Moving Home

 Much like the military, federal agents move around throughout their career. Some move more often than others, depending on whether they want to relocate to be near family or need to move to another office for promotion purposes. Regardless, almost all agents are first assigned a city other than the one they live in when they get the job. How you "get home" varies by situation. On occasion, agents can be traded between cities or they can be transferred. Most transfers are voluntary, meaning it's the financial responsibility of the agent to relocate. In some instances, the agency will cover the expenses associated with moving, to include facilitating with the sale and purchase of homes.

We applied for a voluntary transfer once my husband was eligible. Eligibility typically requires that the agent have worked a minimum of five years. We were fortunate to have our transfer application approved and moved home in the fall of 2008, five years after I had moved there.

My husband's first assignment, while challenging at times, was truly a blessing for both of us. His coworkers were wonderful and opened many doors for him and his career within the agency. I made wonderful friends whom I cherish and still speak with almost daily. Being away from friends and family the first five years of marriage strengthened our relationship and best of all, we had a daughter while we were there. 

We were incredibly lucky to be able to sell our home considering the economic crisis was in full-swing at the time we moved. We were also fortunate to find a beautiful, affordable home to move into which was very close to friends and family. Truth be told, we moved onto the same street as some of our friends which has been a blessing.

My husband's late nights or out of town trips don't affect me like they used to because I don't feel as alone as I once did. Shortly before moving home, a new agent joined my husband's office and his wife became a great friend of mine. She has had many of the same experiences I had while I was there, and I'm sad that I moved away from her. We both felt better having one another to share experiences with. If they stay there long-term, I hope she will have the opportunity to connect with new agents and their spouses as they move into the area.

Where's my husband?

So you know your husband is going to have a late night and you go to bed alone. That's nothing out of the ordinary. Last you heard, he would be home by 3 a.m. at the latest. But you wake up at 7 a.m. the next morning and he hasn't come home. You immediately call his cell phone and it goes straight to voicemail. Now what?

For me, the first time it happened, I went into panic mode. Where was my husband? Was he o.k.? Was he hurt? Had something bad happened? Who would call me if he was hurt? Better yet, who would I call to find out if he was hurt? I didn't have a phone number for his boss. Did I go to the ATF website and find a 1-800 number to call and see if anyone there could help me. I literally had no idea what to do and I was scared.

I called another agent's wife that I had become friends with and fortunately she had the phone number for our husband's boss. Once I got in touch with him, he stated that he would make some phone calls and get back to me. Long story short, the operation took a long time and they were in a rural community which didn't have cell phone service. He contacted the local police department they were working with and eventually they were able to radio to the guys to confirm that everyone was o.k.. The boss called me and assured me that everything was fine and he radioed my husband to call me as soon as he was in cell phone range.

Sigh! What a relief. To this day however, it's bothered me that there's not a phone list for agent's spouses. Who do you call when you fear something is wrong? As soon as my husband got home that morning, he gave me a list of numbers to store in my cell phone, but I've always felt that there should be a more formal process for ensuring that agent's families know who to contact in situations like that.

Admittedly, I handle situations like that much better now than I used to because I've dealt with it on numerous occasions, but the first few times you're confronted with it, it's scary. Again, I find myself wishing there was a better network of support for agent's wives.

The Unique Working Hours of an Agent

Temporal Paradox by PatsPiks.

While plenty of people like to joke about the hours that federal government employees do, or do not work in a given week, the schedule of a federal agent is no laughing matter. Agents are required to work an average of 50+ hours a week. I use the word average because some weeks they may work 40 hours, but the following week they may work 60 depending on the demands of certain cases or field operations. This schedule is part of the administratively uncontrollable overtime work (AUO) program.

Some mornings my husband is out of the house by 4 a.m. and on plenty of occasions he won't get home until well after midnight. The tricky part in all of this is that there's never a set schedule. You never know when a 'day in the office' will turn into a full night of surveillance. Good luck planning out your weekly grocery shopping list around a schedule like that.

Then there's the travel. I never knew to anticipate so much travel when he first took this job. I'm not sure that he knew there would be as much travel, either. My husband is out of town at least one full week out of the month. Sometimes it may be two days one week and four the following, but one week a month is a conservative estimate. That's a minimum of a fourth of a year. And if the agent is on a special response team (SRT), they're gone probably an average of two weeks a month minimum.

To say that these hours are unique is an understatement. This job demands a lot not only from the agent but the agent's family. That being said, my husband's job has made me a much stronger person and I'm thankful for that. Without fail, my child will get sick or the furnace will stop working when my husband is out of town. Handling these situations on my own has been challenging and empowering. I know many other agent's wives that acknowledge that they can expect something to go wrong when their husband is gone. It's almost comical at this point. It's as though the universe wants us to be as strong as possible and it strengthens us with adversity.

The First of Many Career Woes

My husband and I eventually settled into our new life together. We quickly reconnected, found our favorite new restaurants, met some nice neighbors and managed to squeeze a few dollars out of the budget for a little decorating. Now it was time for me to get my career back on track.

Prior to the move, I had worked for a non-profit association and eventually found employment with a company that was affiliated with the association. I took an enormous pay cut but that was to be expected since I had worked in a large metropolitan area prior to moving to a much more rural region of the country. While my brain kept reminding me that this difference in pay was a result of the decreased cost of living, my heart still felt slighted. I was older and more experienced but was making less money than I had when I was 21. My ego felt bruised, but I was still thankful for the job.

