Qn: How do you do it - ie. manage the family?
 

hi all

the Mrs has asked me a rather serious but important question - how do pilots, esp in regionals or airlines (with rostering that may not have regard for Sat + Sun = weekend) manage to keep their family and, especially, their Mrs/Mr happy?

I done a lot of reading through these here forums and have read the comments re lots of failed relationships, marriages, etc but thats only a few. Obviously pilots love flying and you need the support of your Mrs and family, and there must be a lot of pilots who are able to balance their careers with their family life.

The Mrs will be reading this with interest.

Thanks

P

AIDS

Aviation
Induced
Divorce
Syndrome

First question, Did the missus know you were a pilot before she became the missus? If so, no sympathy for the missus. These days there are many jobs that require Sat, Sun work or all sorts of shifts. Pilots are not exclusive here. Dont forget the engineers, who most times are working all sorts of odd shifts "to keep 'em flying":cool:

To Mrs Pharoah,

I've been airline flying for about ten years or so. I have a wife, one beautiful child and we manage to make a nice life.

It has definately been easier since my wife has stopped 'normal' work. You know, Mon - Fri 9-5. She's been able to pick up some shift work, which can easily fit around my roster. Basically we get my roster mid month, and she will build her's around mine. Luckily she has some control over her shifts. Even without this luxury though, it's still managable.

I've flown with many guys/girls over the last few years. To try and gauge ANYTHING off this website is ambitious at best. You're seeing the 5% extreme who are many and varied, but more often than not jaded or angry at a percieved misgiving.

So I wish you good luck with managing the airline lifestyle- you can do it!

Nov

Yep I had AIDS , the Mr's did not like me being on "Holiday" all the time while she was stuck at home.

My Mrs accussed me of sleeping with a hosty when I was flying freight??? :ugh:

Just try doing something else besides flying for 6 months..by that time your missus will be offering sex to any airline that will hire you!!

In any rewarding career there are sacrifices to be made. Aviation is no different and when you get to the top of the tree you have a lot more say in what goes on with your lifestyle.

My brother-in-law is a property analyst for a top-5 investment bank and works 6 days/week from 8am to 8pm every week, and more (much more) through the reporting season.

Wife's brother-in-law is a partner in a large country accounting firm. He has it pretty good now, but to get there he had to prostitute himself working for a big firm in the city 12-14 hour days etc.

My sister is a Psychologist working for a major recruitment firm - she has been known to overnight in the office to keep the place running.

A person with a good work ethic can achieve anything they want BUT if the support and understanding isn't there at home it can place unnecesary hurdles in your way :=

For example, I know an extremely hard-working pilot but his wife's family... well, they never really had to work all that hard. She has no concept of why a bloke would need to spend 12 hours/day at work (he owns the business) and not 9-5. "You're the boss, you can decide when you go can't you?"

Gotta keep the big picture and the objective firmly in the front of your mind, - and hers.

Good luck :ok:

I have missed more weddings, kids birthdays and christmas celebrations than I could count over the years.

Mrs just accepts it's part of the territory.

A lot of my peers wives can't handle it though and its stuffed up plenty of blokes careers and families, not to mention their finances when it all unravels.

Selflessness. Charity. Compassion. Placing the other person's happiness above your own. I'm no expert on how to maintain a happy marriage, irrespective of career. However - and admittedly at the risk of generalising - I think a lot of relationships fail because of a lack of the attributes mentioned above, by one or both parties involved.

I'm extremely lucky that my wife has these attributes by the bucketload. As for me, I'm still working on it. I can say this much: I don't know if I would have had the patience to stick around for so many years and put up with so much crap if the tables were turned. Thankfully, I don't have to consider that scenario. Or maybe I can just attribute it to my mother-in-law of all people (who would have thought?!?) who gave my wife this sage piece of advice just before we got married: if you love your husband, don't make him spend his life working in a miserable job just for the sake of paying the bills, as he'll only end up resenting you for it.

Furthermore, my wife and I, along with our children, are regular church-goers - whenever work permits me to be home on Sundays (which for some reason I manage to pull off quite regularly). Those who know me will have a good laugh that the Bunglerat would ever find himself playing for Team Jesus, but for us it's a natural aspect of our daily lives - as much as breathing air. We don't consider ourselves religious nuts, and we respect other peoples' beliefs enough to not shove it in anyone's faces. As such, I'm certainly not going to say anymore on the subject, except that when you live your life with the knowledge that this entire existence is just a temporary one, a slight detour along the way to something far greater and eternal in nature, well you don't get so hung up on the short-term, small-minded issues of money and career - especially one in aviation. As much as I've invested a significant portion of my life in being a pilot, I know I won't be lying on my deathbed wishing I'd spent more time in the cockpit. Being a pilot is just something I do, it's not who I am as a person - and my wife recognises that fact. So at the end of the day, we somehow manage to make it work.

