I'm just wondering if there are any spouses out there who don't relocate with their soldier to his/her duty station...

Any suggestions/experiences about relocating vs. staying behind with a career near family?

Do you intend to spend his entire enlistment/career living away from him? Unless you are already living near a post at which there is a high likelihood of him being stationed then that is what you are setting yourself up for. If, for example, you live in Hinesville, GA and your husband is 11X or 19X then he could end up being stationed there. The stronger likelihood is that he will never be stationed near you so it goes back to the question I just asked.

Some other things to consider is that BAH will always be based on where he is and he will not be allowed to live in the barracks. If you are living in NYC and he is stationed at Ft. Stewart, he will receive just over $1000 in BAH which will not cover your rent, much less utilities. He also will be required to get a place in town so you will be trying to support two households on one BAH. The only time you will get FSA is when he gets deployed.

If there is any way you can transfer to a location close to where he is being stationed, or possibly work remotely, that would be your best solution. Talk to your employer about these options. You might get pleasantly surprised. A friend of mine was going to quit his job because he was moving from Chicago to Albuquerque. He brought this up to his employer and they offered him the option of working remotely rather than losing him. When he moved from Arizona to Indiana, they had absolutely no problem with that because he was still working remotely. I, personally, worked for a company that had almost the entire work force remote. It was no big deal at all when my wife transferred from Atlanta to Orlando. All they cared about was that I was online for work when my work week began.

Honest answer-its a bad idea. my husband and i have been geographically seperated for a good while-the circumstances are a little bit different-he is an activated guardsman with over 30 years of service and the duty station where he was doing his title 32 active duty is less than 200 miles from where i live so we saw each other most weekends til deployment-and it was for a defined amount of time. I also know several women whos husband have gone on to the last duty station before retirement and left them here ( colorado springs colorado) because they had good jobs and a house and this is where the soldier plans to retire. Most of the time that last duty station is going to be 12 to 18 months before he drops his packet so none of us are doing it for like a carreer or even a indefinate period-we know ts only for x number of months. In all cases there is strain on the marriage created by both the seperation and finances. If your marriage is a young marriage with young children just go with him-thats what you married him for.
If you choose not to-be prepared to be broke all the time-because-a soldier who is drawing BAH can not live n barracks long term-so you will need two house holds-that means two rent payment or rent and a mortgage, two cable bills, two utility bills, bigger phone bills, travel bills if he is not stationed close to where you are living, strain on the children if you have them, ect and so on. I fail to see what carreer is so inflexible that you couldnt look for a job somewhere or as mike said work remotely. Bottom line the Army will involuntarily seperate you way more than you want to be over a 20 year carreer-why would you do that to yourself voluntarily for an indefinate period of time? And be prepared for it to really strain your relationship-even in the situations above-all of which are in marriages over 20 years there are issues of the soldier feeling unsupported and the spouse feeling abandoned that create huge strain on the relationship. Is your career worth the risk to your family?

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Bottom line the Army will involuntarily seperate you way more than you want to be over a 20 year carreer-why would you do that to yourself voluntarily for an indefinate period of time? And be prepared for it to really strain your relationship-even in the situations above-all of which are in marriages over 20 years there are issues of the soldier feeling unsupported and the spouse feeling abandoned that create huge strain on the relationship. Is your career worth the risk to your family?

That really put things into perspective for me. I'm concerned about finding a full-time job and being able to advance my career and pay off my mile-high student loans, but when I really think about it, my current job may not actually be the fast track to doing that... But I'm scared of never being able to find a decent job and, therefore, never being able to hold my head high.

My biggest concern, of course, is what to do when he deploys. If I move with him, I will be in a strange place most likely very far from family and friends. If I stay here at least I'm close to that network... I guess it's just one of the many hard decisions I have to make.

there are good jobs available on and around most military bases-depending on what field you are in-contrary to what some postings on here would have you believe military bases are not back waters-i have a great job -on post-working as an IT contractor-and most of the girls i know who have stayed back to retire did ti because they had good goverment jobs-i think you are over thinking that. As for him deploying and leaving you in a strange place-so you make friends, get connected with other spouses and go home to visit-by the time you have kids your job and your kids will keep you busy-and by the third duty station there will likely be someone there you know from somewhere else. And i think those marriage vows have something in them about forsaking all others and cleaving only unto him-if staying near your family is more important than being with your husband-you need to look at why you got married to start with.
ETA-i just read two posts down that you are having difficulty dealing with him being gone to basic and AIT at benning-but your talking about a commuter marriage? Like i said-BTC/AIT is a set period of time-even deployments are a defined period of time-i think you really need to think about what you are talking about doing.

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Originally posted by warach:

My biggest concern, of course, is what to do when he deploys. If I move with him, I will be in a strange place most likely very far from family and friends. If I stay here at least I'm close to that network... I guess it's just one of the many hard decisions I have to make.

You get on with your day to day schedule. You will make friends at each new duty station.

And trust me, military friends understand better the stresses you deal with during deployments. Try as hard as they might, family just won't "get it".

It's best to just jump in the deep end feet first and swim.



Mom