Married to the job

The nature of military life can present a host of challenges for forces couples. Rebecca Grant discovers what it takes for them to make their love last the distance

Marie Lornie has never been in the military, yet RAF Brize Norton will always be the place she thinks of as ‘home’. She first moved there when she was three years old, and the base was also where she met her husband, Cpl Steven Lornie, for the first time. “We were introduced to each other by a friend while we were having a drink in a dodgy bar on camp,” she recalls.

“My mum said she always knew I’d end up marrying a service man. She was afraid I’d find a husband, get posted away and have to leave her. She didn’t have to worry, because I ended up living just two minutes down the road from her.”
Having family close by can be really helpful for a forces spouse, as periods of long-term separation are part of the lifestyle. The longest period of time Marie and Steven have spent apart is four months and the worst thing to deal with, Marie says, is the emotional upheaval it causes.

“It was horrific the first couple of times he went away,” she says. “I missed him so much and really didn’t know what to do with myself.
“The worst time was when he was in Afghanistan in 2005. I was on edge all the time. All my friends were banned from ringing the doorbell during those months. If they wanted to see me they had to text me first to warn me, otherwise my stomach would leap when I heard someone at the door.”

Not only do forces’ spouses have to cope with the anxiety of knowing their loved one is somewhere dangerous, their eventual homecoming can also result in a rollercoaster of emotions.

Maj Rhett Parkinson (pictured above), who has been married to wife Liesel for 16 years, says: “I don’t think it ever gets any easier. I came back from Iraq in May this year, and this has actually been one of the hardest times for us readjusting to married life again. But I think now we know what to expect, and we don’t worry so much about the emotions that we’re going through. Almost everybody goes through that experience, so now we know that it’s OK to feel that way.”
Rhett and Marie’s experiences are common within the forces community. However, although they are both content in their marriages, many find the strain of involuntary separation too much to cope with.

According to Government statistics, around 2% of Army personnel, and a similar number of RAF personnel (no comparable figures are held for the Navy) head to the divorce courts each year. In addition, marriage problems can have a direct effect on military personnel retention, as service leavers often cite concern for personal relationships as their reason for quitting.

Although forces couples have always had welfare support available to them through their unit’s Padre, couples have traditionally taken a reactive approach.

Major Simon Maggs, who is in charge of OC RAC Training Squadron, is among those pushing for a new initiative to strengthen military marriage. He explains: “There is little understanding of the concept of maintenance in marriage.

“A couple will typically approach the Padre to get married, and all too often, the next time they visit the Padre is when their marriage has run into real difficulties and considerable damage to the relationship has already been done.”

The solution, according to Simon, is a more proactive approach through the provision of marriage guidance or preparation courses. Evidence in favour of this was put forward at the first annual Marriage Conference for the Armed Forces, which took place earlier this year. According to statistics gathered through three controlled studies, marriage courses can help reduce divorce rates by up to 80%.
Rhett and Liesel have been running their own ‘guide to marriage’ course at their home base of Paderborn, Germany since 2004.
 
Although the course structure they follow was actually designed as a civilian course, they have been able to make it more forces-specific by drawing on their own marriage experiences. They have also added a session dedicated to dealing with long-term separation.

The course has attracted a wide spectrum of couples, from younger people preparing to marry, to senior army officers who’ve been married for years.

“A lot of the couples who come here say they had relatively strong marriages, but just wanted to invest a bit more time in their marriages. The course gives them the time and space to look at issues that you might otherwise sweep under the carpet, and increase their understanding, which helps them deal with issues like separation when the time comes around.”

Moving on
Long-term separation is not the only challenge that’s common for forces couples. They are also likely to find themselves constantly on the move. Army wife Jill Woods (pictured, right) has just moved to her sixth house in as many years. Over time, she’s learned to cope with the stress that moving house can cause. “It really doesn’t bother me,” she says. “I know that these places are temporary, and as long as I’ve got a kitchen and a bathroom, then I’m fine.”

Her biggest frustration, however, is the effect that moving has had on her career. “When we first moved home, I was running training and development courses for big firms, then by the last time we moved, all I was offered was receptionist work. There’s nothing wrong with being a receptionist, but going from a job with lots of responsibility to being offered something that pays £6.20 an hour is very difficult to take on the chin.”

The implications of moving home eventually inspired her to set up her own website, OneMoreMove.co.uk. The site, which has been live since June this year, has not only enabled her to have a career where she can work from home – wherever that may be – but she hopes it will be able to help other forces families when they need to move.

“The Army has always been very good when it comes to relocating us, but the one thing it can’t do though is provide a wealth of local knowledge on the area you move to,” she explains. “They have the HIVE information service, which is available for all the services, but it has to remain impartial. It can only give you a list of schools or local amenities, but it can’t tell you ‘this school is great if you have a child with special needs’ or ‘this garage offers discounts to forces personnel’. At the moment, all the local knowledge is being lost every time people move from one place to another.

The thinking behind my website was that its content could be driven by the users,” she says.

“They can make recommendations and rate local services so the site will eventually become a pool of information that people can refer to when they relocate.”

OneMoreMove is one of many new sites that have popped up over the past few years, which have attracted forces spouses and partners in their droves. One of the benefits that these sites offer is the ability to build up a wider support network, which is something that many forces partners – especially younger ones – find difficult to do.

Liesel Parkinson explains: “Often they can feel alienated from their families. Some people grow up with a very close support network, and suddenly they have to move away from that. That can be really hard for them.”

And even though Marie has grown up in a forces environment, she can sympathise. “In 2005 I joined Steven when he was posted to Northern Ireland for two years, and at first I hated everything about it, just because it was so different.”

But, despite the challenges, Marie is content with the forces lifestyle, and years of experience have prepared her any challenge forces life may throw at her in the future.

“I’ve learned how to get into a bit more of a routine, so it’s much easier to cope now,” she says. “In the past I have felt that being married to a service man means I’ve had a lack of control over my life, but I’ve learned to become more laid back and chilled out about it.
My life may be different from some, but I like it.”