Na, marriage is awesome...when you're married to the right person. When you're not, you will be dreading the day you were born.

Well, that took an interesting turn...

To the OP: I'm a female pilot, married to another pilot, and I have many female pilot friends in various relationship and family statuses. There is no "right" answer to making it all work. What people (of both genders) fail to realize so often is that being a professional pilot is not a career choice so much as a lifestyle choice, particularly for the airlines. Weird hours, many nights away from home, traveling with complete strangers who become your dysfunctional family for a few days, and often dealing with difficult commutes on top of everything else. Communication is always important in any long-term relationship, but it is exceptionally crucial if you're going to be apart often. What someone else said about trust is true, it is required. I have seen friends struggle with boyfriends/husbands who were insecure about time spent away with crews (yeah, there is a lot of assumption that all male pilots make us weak in the knees and 8 hours a day in the plane with them isn't enough so we always hook up with them at the hotel) and resentful of the schedules. There is a reason many of us marry other pilots; your job might seem exotic to someone outside the industry at first, but when you miss important life events and holidays because you have to work or cancel dates because you get stuck somewhere, the shine can wear off quickly. You can have expectations for how long it will take you to get your employer of choice, hold day trips, etc. and plan how you will fit your "other life" in, but having expectations frequently leads to disappointment when it doesn't happen how you were planning. The right person for you will be someone who recognizes that your job is probably a passion for you, not just a paycheck, and accepts that being in a relationship with a pilot might require a bit more flexibility.

I'm sure I'll take flack for what I'm going to share because it's APC, but you're smart to solicit a variety of experiences so you can start to consider what your "big picture" could look like. I've been pretty lucky, I think. I have an incredibly supportive spouse who loves his job and understands how much I love mine. We really struggled early on with the terrible pay and terrible schedules, and I would be lying if I said it didn't strain our relationship a bit. Now that we have more seniority, I see my spouse pretty frequently even compared to how much quality relationship time my outside the industry friends enjoy. We're still disappointed because we are often still apart for birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays, but we make up for it by celebrating well when we are together on another day, and we both understand how we are "subject to the requirements of the service". We tend to spend intensive amounts of time together when we're off work, and enjoy a bit of "me time" when we're on overnights. It works well for us. But the truth of the matter is that when you're both gone 4-5 days a week it is really impossible to have it all, and we never felt we'd be fair to each other or to our kids if we had them, so we choose to remain DINK's. We travel and play and spoil our friend's kids and pay all our bills every month in full and don't for a second regret our choices, because they are our choices. We could play it differently, but it would be a dramatic change. My mom-pilot friends stress about making their schedules work so that someone can be home with the kids, fret over nannies and daycare, forgo upgrades so they can have more flexibility, and worry that it creates too many obstacles for intimacy with their spouse. But my friends still pull it off because they have great partners, so it can be done, and I'm sure they wouldn't have it any differently but it can be challenging in ways that can't quite be compared to having most other jobs while maintaining a family life. You have to be all-in and have a lot of help at home of some sort. Even day trips are usually odd hours (not 9-5), and there isn't a lot of room for taking time for decompressing from a stressful multi-day trip when you're coming home to little people and a spouse who need and miss you and demand all your attention.

There are a lot of challenges when you choose a flying career, this is just one more of them, but before any guys on here bother getting smug about women and their place in this industry, let me offer this: I've had plenty of male pilots rag on me about how selfish I am choosing a career over family while they talk about their five kids and their wife who stays home and how they live paycheck to paycheck to support the family and are hoping their kids are going to turn out to be all-state athletes so they can get scholarships to allow them to go to college. I bet their wives would be super happy to discover that their husbands are drooling over the hot flight attendant and spending their per diem at the hotel bar while enjoying uninterrupted ESPN free from family distraction three nights a week while the wife's at home with colic-y babies and mountains of housework. No situation is truly "perfect".

The best advice I can give you is to find a balance; be true to yourself and what you want, and try to be realistic. Plenty of couples face job losses, relocations, childcare issues, and have to sacrifice something for the greater good in their relationship. Being a pilot might make it a little more complicated, but certainly not impossible.

Hello form a fellow female flyer,

I am a gal pilot, married 7 years now to another pilot. We started out best friends, and remain so today.

This is just my .02, but here ya go. The answers you seek (I sound like Yoda) lie somewhere in the middle. At least that is what I have found. Focus totally on your career and you may rocket to the top of your profession to find yourself strangely unfulfilled. For some reason I see this far more often in my fellow female pilots than the guys. Perhaps the guys are better at masking it, perhaps it's our hormones I don't know. But my one cautionary tale I have see too many times to discount is this: The Aviatrix who sacrifices everything to get to the top. When she's a CFI she says "I'll be happy when I get to a Regional" when there it's "I'll be happy when I make Captain." when there it's "I'll be happy when I get to a Major." when there it's "I'll be happy when I can hold a line." Suddenly they look around. They are in their 40's alone with no kids, and the happiness they have been chasing for so long, is not waiting for them in that Cockpit.