I quickly discovered that my pay wasn't the only big difference between my previous job and this one. The way business was conducted was also a lot different. The good-ol'-boy network was in effect now, and this was something that I was NOT accustomed to. My previous employer lived by an employee handbook and better business practices. All business was conducted on the table, not under. There were clearly articulated expectations, right down to how many hours an employee had to return a phone call or email. These were expectations that I embraced and relied on. I loved working within clearly-defined parameters. It came as no surprise that within six months of employment, I decided to begin looking for a different job.

Fortunately, I found a great opportunity shortly thereafter, and I stayed with that organization for the next four years until my husband received a transfer back home. While that position provided me with wonderful experiences, I was still making far less than I had prior to the move. The reason that I keep focusing on the monetary aspect of all of this is not because I believe that money determines success, rather, now that we have moved back to our metropolitan 'home' and I am seeking new employment, I have to keep providing a salary history, and it's not doing me any favors. Furthermore, while there was a different cost of living, I was still being paid less than many of my male peers were making. This again has to do with the good-ol'-boy network I mentioned earlier.

I'm not saying that all rural communities conduct business that way, and furthermore, I acknowledge that plenty of metropolitan businesses do that as well. But it was still a big pill for me to swallow, and it's one which I feel is still affecting me now that I'm searching for a new position.

The Big Move

One week after returning home from our honeymoon, we loaded up a moving truck with all of my belongings, and I moved into the apartment that my husband had been renting for the past year in our new state. It was so small, and while we didn't necessarily own anything of great value, we owned a lot of "stuff!" Our budget and our apartment were very tight, but at least we were finally together.

The very next day, my husband left for work and for the first time in a year, I was completely alone. I was without a job and without family or friends nearby. I had gone to college in the same town I had grown up in and this was literally the first time I had ever lived away from my family. I was homesick already. I didn't even know how to get to the nearest grocery store or Walmart. The town we were living in was so small that they didn't even have a Target.... gasp!

Jobs were scarce in our new city, particularly jobs that I was interested in. This awesome new life which I had daydreamed about for the past year was off to a shaky start. I was supposed to be so happy and yet, surrounded by new faces and new places, my heart ached for familiarity.

I surveyed our little living space and thought that maybe a little decorating would help lift my spirits. Oh yeah.... we didn't have any money for decorating. Maybe calling a few friends on the phone would cheer me up.... oh yeah.... they all worked during the day.

This was the first of many times that I felt very isolated as an agent's wife. My grandparent's were in the Army, and I knew that there was a community of women that helped families transition when they were transferred to new posts. As for police wives, rarely did they relocate because their husband's job was typically in the city or county they already lived in. But this federal agency situation was unique and there was no support. I wish blogging had been more popular back then because it would have been nice to share this experience all those years ago and hopefully find others that could sympathize and/or offer support.

Let the new life begin...

The year apart, while my husband was splitting his time between his new, out-of-state office and FLETC, was challenging, but the show must go on, so I planned the entire wedding by myself. Luckily I had my friends and family nearby to accompany me on cake and catering tastings. We had to reschedule our wedding date because his academy dates were modified half way through his training. He finished the academy and drove home two days before our wedding. He looked so different; he was tan and had a new and improved body like I hadn't seen before. I'm not complaining, but he just looked so much different than he did when he left one year prior.

The wedding was amazing and we departed for our honeymoon the very next day. We were exhausted the first day, we were busy with beach festivities the second day, and by the third day, it really set-in that we had been apart for a whole year, living completely different lives. I had spent a year "playing" with my friends, working at a job I loved, and planning a very fun wedding. He had spent a year training and absorbing a new life which I was yet to understand or experience.

It was weird all of sudden. Not bad, but weird. Despite being on a beautiful island together, we were both eager to get home and finally start our new life together. One might think that we would have endless topics to discuss after being apart for so long, and yet we didn't. I knew I loved him, I knew he was the right man for me, and yet I didn't know what to talk with him about. I was certain that getting home and moving to our new home in our new state would be just the thing we needed to feel reconnected.... right????

Welcome to the agency!

After three years of applying, waiting, interviewing, waiting, taking a polygraph, waiting, joining a local police department and then waiting a little longer, my now husband finally got the letter in the mail telling him he was officially accepted as a criminal investigator (agent) for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. It was such an exciting time for both of us. We didn't exactly know what this meant for our future, but we knew we had both spent many years in a state of limbo, hoping and waiting for this moment. Several weeks passed before we heard from the agency again. Once we did, we learned that my husband's first assignment would be six hours away, in a neighboring state, and he had two weeks until he was expected to arrive.

YIKES! We just got engaged several weeks prior to this news, and I was already knee-deep in wedding preparations. We had already picked a date and a venue for the following spring and had put down a deposit. Now, my fiancé was moving to a neighboring state, and would spend six of the next 12 months in Glenco, Ga. at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center (FLETC), better known as the ATF academy. Talk about an emotional roller coaster; one minute I was getting engaged (high moment), the next minute my husband got his agent job (higher moment), then he was being transferred out of town (low moment) and he was going to be gone for the next 12 months until we got married and I could move to be with him (crash and burn).

For better or worse, my story is not unique. Almost every agent’s wife I've spoken with can share a very similar story. Some have me beat, too. A lot of new agents have children, with more on the way. Regardless, the first assignment and FLETC training academy are a microcosm for the unique lifestyle which federal law enforcement families experience.