Railwife Guidance
Hi. It feels bittersweet to be back creeping on your sub as all of what felt like a 2025 year of hell, I was dedicated to researching support for my husband despite my own disagreeing thoughts. So I’m posting it the hopes one of your hard working, crusty bastards can make it to the end of my long ass story and shoot a railwife unbiasedly straight advice.
My husband’s career history includes class 1 railroad and the army, only when he was laid off from the railroad, many times. A bachelor for the majority of it, it’s what he knew, what he liked, what he bitched about, but truthfully I genuinely believe it’s where he grew his purpose. Even with the slow transition of employee focused to the corporate America scheme, he was proud to say he worked for the RR, he was confident in his work.
Fast forward a few years and it’s early 2025, we’ve just had our second kid which involved complications that had me staring death in the face hole. 4 days later we get home with our son and his phone begins dinging….check ins at first but quickly progressed to guilt trips, incessant asks to work (on approved FMLA) and even threats to withhold parental pay. This was the cherry on top of usual bonus shorting, schedules involving working days and nights each week, not backfilling open vacancies, doing the more for less thing and making sure you don’t get a safety violation.
15 years in the RR and I convince my husband to leave what I felt had turned into a shithole lacking respect for employee and for family. He chose to resign out of respect to his colleagues but hindsight educated us that getting fired would have 1000% been the better step. Tried his hand at financial advising and absolutely despised cubicle life. Tried applying elsewhere but a horrible job market and only niche experience humbled the hell out of us. He accepted an effort was had but crawling back to the RR was the next step as I returned to work (wfh) 3 weeks postpartum to help support our sinking titanic.
What followed next I’ll never forget and for reasons that still plague us, the RR rejected every application and surrounding RR contract gigs declined every application, every one. It felt like he was black listed, he called HR and his former boss with radio silence in return. Squeaky clean work record, the dude doesn’t drink or ever dabble in drugs for fear of a random UDS. He resigned out of his honest colleague courtesy and to also avoid termination which he felt would hinder any ability to return, a decision that also precluded us from RR unemployment.
Anyways, he fucking unraveled. I don’t know if it’s a him thing, a dude thing, a dad thing or a RR thing but all of 2025 for us was spent job searching, fretting over money, caring for our 2yo and infant, me working, him resenting and self loathing with each declined application. At the basis of simply being employed, this was an obviously really stupid move for our fresh situation and admittedly a hard lesson well learned and well deserved. I suppose we were just also ignorant in thinking a resignation would ever result in what happened.
2026 thankfully starts with a beacon of light, a major energy company takes a chance on him and he becomes an ops supervisor in a coal plant working with union dudes again doing blue collar dude work. People are treated like people and don’t hate their lives, benefits are great, he’s got a similar salary also with options for OT (weird, I know). He asked for an unplanned day off to attend his daughter’s 3rd bday (didn’t want to initially ask being new) and it was immediately granted no question. Something I know would never have occurred at the RR. His boss even relays to him when other external positions in the company are open and closer to our home, as he does have a decent drive that make long days longer.
An unreal experience following a boss that knowingly harassed him after the birth of his son and now caretaker of a recovering wife. I remember hearing his boss say ‘don’t you have help?’ after my husband told him I wasn’t allowed to even lift my infant son following my complication. I still remember looking at my husband, hearing his phone buzz, and saying his boss was sucking all the fun out of enjoying what was supposed to be a cherished memory with our son as a new family.
Fast forward to last week, he gets a call from RR HR offering a job. A fucking barrage of emotions for me happened, in typical toxic RR fashion, where the fuck were you for the whole last year? Seeing my husband beam knowing he finally got the call he wanted for so long warmed me. But now I don’t know where to sit myself with an impending decision for him. I will forever regret pushing my husband to leave the RR not because it wasn’t the right decision for our family, but because it was the right place for my husband. He’ll get all his benefits back and I’m sure negotiate to a decent salary. While I previously told him if he ever has the opportunity to return, as his wife I will allow and support him with whatever he feels is best. Now recognizing years of his life were spent dedicated to grinding his way up the RR and earning stay and benefits in return. But as a mother, I am torn knowing if he returns it will be forever and it will be for the RR. His purpose in the RR was found when he had nothing else to compare and I worry his reality is skewed with receiving the opportunity he previously thought gone forever. I worry he has more years remembering the enjoyment of being a part of the RR outweighing those he has enjoyed of fatherhood and both of us being completely unaware of what lies ahead with the many irretrievable moments waiting with our 3 and 1yo.
If you’ve made it to the end, thank you, this is all to simply ask:
Looking back, as a father/mother was it worth it for you to stay or return to the RR? Is the financial security and retirement worth what else might suffer? Would you do it again?