveling men with families speak to them several times a day. When you are on the road, you are busy busy bust the whole time.

There are always the ‘optional’ team dinners, the working late at the client site, and of course, working late at the hotel room to keep up.

As someone else mentioned, it’s important for the wife to havea strong routine, and to also have extra assistance.

One difficulty I’ve seen is that the traveling spouse gets treated like it’s not fully their home on the weekends. Deal with any difficulties immediately, lest the issues ruin the weekend.

I do recall one case of father discipling his young son. I suppose to help him understand where Daddy was, they had a refrigerator magnet of a plane that when pressed, made an engine noise. They would use it on the days Daddy was coming home or leaving.

In the middle of the incident with his son, the little boy (toddler age) ran up to the fridge in anger, and repeatedly pressed the airplane magnet.

Families can and will adapt to anything as long as an effort is made by all parties.

 

[hasikelee]

Stephanie, my dad has a travel job. He travels for 12 days, then flies home on a Saturday morning and leaves Sunday morning.

This job is like this every other year.

I will tell you right now that is causes stress in the whole family and in my parent’s relationship.

It also isn’t much fun to go to school plays, Mass and out to eat without a dad.

He tried changing to a different department to get out of this cycle and they still needed him for the contracts so he is back into it after a few years of no travel.

Heck, I had to change my wedding date just to make sure he could attend the wedding!

But Mon to Thurs sounds much more manageable. I wouldn’t be worried about that schedule. But I would be wary that it would become more. When he first started this job, he only traveled a few weeks out of the year. Now they have him home for barely 5 weeks out of the year.

 

[sasafr]

I think that a travel job wouldn’t be too hard, at least compared to all of the military families out there. If you can I suggest talking to a military wife who’s husband has been deployed and what that was like. My mom’s cousin is in the Army and has been geographically sperated from his family and children for about a year. It was hard, but they got through it. They key is to create a routine for the days your DH will be traveling and try to stick to them. Little things such as having dinner be at the same time or starting a tradition for when your DH is gone. If he is going to generally by gone Monday-Thursday you could carve out an hour of the evening in the middle of his absence and have an activity with you and all your kids, like playing a board game or renting a movie. That way they aren’t as focused on when there father gets back and can enjoy the present.

 

[Gearoidin]

My father was also away a lot for work when I was growing up. Not only that but my family also moved around a lot. When I was between the ages of 6 and 12 he worked a system where he was away for a month, home for a month, so in total he was missing for 6 months of every year. It did not damage our relationship with him. In fact my sister and I both adored our father. Every evening he would telephone us, talk to both of us, listen about our day, tell us to be good and then he’d talk to my mother for a while. Yes, it was hard when he was away for special occasions such as Christmas, New Year, Confirmation etc but often we celebrated these special events when he got back. My parents made sure that our father was always part of our lives, even when he was across the country.

Gearoidin

 

[StephanieC]

Thank you, everyone, for continuing to add to this thread. It’s good to read about all of the different circumstances that other families cope with & adjust to when necessary.

May I ask those of you reading this to please say a quick prayer for me & my husband as we continue discerning God’s will for us as a family? Thank you.

 

[CatholicSam]

Unfortunately, I can only wish that it was just about having some extra money. There are some long-term physical health realities we need to consider, and **his current job just isn’t going to be an option **for him for the next 20 years.

Well, sounds like you’ve already made up your mind, doesn’t it?

 

[StephanieC]

No, not at all!

We know he can’t do his current job for the next 20 years. The options are: a) graduate & find a local job in degree field (hooray!) But the most likely degree field option is a b) travel job. So that’s why we’re praying now about option C…whatever that might be; wherever God sends us.

What I didn’t want to do is just automatically rule out option B purely on the basis of my worries & fears of the unknown. You guys have helped quite a bit in breaking down the practical aspects, both positives and negatives.

We’re still planning and praying. Option C is still unfolding…and so it goes…and so it goes!

 

[CatholicSam]

No, not at all!

We know he can’t do his current job for the next 20 years. The options are: a) graduate & find a local job in degree field (hooray!) But the most likely degree field option is a b) travel job. So that’s why we’re praying now about option C…whatever that might be; wherever God sends us.

What I didn’t want to do is just automatically rule out option B purely on the basis of my worries & fears of the unknown. You guys have helped quite a bit in breaking down the practical aspects, both positives and negatives.

We’re still planning and praying. Option C is still unfolding…and so it goes…and so it goes!

It’s so tough to wait to find out what God’s plan is sometimes! You just keep trusting in Him–He won’t let you down in His option C, whatever that is And congratulations on Baby Blessing #2! We just had our second, and 6 weeks later we’re already back in some kind of a routine.

If you don’t mind sharing, what’s hubby’s degree field?

 

[CHCatholic]

This is something I constantly worry about. I want to be a pilot, which means about half the month I won’t be home because I’ll be hauling people all over the world. But theres nothing else out there I’d want to do - I dont think it would really be fair to my family if I was working a miserable job, thus making me miserable all the time. I’ll leave it in the hands of God I guess.

 

[CatholicSam]

This is something I constantly worry about. I want to be a pilot, which means about half the month I won’t be home because I’ll be hauling people all over the world. But theres nothing else out there I’d want to do - I dont think it would really be fair to my family if I was working a miserable job, thus making me miserable all the time. I’ll leave it in the hands of God I guess.

Don’t worry–if/when God blesses you with a family, you’ll want to be with them more than even your dream job Unless they turn out to be your purgatory on earth, and then you might want two pilot jobs so you don’t have to be home at all (Just kidding!) A motto I love is “you work to live, not live to work”. Although if you can have both,

Seriously, you need to pray for God to lead you to the vocation/job He wants you in. My hubby always had teaching in mind for his career and even supported us for 9 months teaching karate. Everyone who knew him (even he and I) said he’d be miserable at an office job, sitting behind a desk all day. But we prayerfully discerned that God wanted him to take an actuary job. Even though he’s behind a computer/desk all day, he comes home saying that this is the perfect job for him, and he loves it! So don’t be afraid to try something else if that’s where God leads You never know if you’ll be “miserable” until you try it!