Over the years at sea I had to deal with a number of newlyweds

that had their wives/girlfriends moaning and bellyaching that their husband/boyfriend was away for long periods of time.

I generally told the unmarried guys to break it off then and there because it will only get worse even if they do get a job ashore. It takes a special breed of woman to stand by a person like a sailor.

Soldiers, sailors and doctor's wives generally have to accept that their life is going to be different than June Cleaver's life where Ward comes home at 5 and the tow of you eat together and talk about Wally and the Beav. Instead dear old dad is out in the middle of the ocean making a living to finance the operation.

The money at sea is usually pretty damned good and six figure incomes are fairly common. You can't make that stocking shelves at the hardware store. It's a job where one can actually afford to buy a home these days within a few years out of high school if you are not stupid.

Of course to be successful at the job you have to WANT to be there. 

Still, it's usually damned hard on relationships s lot of the time. 

I've overheard more that one sobbing wife phone call asking him to come home because the door fell off of the kitchen cabinet and she has to have it fixed. One conversation took place within earshot of  three of us and when he asked us what to do he was stunned. None of us knew what he should do. We just knew what our wives would do.

"My wife generally fixes it herself. No biggie for her," said one. Another said his wife would put it in a corner until he gets home and I told him my wife would also save it for me to fix when I got home.

He quit after the next tour and about a year later rumor control had him working in a convenience store, most likely living in primitive squalor.

I have heard a few wives complain they had to stay home and he got to go out on the boat and have a good time instead of going to a real job. I don't know how one guy pulled it off but he brought his wife along for a short few day trip up the coast in the wintertime and she changed her attitude after spending most of the trip curled up in the fetal position in the rack seasick as hell for four or five days.

There were others and over the years some decided to swallow the hook and work ashore, others either laid down the law and told their wives to make up their minds of either having him home and living in squalor or letting him stay at sea.

One thing I saw that seemed to work out for a number of the guys was that he and his wife sat down and clearly defined their roles. He would be the breadwinner and she'd be the homemaker. She'd run the home as she pleased and he'd come home to whatever she had done to decorate the house with. That really seemed to work out well for a number of the guys.

One of the guys came back to work with a funny story. His neighbor asked his wife if he could build a split rail fence between their yards and she told him to go ahead. He waited for him to get home to check with him. When he asked him if it was OK to put up the fence he said, "Ask her. It's her house. I only pay for it and live here sometimes."

That's pretty much the way my wife and I had it arranged. So long as I had a place to stay I didn't care what color she painted the place or how she decorated it.

Other things notwithstanding, I was truly blessed with a wife that had a commercial fishing background and supported me in my career. She never once interfered with my work. 

ETA. One tug skipper I knew went ashore for almost a year and returned. He said his shoreside job paid about the same and he came home every night but he missed the boats and the guys. Then he grinned and said "My wife ran me out."

He went on to explain that one morning before work his wife sat him down and told him to call in and take the morning off. He was to call the tug company and speak to the personnel department about getting his old job back and then go into work and give them his two week notice.  

When he called the personnel guy at the shipping company he found out his wife had already called and greased the skids. It was already a done deal. Then he grinned and looked at me. "When Shorty threw the line off and I put the boat in gear I knew I had married the right woman."

 To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY