What to do about the wife

[Screaming_Emu]

Sit down and review all information and options together. Do this in quiet time away from your 3 year old if at all possible. Consider the what-ifs and all potential benefits as best you can see into the future. Talk patiently about fears, cares, passions and don't forget to tell each other often how much you love and care for each other. Then, take 2 days (no less) and decide together what you should do. If it comes down to you wanting to accept the job, and her not wanting you to accept the job because you would have to leave - decline the job. Another opportunity will come along in time that will satisfy both needs. Flying for a living has a higher than average potential to expose otherwise happy marriages to extraordinarily evil and insidious challenges that can be very destructive if not recognized and managed properly.

Agreed 100%

And now my 2 cents.

If you currently have health insurance for your family and would not anymore once you switch jobs, turn it down.

This job could lead to advancement in the aviation industry. But here's the thing (for me at least). If you're in a good, loving, relationship that should be your #1 priority. Flying for a living is awesome, but in my opinion it will never come close to replicating the feeling of a healthy relationship at home.

Yes, at some point in time sacrifice will have to be made to advance, but as I've told my fiance. If this this lifestyle (its not a job) ever gets too much for you, tell me and I'll walk away without a thought.

 

[granlistillo]

To all of you guys out there in JC land, I have a little delima with the wife. I have an opportunity to possibly get a job with an company that I will leave un-named. It is not the best paying job, and the dom. is not known untill after training (as is most things in aviation). The pay is not enough to support a family, but it is resonable for a first "real" flying job, and almost will double what I make now. But she is aprehensive about the move.

So on to the delima (as if that wasn't one). How do I get the wife to understand that the career path I have chosen (that I was origonally supported in) is full of suprises like this? What did you do to "educate" your spouse?

Patience lots of patience... Perhaps, you could geographically batch it for a while, through training at least? Of course I have been doing this for 2 yrs at a 121 airline and it is killing me.

I don't know your value system, but to me I think I would put family first and job second. If you can get her onboard, she may be a tremendous help, but sometimes her misgivings may just be the voice of sanity.

 

[surreal1221]

Yes, at some point in time sacrifice will have to be made to advance, but as I've told my fiance. If this this lifestyle (its not a job) ever gets too much for you, tell me and I'll walk away without a thought.

Good man.

Now, if I could also recommend that you also do this for yourself.

We all need benchmarks that we should strive to meet, and they pretty much should be used as exit ramps out if we do not meet them. Establish a time line for your career, looking out to retirement. Set down some concrete dates that you and your spouse agree on.

"If X has not happened before A, then Y will occur."

We personally have six career benchmarks that need to be met, the first ones holding higher weight in the overall system, but should one of them not be met - then we will follow through with the action plan we have agreed upon. It's only fair, you know, them putting up with our nonsense for very little in return.

While you met your fiancee while you were already in the game, the above system was very important to us when we made the career change out of the military and into this career. It's actually quite hilarious. It's on a wrinkled napkin from a Japanese restaurant we loved in Columbia, SC.

This post wasn't 100% percent directed at you Joe, but I just took what you said and ran with it. It was a system recommended to me by many guys who consider themselves in the peak of their careers and that it helped them get to where they are by knowing where they wanted to be.

 

[Screaming_Emu]

Good man.

Now, if I could also recommend that you also do this for yourself.

We all need benchmarks that we should strive to meet, and they pretty much should be used as exit ramps out if we do not meet them. Establish a time line for your career, looking out to retirement. Set down some concrete dates that you and your spouse agree on.

"If X has not happened before A, then Y will occur."

We personally have six career benchmarks that need to be met, the first ones holding higher weight in the overall system, but should one of them not be met - then we will follow through with the action plan we have agreed upon. It's only fair, you know, them putting up with our nonsense for very little in return.

While you met your fiancee while you were already in the game, the above system was very important to us when we made the career change out of the military and into this career. It's actually quite hilarious. It's on a wrinkled napkin from a Japanese restaurant we loved in Columbia, SC.

This post wasn't 100% percent directed at you Joe, but I just took what you said and ran with it. It was a system recommended to me by many guys who consider themselves in the peak of their careers and that it helped them get to where they are by knowing where they wanted to be.

Very good post. And it makes perfect sense.

I have certainly done a lot of thinking lately about getting out of the game. When I was single it was everything I thought it would be. But now that I'm not it has become everything that people on JC had warned me about. Just at the time I had no other plans than to be single for the foreseeable future so it didn't really strike home as advice that i should listen to.

I think my big question is that I have no idea what else I'd do with my life. Also, when things ARE good in this industry they're really good. Even this time last year when I was holding a very productive line with tons of time off things were great. That is something I could deal with in the long term. But if things stay as they are for a couple years, I'm done.

It just feels like I've put in this much time and effort that to bail out would have put the past few years to waste. I've never liked quitting things either. But without question if it affected my relationship I'd be out in a heartbeat. I'm already pretty pissed that this company thinks its that important that they're making me jump through hoops to get time off for my own wedding and wedding shower.

 

[granlistillo]

Yes, at some point in time sacrifice will have to be made to advance, but as I've told my fiance. If this this lifestyle (its not a job) ever gets too much for you, tell me and I'll walk away without a thought.

I missed this the first time through... I think it is right on man.

 

[Boris Badenov]

If its the job I think it is, bear in mind that you probably won't know where you'll be based until after training. This could work in your favor...go do your 3 months ir so in the junior base...see how things go. Then at least you'll have options if you need to move the family (as your seniority improves)