What do you do if the person you married is married to his job? What if the “other person” who has attracted the interest of your spouse is not a person, but a whole group of people called firefighters? The chief may be the one who has the job, but if you're married to him, you are married to the fire department.

You might have been expecting to read the thoughts of my husband, Ron. After all, this is his column. But he started it! In his August 1996 Chief's Clipboard he asked, “How well do you know the chief's spouse?” He wrote about bringing your spouse into the discussion of accepting the job of chief, but that's just the beginning. There's a lot more to it than that.

Chief, if you're still reading this, you might want to stop and think about sharing this column with your spouse. That's who I'm writing it for. I'm assuming that there are a lot of spouses and partners out there who may have experienced the same things I have.

For a truly successful relationship to exist between a spouse or partner and a fire chief, there are lessons to be learned that don't come with the marriage certificate or the badge-pinning ceremony. When I first met Ron, I knew nothing about the fire service. Therefore, when I was beginning to date him I didn't understand his job at all. I didn't know which end of a hose did what. I recall one incident early on when he didn't make a date we had set and told me he had gone to a fire! What a lame excuse, I thought. Now I can converse in fire talk and understand the language of even the wildest of tales being told by his friends. Very little fazes me now. What I learned really quickly is that very few occupations require the person who chooses the job to have such an understanding spouse. That's saying a lot considering that I come from an airline family in which long interruptions and shift-scheduling were a way of life from my childhood on.

In my own case after dating my chief for awhile, I figured I had to catch up. He was already a battalion chief when I met him. I actually took an Introduction to Fire Science course at the local junior college so I could develop a vocabulary to catch up. I recognize that not every one can do that, and I recognize that some of the spouses I have met have literally grown up in the fire service with their significant other. And they married them anyway!

So what is there to learn? Lots it seems. And most of it has to do with modifying what you think is going to happen in a normal relationship in comparison to what the fire service demands of your spouse as a chief.

What is normal? Very few jobs are as demanding as this one. The badge is worn 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Not everything happens between the hours of 8 and 5 and you are expected to cope with anything that happens. But you cope anyway, don't you?

You get accustomed to the fact that the pager can go off at any hour of the day or night for some kind of disaster. I have watched many a fire from the distance, listening to the radio in the bedroom, with an increasing level of anxiety as the radio blurted out how hard the fire was to control. But you can't be there with them, so you cope. Once Ron had a major gasoline tanker fire burn up about half a mile from our house. The fire occurred about 5:30 a.m., so I got up, made a pot of coffee and pulled out some chairs in the driveway to watch. The neighbors even joined in. What other kind of job has those kinds of perks?

Oh, I'm sure you've heard “I'll be home in a few minutes” and hours later you hear the tires squeal on the driveway. If the chief says “I'll be home at 6,” it really means “I'll be home when you see me come through the door.” I even learned to sometimes start dinner at the time he said he would be home knowing that he would be late. In some cases this type of lifestyle has destroyed relationships. Others have been true success stories. We have now been married over 33 years now, and I have seen the best and the worst of being involved with the chief of a fire department by watching our friends.

As I see it, if your partner or spouse is climbing up the “fire ladder of success,” you need to have a game plan of your own if you want the relationship to survive. This job comes with a lot of stresses and strains. What needs to be considered is how to keep those stresses and strains out of your marriage. That's not a simple thing to do.

There are difficult aspects of this that are almost painful to discuss. We have seen divorces among our friends. We have seen the stress result in their deaths. But we have also seen high points and the achievements of these partners. But this is a column, not a book. I will limit myself to five suggestions:

1. Plan for what you need to be prepared for.

2. Maintain your own identity.

3. Determine how much to be involved in the fire service yourself.

4. Deal with issues of competition between the job and the family.

5. Cope with the job's stress on your spouse.

In Ron's original column he noted that there is no training program to be the chief's spouse. I found that much of the training comes from other spouses. Many of our friends were from the fire service, and I was glad to get the inside skinny from many of them along the way.

But there are things that you can start planning for. For example, you have to learn to operate independently, because the chief may not be there when a crisis happens at home. You have to develop a sense of how to be supportive without being overly demanding. You need to develop a sense of how to be there when they need your advice yet know when they need to the time to work out a problem that's causing them grief, without being obtrusive.

If you're going to sit at home wondering what the chief is doing and wait until your spouse comes home to have a life, you're going to be sadly disappointed. You need to have a support system. It could be a church group, volunteer group or any form of interaction that you enjoy so that you have a place to call your own with or without children. You could take a class that is of interest to you. But you can't sit at home fretting over the fact that you're all alone in the house for long periods of time.

If your partner is taking a class for advancement or teaching a class or speaking at a meeting or attending a city council meeting, you need not feel left out or totally on your own. It's likely that the chief will bring home problems that are occurring around the staff conference table or in city hall meetings, or worse yet, really tense labor/management issues to discuss around the dinner table — or not! Which is worse: Knowing about the pressures and trying to be supportive, or hearing about them on the local news and watching your spouse internalize them?

Sometimes you need to get involved in your community. This is what happened with me. I was very visible in the community from my volunteer work with a Junior Women's Club. There was even a story circulated once that my husband “the fire chief” was once introduced as Marie Coleman's husband, “what's his name.” I think Ron started it! Make sure that your identity is not linked to the chief's badge.You need to be a true partner in the job instead of just the recipient of its benefits.

