New to Australian Defence life?

TL;DR: Your partner joined the ADF. You didn’t — but their service will still affect your family life.

Defence life can bring postings, time apart, changing plans, new admin and a lot of unfamiliar language. You don’t need to learn everything at once, and you don’t need to make Defence your whole identity.

Start with the basics: know where to find official information, understand which responsibilities belong to the member, keep your own support network, ask questions when something affects your family, and check current policy when money, housing or entitlements are involved.

You’ll learn the rest as you go.

Someone you love has joined the Australian Defence Force.

Suddenly there are acronyms you’ve never heard before, people are talking about postings and exercise and courses, plans seem to depend on dates you don’t have yet, and someone may casually mention that your partner is going “away” without explaining whether that means three days, three weeks or six months.

Welcome to Defence life.

There is a lot to learn, but you don’t need to learn all of it at once.

You also don’t need to become an expert in your partner’s job, memorise Defence policy or rearrange your entire life around their career from day one.

This is a place to start.

**First: your partner joined Defence. You didn’t.**

That might sound obvious, but it really does matter.

Your partner has accepted the conditions that come with serving in the Australian Defence Force. Their career may involve postings, training, exercises, courses, irregular hours, periods away from home and, depending on their role and Service, deployment.

Those things can affect your household considerably.

They don’t make you a Defence employee.

You haven’t enlisted. You don’t have a chain of command. You aren’t required to participate in Defence social events, make friends only within the Defence community or build your identity around your partner’s service.

You can be supportive of their career and still have a career, friendships, interests and plans of your own.

That distinction can become useful later.

Defence life has a habit of becoming part of the family calendar. Sometimes it takes up a lot of space. Keeping parts of your life that belong to you can make repeated moves and periods apart easier to manage.

So what actually changes?

For some families, quite a lot. For others, much less than they expected.

A member’s Service, mustering or category, unit, location and career stage can all affect what their particular Defence life looks like. Two Defence families living in the same suburb can have very different experiences.

There are, however, a few things you may start encountering.

Plans can become less predictable

Courses move.

Exercise dates change.

Posting information can arrive later than you would like.

Someone can be told they’re required somewhere when your family already had plans.

Sometimes the member knows very little more than you do..

This doesn’t mean you need to stop making plans.

Book the holiday. RSVP to the wedding. Make plans for the weekend. You may simply become more familiar with having a Plan B.

Time apart may become normal

Depending on your member’s job, time apart might involve recruit training, Initial Employment Training, courses, field exercises, sea time, temporary duties, deployments or other Service requirements.

Some families experience frequent absences and others can go long stretches without them. You will eventually work out what this looks like for your family — you don’t have to become “brilliant at separation” straight away.

Moving may become part of family life

ADF members can be posted to different locations during their careers. That can mean moving house, changing schools, finding new childcare, rebuilding work, learning a new town and making new friends. It can also mean deciding not to move with the member.

Families don’t all make the same choice, and there can be practical, financial and eligibility considerations attached to those decisions.

When a posting comes up, check the current Defence and DHA information that applies to your situation rather than relying entirely on what another family received during their last move.

Defence Housing Australia provides housing and relocation-related services for eligible ADF members, and Defence Member and Family Support provides information and support around posting and relocation.

We’ll cover first postings properly in another Ready for Service Life article because they deserve considerably more than a paragraph.

What doesn’t change?

You are still allowed to build a life that works for your family.

Defence will make decisions based on Service requirements. That doesn’t mean every family decision needs to be based on Defence.

Your children can have activities outside the Defence community.

You can have civilian friends.

You can pursue work that matters to you.

You can start or run a business.

You can decide which Defence community activities suit you and which don’t.

You can ask questions.

You can choose not to attend things.

And you can find Defence life difficult without being unsupportive of your member.

There can be a strange pressure when you first enter this community to work out what a “Defence family” is supposed to look like.

