After my bf's basic training and truck driver training in 5 months I don't know where he will go after but if its away from his home state Illinois thats where Im from then I was thinking of flying to where he is on weekends every week or every two weeks and visiting him when he's not busy. Its no problem for me. Would that be good. I think it would be. Has anyone ever done that when their bf fiance or husband was in another state? Let me know would love to hear what you all have to say.

are you independently wealthy or otherwise work for an airline that you can fly for free? and no it is NOT a smart move to do that.. he will have duty many weekends. you cannot stay with him in the barracks.. that means forking out for a hotel every time. he will NOT be free every weekend or for that matter any weeked.. he may end up working funky shifts.



or what if his first duty station is Korea?

If he does work on weekends, i will just ask him what weekends he's off if he knows in advance. I can still visit him. If he goes to korea of course not, he would be deployed then and I would do the same thing im doing right now write when he calls we'll talk i will send him things. when he can and when i can we will be able to see each other sometime or another. And yes, when we do i will be able to afford it its one or two days. We just want to see each other when we can. Also I will not stay on base unless they have a place where visitors can stay. I will be at a hotel anytime i can see him.

quote:

Originally posted by vengence84:
If he goes to korea of course not, he would be deployed then

Actually, if he goes to Korea he will just be on an unaccompanied tour. It is not a deployment.

Flying to be with him multiple times a month will be expensive as you will have to pay for flights, hotels and meals. It will also be time consuming and, unless you really enjoy flying, stressful. Have you told him that this is what you intend to do?

what are you going to do further down the road in your realtionship? what are your plans?

also even for a 6 hour turn around flights espeically within the us are expensive and will wear you out and how do you plan to function in your own life if your travelling every weekend?

what about if hes stationed overseas? (other then korea?)

wwhat do you intend to do when your not jetting over the country to see him?

i honestally think you havent thought this through and priced out your expenses. your talking several hundred each trip you make.

also as dekeoboe said have you discussed this with him?
normal people with jobs and friends and family can't be jetting off every weekend to visit someone, nor will he be able to have you ever free minute, he will have alot going n when he first gets to his PDS

also have you considered if you can't be away from him for a long period of time how you intend to handle a deployment?

i suggest talking to your boyfriend and discussing your travel plans and see what he thinks and if he wants you to be visiting that often, and then sit down and work out how much it will cost you to various points within the us and price out an average hotel stay and food and gas and a rental car etc and then see if you can afford it, then talk with your friends and family and your job/school and figure out if you can oull it off without throwing a major spanner in the works

I agree with everyone else that this does not seem like a plausible plan.

Being a girlfriend you would have very limited use of anything on the base as his guest, and it will get very expensive.

Say you get a good deal online and get a flight for $150, then the hotel is $75 a night for 2 nights, then say $50 a day for food, you have roughly $275 for a weekend. Depending on where he is it could be a little less or it could cost a lot more. You are talking over $500 a month if you go twice. What about your living expenses where you live - rent, utilities, food, gas, etc? Can you afford the extra spent on trips?

While it may seem like a good thought to you right now, you need to step back and look at things realistically.



Mom

I have to agree, long distance relationships are expensive, difficult to maintain, but not impossible. However, there are some details that are important to keep in mind:

You HAVE to have good communication. It's not important how often you talk, it's about what you say, how open you are and how well you can address personal issues that eventually will come up.

You HAVE to evaluate the possibilities of moving to the same area. In most cases you can't have an LDR going on for an unlimited amount of time, you have to have at least a rough idea, how long you're going to be apart. It is easier to cope with the distance when you know that it's for a limited amount of time.

If you still want to push through with this idea then you should either get a job with an airline or with a consulting company that has you travelling all the time. That is really the only way you are going to be able to afford to do this unless your family has money like Paris Hilton's does.

My daughter has a hard time just coming up with money to go visit friends 100 miles away, much less the ones that are 500 miles away, and you are talking about seeing someone that is potentially 1500 miles away. You also have to keep in mind that many Army bases are in smaller towns so transportation is either not available to that town or is very expensive. For example, Ft. Gordon is in Augusta which is a decent size city in Georgia. However, a flight into Augusta from anywhere except the immediate surrounding area is very expensive because you have to fly to Atlanta first and then get a local commuter. Ft. Stewart is even worse because you pretty much have to go to Atlanta and then Savannah and you're still 60 miles away. This adds the cost of a rental car into the mix.

So, independently wealthy or working as a travelling consultant is about the only way that you're going to be able to do this more than 3-4 times a year, if that often.

Done the 1500 mile thing with my husband. it sucks. DH did fly to see me almost every weekend when he was in port and not in refit (about 2 months of every 6), however, we were both E-5s (getting propay and other things as nukes, him more as a sub nuke), I had my own apartment and car and only lived 15 min from the airport. Also, we could rack up debt that I would simply use his paycheck to pay off every time he went to sea. I still never met him when the boat pulled in, because I never got enough warning, so he'd take pull in duty and I'd see him a week or so later.

The times he was in refit, well, I saw him if I was lucky because he was on 3 section duty and I was stationed in NY, and of course not at all when he was at sea.

From experience, seeing each other is not what makes it work. Talking and trusting is.

Vengence, why don't you just wait to see where he's going to be stationed before you start making even tentative plans?

And if he is stationed out of your state (which is likely, given that you're in IL), perhaps it will be a good test of whether y'all can make it long-distance and long-term.

I agree with everyone on here, wait to see where he will be stationed. Traveling that much is tiring and expensive. And he can't guarantee you that he will be home on weekends ever, because he can get called in at anytime. They are on call 24 hours a day. We have gotten calls at 3 in the morning. We have gotten phone calls that he has to deal with certain things on leave, he was away from post, but he couldn't just turn off his phone for 2 weeks, he had to keep it on in case they called and he happened to return early from leave. There is no guarantees in the military, except that they always have to work and more than likely they will be apart from you several times, whether it is deployment, unaccompanied tours, the numerous schools they go to, field exercises, 24 hour shifts, etc. There is no guaranteeing that you can see him.

Plus, I live in Missouri and to get cheap airline tickets you have to schedule in advance pretty early. If you live by a big airport you might get better deals, but if you not you will have to drive to a bigger airport which may be hours away and that will wear you out and cost you money as well just to get there.

I know you are anxious to know where he is going and to figure out when and how you will see him, but don't get your hopes up that he will even be stationed stateside. My husbands first duty station was Korea. So don't always think that they will get stateside, or you will be so disappointed if he gets overseas.

Just be patient and talk to him when the time comes about what to do. You both have to be on board and think about it financially.

quote:

And he can't guarantee you that he will be home on weekends ever, because he can get called in at anytime. They are on call 24 hours a day.

This statement is so true. I just spent the last several days with my son as he was deploying. We talked to him several times durng the drive up and he kept telling us that he was off and didn't have to work for the next two days. We got into town at 1545 and were informed that he had to be back on post at 2100 to assist with a weapons draw. That, of course, meant that we had to cut the evening short in order to be back. The next morning we were making plans for the day and made reservations for a two-hour boat tour at 1500. Within minutes after we made the reservation, he got a call that he had to be back on post at 1700 for another weapons draw. So much for the two-hour tour. To top that off, he had to report in at 2100 to muster for his own flight. We got a slight reprieve later when he got a call that he didn't have to report in until 2300 but then a follow up phone call that he needed to report a bit earlier than that to assist with another weapons draw.

This is just to point out that even when they have experience (this is his second deploymen) that they don't necessarily get the time off they expect. This is even more true in a training environment.