I’ve heard this a little too often from my fellow spouses, which is why I quit going to spouse support meetings. They’re happy to reap the benefits of military service, but when it comes time for their spouses to actually, y’know, do military things, they complain about the injustice of their spouse deploying. It’s as though they’re somehow entitled to all of this great free stuff but don’t want to fulfill the obligation that’s expected of them.
Or the family has “unknown” sources of income. I have a friend who lives well beyond the means his job provides, but no debt. Trust fund…Another whose mother send them the equivalent of their household income every year. Though given Hubzilla’s description of his sister in law, I suspect that its debt from a woman who is clueless.
And yes, military wives seem to be a strange breed. We stayed with a friend whose husband was stationed in Germany in the late 90s for a few weeks. She’d call his CO with “you can’t make Tommy work twelve hour days, I need him at home.” As MsRobyn says, not a great career move.
Like I’ve said before, though, he’s not in an especially dangerous position (weather) and not going to a war zone. While I’m sure it’s not easy and the hours suck, working in an office at a military airport is not quite the same as patrolling Afghan mountains.
I confess I have not read the book, but is it about infantry? I think I’ve seen less than 1 in 5 military members are in a trigger-pulling role.
Besides, he’s not the one complaining. It’s the wife who gets the same benefits by merely being married to him. And yes, MsRoybn and Dangerosashe has called his unit to bring him home from a past overseas deployment because “her kids were driving her crazy.”
As for the pre-school, if the children have learning disabilities as you say, it’s entirely possible the pre-school is free. Our local school district offers free pre-school to disabled and learning disabled children as part of a government grant program. If there is a Head Start program on base (not sure if that happens) that would also be free to the families who qualify.
To address her complaining about Quatar, it’s different to accept something in theory than it is to face it for real. I know that living where I do means there will be snow every winter. I still choose to live here, but you had better believe that when the snow starts flying I whine a little bit. 