After 12 years in the Navy my wife reckons that dealing with my flying roster is a piece of cake.

Plus she's always been very supportive!

Owen
 

What's "reasonable" is in the eye of the beholder (or is it in the eye of the man on the Clapham Omnibus?).

I don't think I nominated any of those scenarios as "reasonable" and to be putting those sorts of hours in as I near 40, with a couple of kids, is not something I aspire to :ouch:

...it's just that plenty of people do it.

I know a dozen guys my age (none of them pilots) who are living on the North Shore of Sydney in a $2m+ house, making bonuses of $200k every year, and never seeing their kids, which is one reason I live outside Sydney and shall do so forevermore :ok:

..............was this hostie inflated freight :E

Seems to me you can be in this same boat no matter what you do. Leafie seems to have summed it up pretty well. Aviation is not unique in this area.

Marriage U/S
 

Its good being a Manager, mon-fri, 0900-1600. Seems to be a lot of U/S lonely housewives out their for me to service !

The Bunglerat

A very well written post. I have been commuting for 10 years back to Australia and my wife of 16 years and 2 young kids have been true inspiration and support to me throughout.
My wife always says, she never want me to be sitting in my chair in retirement and having regrets. Having now achieved my goals/dreams and having a secure well paid job which pays for great education for my children and a privilaged lifestyle for all the family, its now time for the commuting to cease and my family are moving to Hong Kong so we can now enjoy more time and travel together.
My wife has been an inspiration to me through the whole thing and I know I would not be here now if it was not for her support and love.
When we met 16 years ago, i was Captain on a regional airline, so she never married for money and just between us, was not for my "industrial looks either".
Seeing my fiends over the years, I have seen it takes a special wife to be an "Aviation " wife.
I'm very lucky, I have one and am hanging onto her while longer!!

Good luck

Pharoah, from what I’ve seen, every flying job has money/lifestyle balance to it.

There will be many options out there in the near future. You and the Mrs just have to decide what option is most aligned with your needs.

I’ll give a few generalised examples from my view.

Firstly, I don’t think any one job is better than another. Just different.

I’ll start with Qantas.

Great Money (and is rightly the Industry benchmark) / International ops are tiring long term. Slow progression may lead to lack of career/job interest.

Jet *

Don’t know

VB

Money is getting better / Rosters don’t seem to be as bad as people think.

Jet Fly-in Fly-out Operators (mining sector)

Money is at the lower end (still comfortable though) / Rosters make up for it. Reserves during the week. Week nights at home. Weekends off.


Others feel free to correct me and/or fill in the blanks – but you get the idea.

A pilot in one airline may make twice as much as another, but may spend half the time at home.

Hope it helps – and remember, any option still beats sitting at a desk!

Easy simple free advice. DON'T get married in the first place if you love flying & if you have had yr 5 mins of fun & found yourself at the alter then sell her/him, Flying & marriage, like oil & water don't mix despite some here thinking it does. EBAY ya can sell anything on that................gotta love it!:ok:We live in such a fractured society these days aviation families just make up part of that, nothing unique about the flying game.
As has been said here many a time if it flies floats or F.... then rent it:ok:

Jokes aside though. Flying now is a single mans game I reckon. Would take a very special lady/man (depends on yr sexual orientation) to know/understand why we
fly & work for peanuts for a great deal of our working lives. I worked 3 jobs to support my family, flying was just one of them.

Wmk2

Doing just fine thanks, at work no more than eight days per fortnight (sometimes less)! Throw in a couple of night shifts which allow me to look after Hughes junior at least 2 days per week (and 2 days daycare), Mrs Hughes works almost full time (to bring home the bacon).

As shifts are only 8 hours (sometimes 7), even when I am working it doesn't seem like long! This leaves plenty of time for 'looking after the missus'...:O

There are plenty of jobs out there which allow you to manage work and family life, they just tend not to involve Airbus or Boeings!:ok:

That's why I tell the ladies at Bars / Night clubs etc that I work in high speed composite tubing ! :E They seem to run a mile after that ! :{

That is gold. I'm almost certain there are still female pilots out there...:ok: