Tuesday, August 30, 2011

When a Dad's Work Pulls Him Away

I don't write much about our life beyond homeschooling, but my husband's job is one of the reasons we love the flexibility of homeschool!  In my husband's industry, he pretty much works away from home; like plane rides away from home.  Each job is 4-6 months long with crazy long hours and not a lot of opportunity to sneak back home.

It's heart breaking for him.  He misses those accidental moments with his daughters....with me.  He misses the drop in visits from friends and family.  He misses the house we've worked so hard on.  He misses so much.

We started contemplating moving somewhere a little less insane (money wise) so maybe we could reinvent how we grab our income and he could be home more.  At that exact moment in time when we were finally brave enough to make the move, it became abundantly clear that we needed to stay put.

At what cost?  We'll find out...I guess.

I know this is our new normal (not too much filming going on in SoCal these days), but it's tough.  I've been pretty good about not whining.  We've seen some amazing places.

It's just so darn hard.

I'm ready for a break.

Here are some things that we have tried to do to make the away time go a little faster:

  • FaceTime (gotta love iPhone!)
  • I still wait on big decisions (and even not so big decisions) until I speak with him
  • I try to keep the house running so he doesn't have a long list of honey-do's when he gets home
  • The big girls text him regularly and even though he really is Speed Racer's dad (a total Ludite), he'll text back
  • I keep it positive (or try to) for both his sake and for the girls' sakes
  • I'm realistic and open with the girls on how difficult it is on everyone - it seems to keep the difficulty from growing into a monster-sized pity party
  • I try to be super frugal so the money he makes goes as far as it can
  • I try my best to keep my whiny days to myself (or to a dear friend) - my husband already feels horrible because he can't be home
  • When we visit, we do our touristy stuff while he is at work so when he is "home," we are with him - we are happy to just be with him
So we trudge through our own unique way of defining family.  We are thankful for the work.  We find the stamina to support each other and we pray.  We pray a lot!

4 comments:

  1. Great perspective, I think! My husband has a crazy schedule, though not quite so crazy as that. He's home at random times, every couple days and then normally only for a few hours. When he needs to sleep. And there's the whole everyone wants to see daddy thing but somehow everyone needs to be quiet because operating a train on no sleep isn't all that wise thing. But it, too, is why I love homeschooling. When he's around and awake, we can go light on school. :)

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  2. We feel the same when he does get the chance to work from home; we do whatever we can so he can get his sleep.  A sleepy guy blowing things up seems almost as scary as a sleepy train operator!

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  3. This post is so sweet. Your husband is lucky to have you!!

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  4. This post is so sweet, your husband is lucky to have you!!!
    xo
    Flux Capacitor

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I love a discussion!