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Emergency Services - Wives and partners

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  • 13-03-2013 9:05pm
    #1
    missqe2
    Registered Users Posts: 5 ✭


    First time poster here (so please forgive me if I've posted in the wrong place). I'd love to hear the experiences of the husbands and wives of our front line heros. I guess really I'm looking for comfort and an assurance that I'm not the only one. I work full time and my husband works the dreaded 5 shift roster in the guards. We have children and to be honest, not much of a family life. He loves his job and I love that he gets such enjoyment from it, but the toll it takes on our family is high.

    So. How do you/your loved one manage to fit a life around the shifts? Am I the only one who can't sleep soundly while he's on the night shift? Surely I'm not the only one that has that fear when i kiss him goodbye that he mightn't come back to me in the same shape. Or at all. Do you feel the frustration at another birthday/christmas party/labour missed? Does your heart ache when he comes in the door numb from cutting another suicide down or attending a fataller that day? Do you feel different from the gang in the office whose couldn't begin to understand what goes with these jobs?

    We all know (to a degree) what a tough job the frontliners do. We know it's nowhere near as well paid as the naysayers would have us think. But my question is what those behind the front line who are not paid at all but who also serve.

    What's your experience? I'd love to hear.


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    #2
    scuba8
    Registered Users Posts: 175 ✭✭scuba8


    You are not alone in having to cope with life as a spouse of some one working on the frontline. I know of a woman whose husband was in a specialist unit in the Gardai. He was away on duty for days on end. She almost reared their children on her own. Her birthday was in January and he was around for only one birthday in over 10 years. Weekends and bank holidays meant nothing. It is not an easy life for sure.


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    #3
    missqe2
    Registered Users Posts: 5 ✭missqe2


    Thanks Scuba8. I'm not alone, and by no means the worst off. I just don't know anyone who combines it with a full time job and at times it can be isolating.

    I often think there should be a Garda spouses/partners club - somewhere to go to meet other people sharing that experience. Kind of like the AA. With babysitters built in ideally :rolleyes:


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