I have collected a few signs as to how well people cope. For example:

• You wear jewelry that includes some symbol of the fire service, and you want more.
• You have decorated at least one room in your house with fire memorabilia.
• When the pager goes off in the middle of the night, you poke 'em to get up, and you go back to sleep.
• They spend hours in the classroom, but you have to type up the notes.
• They study for the exam, but your coaching could have helped you to pass the test.
• They graduate and receive the diploma, but you have to plan the party.

You're very likely to meet other spouses in your shoes. Whether they are married to peers of your spouse or superiors or subordinates makes no difference. They could be in your own department or from another. The culture seems to be the same the world over. Many of the characteristics of being married to someone who pursues a leadership role seem to be the same everywhere.

One of the dangers in being involved with others in the fire service is that it can create competition. My advice would be to avoid petty politics at all costs.

God forbid that your chief is elected to a position in one of the many fire service organizations. It's hello to a lot of dinners that consist of rubber chicken, limp lettuce and acid-like coffee. Personally, I became so tired of eating with plastic utensils that I bought my own camper-ware so I could cut meat without going through a dozen or more plastic knives.

There do seem to be some differences based on the size of the department, but they seem to be more of scale rather than type. For example, being involved with a small fire department often puts you in contact with a lot of young people who see you as a parental figure. Early in Ron's career he headed a combination fire department. Most of the volunteers were single young men, so we became the “Dear Abby” of the department. Dealing with boyfriend and girlfriend problems were not uncommon topics of conversation at our household. Ron was always bringing someone home for dinner to talk over one problem or another.

When you are in small organization, everyone just sort of grows up together. But that relationship seldom remains the same as a person climbs the ladder of opportunity and starts to move around. I was fortunate because we have had only two major career changes during our marriage and one move. Ron went on to the Fullerton Fire Department, where he was chief of a much larger organization and I wasn't involved at all with the department except as requested. The department was well-established and on its own. My role changed to be more formal and less personal.

But then came the career change and the move that tested the relationship. Of course, I was happy for Ron to be appointed state fire marshal for California, but I did not want to move to Sacramento. I have talked to a lot of spouses who have had to deal with such “professional mobility.” Men forget that when they move and change jobs, they have a built-in relationships with the position, but that doesn't transfer to the family.

Sometimes this means starting all over with your day-to-day life: hairdresser, dry cleaner, supermarket meat counter and more. Often we don't go right back to work the day after we move. We have to begin a new life from scratch. Ron and I tried a “commuter marriage,” but it wasn't working for us. Being the state fire marshal's wife required more social interaction with the political people. After a year of commuting I left behind my 20 years in San Clemente to move to the state capital. What a change and culture shock that was!

Then, in between all of this, Ron moves from serving as a committee chair with the IAFC to president! Ron became a great one to call home and say he was bringing so and so home for dinner without much notice. So one phone call to the local butcher to feed two or five or even 10 people. I'd arrive home to the various dinner guests, never know who might be spending the night. You have to become flexible and find menus that are quick and easy to prepare at a moment's notice. If your chief has recently been appointed or elected to something, call me if you need those recipes!

So through the chairs he goes. I learned to have a clean set of shirts and pants pressed and bagged at the cleaners so only the ties needed to be slipped in. I went to the drug store and bought a dozen of the travel-size toiletries to have on hand to pick off the shelf. Often I was unpacking one suitcase while packing another. Then I purchased an extra dozen or two of T-shirts and underwear so I wasn't washing clothes every other day. Then off he went and I had some days free to do what I want — no cooking, no dishes!

The biggest thing you have to learn is to become more independent. You have to dare to repair because you're on your own so much. Call a plumber or painter and get it done, and you'll be so much happier than waiting for your spouse to paint or fix whatever's broken.

A lot of this was easy for me because we didn't have any children of our own. That was a choice we made because I was older when we were married and Ron already had two children from a first marriage. I have seen that the family pressures on a fire chief can weigh very heavily, especially if your partner is rapidly moving up the promotional ladder.

Of course, many of our fire family friends do have children. Just remember there are going to be those days and nights when your spouse won't be available for those special occasions, so you have to make those executive decisions on your own.

Being in a relationship with a successful and committed person in any profession is hard enough, but living with the fire chief is just a little more difficult than most because it requires so much adaptability and flexibility, coupled with the fact that this work is dangerous.

I never looked on the challenges as problems as much as I considered them opportunities. I learned early on not to make commitments for us until I cleared his calendar. More than once I had egg on my face calling to cancel dinners and movies with friends because there was a conflict. If it's the right group, go by yourself so you can have a good time and not feel ticked off because you couldn't go. Once friends see you coming on your own, they'll understand and continue include you in social events.

Of course, you also meet your share of new people through the various meetings and conferences. One of the nicer aspects of meeting others in the fire service is the feedback. People I don't know thank me for “letting Ron” be as involved in the fire service as he is, and I find that a big reward.

What would I change in my life? Not anything really. I am me and Ron is Ron. We have a great trust and bond in each other, and I think that speaks volumes when it come to what changes I would make — none really — but he could be a little tidier with his projects around the house!

For me, this is a life that parallels what the fire service is all about. It has it highs and its lows, but it is a life where your spouse really does make a difference to a lot of people — more than most jobs in this world. According to the wife of one of our dearest friends in the fire service, you feel that you have to either view the experience as “the sky's the limit or sit home and cry.” Sometimes you just have to live with the fact that you will do a little of both.