Broken families and lost loves and screwed-up kids

SADLY & UNFORTUNATELY, I have come across apartment managers who are reluctant to rent out apartments to OTR truck drivers.

 

Here is my genuine take on the subject. I am strictly speaking from a male point of view here, but it just as easily applies the other way around.

If you are single and in this profession as an OTR driver, chances are that you will remain single as long as you are out on the road. In my experience, there aren't many girls who want to tie themselves to a guy that is gone for 2-3 weeks at a time. If you are married, then you have your work cut out for you as it's very difficult to be away for, again 2-3 weeks...especially for the girl at home. It takes a special woman to be married to a man who is away more than they are home. Add children into the mix, and it becomes even more difficult.

Now I'm not saying these things as absolutes. There are many marriages and relationships that survive and thrive within the OTR lifestyle, but it takes commitment, understanding, and trust to make it happen.

 

Currently, I am not a truck driver. I hope to eventually go to a truck driving school to learn how to drive a truck.

In the mean time, I have spent years working in jobs that often had some of the most unpredictable hours, such as retail, in which shifts get rotated or split up in a heartbeat.

I personally have never married and never had any children. However, I have seen families get torn apart due to people having these unpredictable hours and not be able to plan for events or fun times, especially when it involves children in elementary or high school.

Years ago, I was active duty in the U.S. Navy, (1984 - 1992). I saw sailors go through family breakups and divorces due to long periods of deployments and separations.

The point being, it is not always the amount of time that the working person is away form home, but also not having any degree of continuity or stability as far as time planning is concerned, can also wreck a family.

Again, I do not speak from personal experience, but from what I have watched other people go through.

 

This is true. Even being a local driver has put strains on my marriage from time to time. As you said, with an erratic schedule, it's hard to plan for anything. In my case, especially during the summer, I miss a lot of my grandsons' events such as little league games, due to the fact that I'm in bed most nights by 8:00pm. Weeknight school events such as a play or winter/spring concert? Forget about it.

 

The reality is that marriages break up all the time. And people who are unwilling to take responsibility for their own personal part of the break up, are quick to point out that something outside the marriage caused the break up.

People who are gone a lot, whether it is on military deployment, construction jobs, trucking or whatever, seem to have a built in excuse. As do people who are cops, firemen, medics etc.

But the bottom line is if two people are mature, and committed to each other and to their marriage, they will stay together until "death do us part."

It takes two committed people to make a marriage work. If either one, or both, are not committed, then you might just as well walk away from it.

 

Otr is the worst for a young marriage and kids I learn it the hard way I hate Otr you can keep that crap. If you single go for it

 

Half the marriages end in divorce, and I'm sure that most would agree that at least half of the remaining are unhappy. Therefore, 75% of the marriages shouldn't have happened. That tells me that people need to be a lot more discerning when deciding to get married and to whom.

I like the way BigDon put it. I agree, marriage is serious business and to be successful both parties must be 100% committed to it's success. From what I've seen, those that actually do this have the happy marriages.

For those that are single - what's the rush? Being cautious, and taking your time may just help you into that happy 25% someday. Rushing, or getting married too young greatly increases your chances of being in the 75%. Remember, everybody who gets married believes they have something special - 3/4 of those turn out to be wrong.

 

Now we have all this "tech" which can match people up, are more connected and spoiled than we've ever been...

Yet our divorce rates are high. Simply put? 2+2=5

My 0.02$ on the matter is that we live in a now disposable society. It's become cheaper and easier to toss something off to the side than it is to fix it. Being in a retail/service position prior to trucking, I got to see quite a bit of that in many respects. When I serviced computers for a time, I started to notice a pattern.

Those who asked for me to fix their computer/electronic device usually were either married, or their spouse died. Basically, they never had a divorce.
The ones who usually were asking for assistance buying new (when fixing was still an option.), were single, divorced or in an unhappy marriage...

Some of us would be millionaires if we quit giving away our 2 cents. Oh well...