Husband home for R&R soon and I have no idea what to do

Alias_Omega

Nothing worse than coming home to find your time back is planned/taken up, without consulting you. Ask your husband what he wants to do.

Ask him to arrange the paperwork for you & the children to pick him up from the Brize Norton Air Terminal. You could drop him off too.

http://www.raf.mod.uk/rafbrizenorton/passengers/index.cfm


There is nothing better than coming home to a normal life, sleeping in the family bed, visiting friends / family, shopping in Asta / Tesco etc.

To make it easier for the children, you could ask him to buy them a present (or you provide one for him, for him to give) that he gives them when you meet him.

Whenever i arrive back from being away somewhere, the children now expect a present. Though one of them is happy to just go through my bag and eat all the uneaten sweets..

SchminkyCat

Alias_Omega wrote: »

Nothing worse than coming home to find your time back is planned/taken up, without consulting you. Ask your husband what he wants to do.

Thank you for your reply. I have mentioned a couple of times that this is what HE wants, not me. That I am trying to convince HIM that it will be OK to see the kids, not the other way around!!

We have spoken lots over the last few days and have now agreed that we will spend a few days together whilst my parents have the children, then we are all (us and the kiddies) going to go on holiday for a week. He has put his foot down and said he doesn't want to come back to the house and I can understand all his reasons, and share a lot of them.

Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply, it has been helpful to read other people's experiences, even if they weren't in the same situation as we are!

prowla

He should be home.
Don't put him under pressure to do all those jobs that have been stacking up.

Trying_to_be_good

prowla wrote: »

Don't put him under pressure to do all those jobs that have been stacking up.

That's what POTL is for... Or at least, towards the end of it, so you re-start sharing the responsibilities of keeping the house going! It's nice to get back to something approaching reality, but needs to be a gentle re-introduction from my experience.

Enjoy your R&R, don't beat yourselves up if there's a (high) degree of stress and reactions. x

PHARR

Home is home, we just like coming back to 'Normality' the biggest mistake my partner did last time was three and worry about what to do when i came home. You'd be surprised all i wanted do was CHILL. I was falling asleep at around 20:00 at night i was just physically exhausted.

When i went to see the parents and stuff they were like right lets go to the beach or the amusements or do this and that.
I just felt out of place more than anything.

Speak to him see if he has anything he wants to do, he may feel like he doesn't want to look boring or miserable and tell you hel do this and that. You may find hel come home and just love the chillout at home stage and normality.

Everybody's different mind. I hope you enjoy the time.

dw85

to the OP, it sounds like you have made decisions that you and your OH feel are right for YOUR family.
You have done the right thing by discussing it with him and whilst many of the posts are saying he should be home, you have made it clear that your 'family home' is on hold for 6 months as its not just him thats OOA (you guys have rented a place right?)

I have no kids but am a veteran of being left behind (fiance is RAF, been together 4 years and has been out on dets almost every year...varying length..falklands next month for 4.5 months).

Its stressful, but the main thing is you will all get time together and hopefully all get to chill out on holiday somewhere. Just bear in mind a beach holiday may be the last thing he wants if hes just come back from the sand filled middle east!

SchminkyCat

dw85 wrote: »

to the OP, it sounds like you have made decisions that you and your OH feel are right for YOUR family.
You have done the right thing by discussing it with him and whilst many of the posts are saying he should be home, you have made it clear that your 'family home' is on hold for 6 months as its not just him thats OOA (you guys have rented a place right?)

I have no kids but am a veteran of being left behind (fiance is RAF, been together 4 years and has been out on dets almost every year...varying length..falklands next month for 4.5 months).

Its stressful, but the main thing is you will all get time together and hopefully all get to chill out on holiday somewhere. Just bear in mind a beach holiday may be the last thing he wants if hes just come back from the sand filled middle east!

Thank you so much for your reply. I had to leave this thread for a while as it was really upsetting me that no-one seemed to actually have registered that this was a decision that we were both making together, and that I wasn't asking if he should come home as WE had already made that decision. Comments such as "Nothing worse than coming home to find your time back is planned/taken up, without consulting you. Ask your husband what he wants to do." really did upset me. I thought I had made it clear that it was HIM who decided he didn't want to come back here!

Anyway, I really appreciate the fact that you have read my posts, and you are absolutely right, we are all OOA, and yes we are renting for 6 months near my parents. The kids think they are on a big holiday anyway!

We have made our decision and my folks are having the kiddies for 4 days so we can get some time together (going to a spa hotel not too far away) and then we are going to pick up the kids and go somewhere like Tenerife for a week. I did wonder about him not wanting a sunshine holiday after so long in the middle east, but he said that what he really wants is to sit by a pool, be able to sunbathe (he can't over there), and watch the kids splashing around in the pool. We both feel much happier now we've made the decision, and having explored every possibility, this is the one that we both feel most relaxed about.

Thank you x

Redouble

We find the hardest bit is hubby coming home for short amounts, no matter how long he is away. For example we had two 6 weeks dets when he was home for 2 nights in between.
We both found it incredibly hard as did the children. He is currently away (on an exped for a week) then will be home again for 2 nights then away for a few weeks. We know this is going to devastate our 4 year old who doesn't get it at all, he keeps asking me where his dad is and why he hang come home for his lunch etc. It's tough, very tough, sometimes we have to learn by trial and error but as this is his last deployment and he doesn't want to upset the kids I would probably agree with him, however I would probably be at brize waiting to get him in the same breath!

It's a tough life, but we all muddle through. Best wishes to you all, and to your husband on deployment

Redouble xxx

*pinkpanther*

It's always hard when kids are involved and their emotions aswell as your own. It's even harder to find the right balance for you all. The only thing I'm picking up from your post ( this is in no way a negative thing, if it comes across like it's purely my rubbish inability to explain myself lol) is that your really focusing on the time he is away and the short time r&r is! Take a step back, 6 months away with two weeks back compared to the rest of your lives together as a family. Maybe that will help make a decision for you. Also keep in mind kids live in the here and now. You know ur kids better than anyone so will know what's best for them. It would seem ashame to miss out on Wht could be a fantastic few weeks r&r because of Wht ifs.

RainbowChild_2

The way we worked it when hubby was deployed was to tell the children that Daddy has gone on a "long work" they accepted this quite happily and enjoyed the fuss around the house when he was home... plus they got to stay up a bit later