Little background...husband has been in 6 years still has 2 years left on enlistment...husband is working on his BA...husband will be 2 classes away from graduation when enlistment is up...wife works crap retail job....wife needs to finish her Associates.
they have 2 children ages 8 & 5.

The husband can't really decide if he wants to stay Navy or not. Wife doesn't really mind either way. Wife will probably have to push husband in one direction or another. Husband is considering obliserving right now. With obliserve time added on exit out date would be roughly August 09, husband may enlist or try to go officer after this if he stays Navy. Wife wants to go to HI. But here's where wife feels bad....if husband picks/gets HI kids would be roughly 15/16 & 12/13 years of age when sea rotation is over. Husband has to miss a good portion of important parts in both childrens lives plus the children would have to be uprooted from highschool/middle school after such a long time (sea rotation is 4-5 years) to go back to a shore duty in the states. Husband doesn't really want to outside of the states when looking for job prospects.

Here's the questions...Should wife push husband to stay in and pick HI for her own selfish reasons? Should wife push husband to stay in and pick a duty station where they could possibly stay for both sea & shore duty? Should wife push for husband to get out of military because it is to hard on the kids at those ages?

What are you thoughts???

You can't base your decisons on your children when it comes to your career, in my opinion. I was an Army brat and we moved when we moved. I was just basically told to accept it because there was nothing my parents could do about it and I did. My dad was transferred from Fort Polk, Louisana to Fort Hood, Texas in what would have been my Senior year of High School. I ended up graduating a year early because Louisiana has a better tuition assistance program for their graduates than Texas does but also because I wanted to graduate in Louisiana. I wish now I would have just moved to Texas with my parents instead of staying in Louisiana. Hell, in what became my Senior year my dad was in Korea the whole time. If I had been allowed to walk at graduation he wouldn't have gotten to be there anyway. That's just part of the military lifestyle. Kids are more adaptable than we give them credit for.

As far as Hawaii is concerned, does the husband want to go there too?

The husband is willing to go to HI, he doesn't want to stay more than one tour though.

I get what your saying about how kids adapt. I just wonder if it makes life harder on them. I know career options shouldn't be based on if you have kids or not but options like moving from coast to coast is a big decision and I want to look at all the "what ifs" out there before giving my say on the final decision.

Thank you for you thoughts :)

Thats a hard one Brook, I encouraged my husband to do this last tour (shore) so he could finish up his Masters and then get out. He came in the Navy over 5 years ago with his Bachlors, he has tried a couple of times to get into OCS but hasn't made it yet, most of everyone thinks its his age, but who knows. I can see your dh's point of not wanting to be in HI when looking for jobs, my dh is doing that right now and its hard enough being a couple states away I couldn't imagine what it would be like being in HI, I would think it would get very costly if companies wanted interviews. To be honest I think I would encourage him to get out and the reason I say this is because he will only be a couple classes away from his Bachlors and being on Sea Duty makes it hard at times to go to school, plus he would probably make more money out of the Navy using his Bachlors degree then he won't have to miss out on the kids life either. You both just need to sit down and go over the pros and cons about staying in or getting out. Good Luck!

I would just choose whatever is best for NOW. You never know what might come up in the future. So focusing on what would be the best benifit for the family now woudl be the route i'd take.

The kids need to learn to adjust to mom and dad's life. When they are older they can live as they please (we tell our children this all the time) We have older teens and in a few years we'll be in the empty nest syndrome. Trust me in the last year particularly they've had their opinion on where we should go, what we should do but ultimately it's not their decision and we may not even have a choice. DH is in for the long haul. They've always known that. Overall they've done well. They adjust everywhere they go, the don't mind moving (right now 2 of them want to move)
We take into consideration how a move would affect them (friends, schools, jobs, etc..) but it's not THE deciding factor.

We tend to take it one duty station at a time. We are about 18 months out for our next set of orders which means in about 6-9 months he can start actively looking for orders to get cut. So we are in the talks right now of the pros/cons of staying, going, etc.. Course it's all really going to depend on what the navy has available rather than what we want.

Brook you know my opinion on it!! :D

LOL..I know you would go in a second Breezy...hell maybe half a second :teehee

We haven't made a decision in full yet. We're not basing the decision in full on the kids I just want to consider them and their feelings in the decision.

Also I just want to say I don't know for sure we could even get HI, but it's a possibility, and one place that I would love to go.

go for it Brook you know you want too :D