Here’s something I never, ever, ever (times infinity) imagined myself saying:
To all the brand new members of our #thepilotwifelife aviation family, numbers 601 through 11,145, welcome aboard!
Just…wow.
I am so glad you are here! To say that I am humbled beyond measure would be putting it mildly. You, my amazing aviation friends, are quite literally beauty from ashes. My heart is overwhelmed by your presence, so thank you.
My name is Angelia, a fellow pilot wife with an amazing pilot husband. I founded the pilot wife life page in November of 2016 for one simple reason–to combat the general and overwhelming negativity that is rampant throughout the aviation community and forums.
Simply stated, I wanted to give us all a place to love our pilots out loud, unapologetically! I wanted to focus on learning not only to survive this life, but to live it well–to search out beauty in chaos and embrace it. I also wanted you to know that you are not alone. There is a huge community of men and women living this life that get it.
It was and still is my heart to pour encouragement, support, love and positivity into pilot wives and their spouses in the hopes of affecting perspective (short term) and fighting the widespread culture of infidelity and divorce (long term).
I’ll be blatantly honest, I had no idea what that would actually look like when I began. I just knew I had to do it. It was tugging at my heartstrings constantly, and it simply wasn’t something I could continue to ignore any longer. I couldn’t stand by and watch as aviation marriages crumbled before my eyes while I did nothing.
Sooooo here we are, eleven thousand beautiful aviation men and women strong.
I often use the term ‘pilot wife.’ I understand that there are also tons of beautiful pilot women and their amazing stay-at-home husbands. There are innumerable flight attendants, male and female, and their left-behind spouses. I know! And I am so very grateful for all of you. I choose to write from a perspective that I personally live, because I do not want to presume a perspective that I have not experienced. I am not a pilot’s husband, therefore I do not feel it is a fair perspective to speak for them. However, my choice to address a particular group in no way negates the value of another. You are all, from every aspect of the aviation lifestyle, welcome here, appreciated here, loved here, and wanted here.
I also realize that the topics addressed here can often be applied to a wide array of traveling spouses and even marriage in general! I am proud to say that we have a diverse community that reaches far beyond just the boundaries of aviation. We have long-haul drivers, oil field workers, firefighters, railroad workers, military families and many more. You are welcome here. You are our ‘honorary’ aviation family, and you are deeply loved.
What does my vision for the future of this community look like? I have given a lot of thought to that question over the last few days. My deepest desire is to serve you well, to love you fiercely, and to give you resources that help to support, grow, and strengthen your lives and marriages.
I have a couple of big projects on the horizon which I think will help do just that. And I do mean big! Humongous! Gigantic, even!
Here are just a few things that I hope to work toward:
- A connect page to help you find community by location, by airline specifics, and even by special interest. I believe connecting to like-minded folks will help us continue to grow and thrive.
- Creation of localized aviation groups around the world. I believe a strong community is key to living the aviation lifestyle well. I want to connect you to people that get it and whom you can do life together on a local, face-to-face level. I have already helped launch two such groups, and they are thriving!
- Creation of a private #thepilotwifelife discussion group for safe aviation conversation outside the scrutiny of public eyes. This will be a place you can go to have your questions answered by those who have been there, done that. We will institute rules to keep the conversation flow safe and positive.
- A resource page for aviation families.
- Continued daily posts on Facebook and other social media sources. These may range from funny to encouraging, but they will never demean our traveling spouses.
- Conferences (both marriage and women’s) and speaking engagements where I can connect with you and encourage you on a personal level.
- And a couple of other big projects that I have already started working on but which are still in the secret phase! Shhhhh.
It doesn’t matter to me if there are eleven or eleven thousand of you. I fiercely care about each of you individually. I love hearing from you. Your stories, your feedback, your struggles, your successes. You help me continue to grow and learn too. You matter to me. Immensely.
You are beautiful. Diverse. Amazing. You have no idea how much I love each of you for your unique beauty. When I say ‘I love you, aviation family,’ I am not just spouting off empty words. I mean it. From the bottom of my heart, I mean it.
If you knew how often I pray for you as a group and individually… If you knew how much precious time I spend worrying about how to serve you better… If you knew how many nights I have spent into the wee hours of the morning messaging with one of you because you are hurting… If you knew how carefully I answer every single message and comment that you direct to me…
Maybe then you’d truly understand. I love you, aviation family.
I am ecstatic that you are here. Thank you for trusting me to pour into you and your aviation marriages in a positive, encouraging way. Thank you for trusting me with your hearts and your stories. I am humbled daily by you.
I can’t wait to see what the future holds for us. I believe that the sky’s truly the limit!
I love you, aviation family!
Tailwinds.
Angelia (A Fellow Pilot Wife)
CHECK OUT THE JUST WINGING IT SERIES BY ANGELIA GRIFFIN HERE!
I am not new to being pilot’s wife but new to being an airline pilot’s wife. My husband was in the cargo industry for the last 15 years but has recently gotten hired by Piedmont, owned by American Airlines. He is still in training, it has been a broken up training. Talk about testing patience! So I was so thankful to find this! I feel very alone, none of my family/friends get it & it has helped so much already. So thx from the bottom of my heart!
I’m glad I could be of some small encouragement to you, Sara. We did a year of training, reserve, upgrade, repeat, upgrade, repeat last year. It was incredibly hard. We onlybsaw him 4 days per month on average. It’s even harder when you have littles. Training and reserve are without a doubt the most difficult periods. Not only are they gone, but we are strained to our limit, they are stressed and under huge pressure… It can be a volatile situation. Remember to try to speak with grace even when he’s being frustrating. And he needs to be intentional about the same. It’s hard, but you will get through it and be stronger because you survived it. Love you, aviation sister.
I love this so much. I used to work for a company that ground handled United, so your post about the United passenger hit close to home. I just want to say Thank You for that. Some of my former coworkers have caught heat about that incident and I know it’s hard for them. So thank you for doing what you do.
Dear Angelia, let me first say how awesome you are for having the foresight to begin a group such as this. It really is comforting to know there is a medium for airline wives to come for inspiration and help navigating their new world. Secondly, I am a flight attendant and would like to say as a whole, our population is not looking to break up anyones marriage or sleep with your husbands on our layovers. Our company doesn’t even lay us over in the same hotels anymore. We respect the job your husbands are doing and we keep them fed and watered and let them out for the lav on our trips. There mat be that stray f/a who has her sights on a ” pilot” but for the majority of us we consider them our boss and let them do their job. And most of them are just very pleasant family guys that love to talk about their farms, kids and what their favorite restaurant is in any town we go to! I wanted you to know on behalf of myself and the thousands of us out in the friendly skie that we keep it professional period. Thank you for doing all you do, it’s amazing!
Wonderful insight, Jamie. We love our flight attendant family here at #thepilotwifelife. In fact we have lots of FA followers because it’s the same life and same hurdles! I actually have on the burner a blog about the very thing you spoke about. Not only is everything you daid absolutely true, but so many folks don’t know what an important job our FA’s have on an aircraft. In case of emergency, it will be your training amd courage that can mean the difference between life and death. We appreciate yoi and all you do. It’s unfortunate that everyone wants to stereotype the many by the few. Fly on, aviation sister.