Now I don't have kids and won't be having any (Hubsters got the sniperino recently); but I have never wanted kids (nor did Hubby). I was fortunate enough, at the beginning of my career, to be introduced to the US's first female Airline Pilot. Emily Warner. She taught me the 2 most important things any female pilot has ever taught me.

1. You are not a man and never will be, so don't try too hard to be "one of the boys" because it's not ever going to happen (and that's just fine, guys talk about things together they would NEVER talk about with you in the Cockpit)....but don't bring too much Femininity into the cockpit because it does not belong there; by this she meant Emotions, Sexuality (don't be a tease), whining, crying.

2. Enjoy the ride! Keep your aviation goals in your sights, but don't make them the source of your future happiness.

I was your typical Pilot Gypsy from 22 to my early 30's. Then I met my now Husband. We both made a few sacrifices here and there. Perhaps we could have "risen through the ranks" faster. But my God have we had fun. Both he and I had wonderful lives when we were single; we continue to have fantastic lives together. Enjoy life, take it as it comes, listen to your fellow fliers life stories, learn from them. Then go out there and get what your want. It may change, it may become illusive from time to time. But I can assure you; this industry is one hell of a ride, and I'd do it all again.....no hesitations.

RadialGal

Haha, do fly out of SLC? Women can fly airplanes just as good as men, and my CFI experience actually leads me to conclude that they multitask a bit better on average..

Not selfish, that's your choice.

I offer plenty of negative feedback about this industry but that's because there are simply many negatives that folks need to be aware of (the positives are usually obvious, and much exaggerated). I've always maintained that this is a great career for childless bohemians (which could have been me in another life).

Good point Rick,

There are so many crap stories in this industry. If you want to know some female-sh!t-storms I've seen or delt with myself, PM me. I am a childless Bohemian, as is the Hubbsters; we both had no previous marriages or kids and lived Vagabond pilot lives until we met up.

I squatted in people's Hangars (they all let me) with a Camp Stove and a Cot all through Flight Training. I had a blast. Late night drag races with all the Militarty/Airline guy's toys. Hangar parties where I hid car keys from my drunken pilot pals and laid them down to sleep it off under the wings of a Cessna. Warm Summer evenings with a beer, watching the sun set after a full day of teaching stalls and turns around a point.

I have woken in the small hours of the morning to ride my bike to work (couldn't afford a car). Where I'd preflight the old R-2800's. Dragging a Ghostbuster looking backpack full of ADI to each engine. Add Oil, check the grand dame, head to toe, on the walk around. Watch as the pouring rain slid off her wings under the Sodium lights and try to imagine preparing to fly to Templehof back when this old girl flew the Berlin Airlift.

Could I have taken a faster route? Paid for training, as was so common back then? Sure, I could have made sacrifices, taken a job I didn't really want, live in crappy crash pads and fly out of Newark or LaGuardia; do the non rev shuffle of commuting to work. I decided not to. It cost me career wise, probably financially as well. But I have seen things folks my age never will. I've pulled a P-51 around a pylon in my friend's bird in a Reno practice run. I've flown formation acro in T-6's with men who fought and flew in WWII. I have watched the sunrise over Nebraskan cornfields with my thin fingers curled over the one of a kind throttles of a B-17. I met my now husband flying these terrific birds. He loved them as much as I did. Our friends made more, had shinny new jets to fly and unique ports of call to wake up in. But we were and continue to be, happier than pigs in poo.

I have taken an extremely unusual route and it isn't for everyone. I am not recommending you forsake all regionals and men until you hit 30. I am just saying, there are so many routes to happiness in Aviation. People just don't seem to see or seek the unusual ones anymore. Keep your eyes and your heart open and don't get bitter. I have seen too many folks let this industry suck the soul form them. I am nearly 40 and am the happiest person I know.

Keep the oily side down unless you're doin' Acro.

RadialGal

Great words, Hilltopper! My wife and I got married right before I started USAF pilot training, almost 26 years ago. I retired from the USAF 4 years ago and am about to transition to flying people for money. Flying the World's Greatest Air Superiority Fighter in the USAF was a great career, but difficult with many, many days / nights gone from home, or long hours at work doing another upgrade ride. I respect those who've made different decisions, but I wouldn't trade my wife and children for anything.

Having a supportive family has allowed me to pursue a career doing something I love, and that provides for the family. If the career and the family conflict, however, I can always get a different career ... can't get another family, however.

Agreed. I too retired from AD single seat and now 121 FO. I don't mean to tell people how to live but I can say what works for me. Using love as an excuse to get to do whatever you want will never work. If one really feels this way they married the wrong person. This lifestyle works for some and we are very happy with it so far. It's easier than the military was by far. On the other hand, if my wife told me she couldn't take it any more I'd find something else to do. She and my kids are worth the sacrifice. Again, to each his/her own, but chiding a spouse years into a marriage that "if you really loved me you'd let me...." is a recipe for failure. Every time.