I was thinking about what you, Cotejy and Fireflyr, said and I just wanted to drop some observations about it, drawn on my past experience. Until last year I was engaged with a pilot, and my female friends and male university's students colleagues (outsiders to the aviation world) used to ask me how I could have "this kind of relationship". I used to wonder about what "this kind of relationship" meant, given the fact that for me - being my first serious relationship - everything was at the same time either normal (I had no past to compare with) or new. But looked at from the outside, I had a man who was working more or less 12+ hrs per day, 7/7, with whom I could not spend a weekend together, with whom I could not plan a vacation, with whom planning a dinner with friends was already a tour de force, a boyfriend who never came to university with me when I had an exam, who was unavailable til late in the evening, when I could often scoop him up from the floor, given the fact he was tired. I think for me was normal and wonderful either because I was in love, or because I had completely accepted his way of life and what it carried to the “us”. I never felt I was living something not worth of living: I felt realization of the couple (and thus me, being part of it!) passing by the fact he felt happy and realized by what he was doing and, second thing, my life was not over outside the couple, on the contrary, it was quite full: I had exams to prepare, a doctorate to write, sports I practiced, flights to do, and my life was stuffed even when we were not together. And we shared a great passion together, the one of flight, that is a potent glue. So said, I honestly think that to be the partner of a full time pilot doesn’t give you a “routine life”, so the partner must be ready to accept it, and must either be independent enough to live by him/herself and must always understand that the couple’s growth passes by the happiness of both participants, so he/she must understand that he/she must never (and even try to) cancel or limit what makes the significant other happiness. I do not flight for work, but I see that either that way some part of the principle works: today I could never ever start a relationship with somebody who – at least – doesn’t like flying, since I know that were I with somebody who dislike flying, he would try to stop me, when I just plan to go for a ride. The point is, why – on earth – is just the pilot’s category affected so much by the partner’s drawing of a limit? I never heard anybody saying “he should stop doing this work: he is a boring banker!”.
And, last thing….@ Fireflyr: Just see how a pilot lovingly touches the controls of the aircraft, and you'll understand why it’s so easy to be attracted to him: You wonder if I say that I once forgot to take off for that reason?!?!