There isn’t one version. Defence itself describes its families as coming from many different places, backgrounds, experiences and cultures. You’ll find your own way of doing it.

What are partners responsible for?

This is an area worth getting straight early.

There are things Defence provides because of the member’s service. There are services families can access. There are circumstances where Defence recognises the effect Service life has on partners and children.

That does not mean Defence manages your family life for you.

You will still make ordinary adult and household decisions around things like:

your employment or business
family finances
childcare arrangements
friendships and community
household routines
your children’s activities
personal appointments
maintaining your own support network
deciding how your household handles periods apart.

There will also be Defence administration that belongs to the member.

You can certainly understand it. In many households, partners become very knowledgeable about postings, removals and housing because those decisions affect everyone, but it is worth remembering whose employment it is.

Your member needs to read their posting information, understand instructions that apply to them, complete required Defence administration and raise questions through the appropriate channels when something is unclear.

You can work through the family consequences together. That split matters, particularly when you’re already carrying a large share of the household load.

You are allowed to contact family support yourself

You don’t always have to wait for your member to find an answer for you.

Defence Member and Family Support — usually shortened to DMFS — supports ADF members and their families across different stages of Service life.

The Defence Member and Family Helpline is the first point of contact for Defence families looking for support, information or help connecting with services and community resources.

It can assist with areas including posting and relocation, deployment and time apart, partner employment, childcare and education, family needs and personal or family support. The Helpline operates 24 hours a day on 1800 624 608.

You don’t need to wait until something has gone badly wrong before using it.

Defence also publishes a Defence Member and Family Information Guide, covering different stages of Defence life, including posting and deployment.

Use the official material alongside the lived experience you hear from other families.

The two serve different jobs. Official sources can tell you what the current policy, service or process says. Other Defence families can tell you what Tuesday afternoon looked like when the removalists arrived, the toddler refused to sleep and their partner had already signed into their new unit.

You’ll probably need both.

A few Defence words you’ll hear early

Defence has an impressive ability to turn almost anything into an acronym.

You don’t need to memorise the lot.

These are some you’re likely to encounter early.

ADF — Australian Defence Force

The collective term for the Royal Australian Navy, Australian Army and Royal Australian Air Force.

Member

The person serving in the ADF. You’ll see Defence information refer to “members” frequently.

Defence family

A broad term used for the people connected to and supporting an ADF member. Different programs and entitlements can have their own eligibility definitions, so being described generally as a Defence family doesn’t automatically mean every program applies to you.

DMFS — Defence Member and Family Support

The part of Defence you’re likely to hear about when talking about family support, relocation support, community connection, partner employment, education support and assistance during periods apart.

DHA — Defence Housing Australia

DHA provides housing services to eligible ADF members and families. You may deal with DHA when looking for housing at a posting location, living in a DHA property or accessing some housing-related services.

Posting

An assignment of an ADF member to a position or location.

In family conversation, “we’ve been posted” commonly means the member has received a posting that may result in the household relocating.

Posting order

The formal information relating to the member’s posting.

If someone tells you not to make major moving arrangements until the posting order arrives, this is what they are talking about.

Posting cycle

You’ll hear this used around the annual movement of members between locations and positions. There are also postings that happen outside the main cycle.

March in / march out

Terms you may hear when moving into or leaving Service accommodation or housing arrangements.

RA — Rent Allowance

A housing benefit that may apply when an eligible member rents privately. There are rules around eligibility, rent ceilings and posting locations, so don’t use another family’s RA amount as a guide to what your household will receive.

LIA — Living-In Accommodation

Accommodation, commonly on a Defence base or establishment, used by members in certain circumstances.

MWD(U) or URF

Member With Dependants (Unaccompanied) or Unaccompanied Resident Family.

You may hear this when a member is posted to one location and their recognised dependants remain elsewhere. There are specific conditions attached to these arrangements

MWD or ARF

Member With Dependants or Accompanied Resident Family.

You may see dependant classifications used in Defence pay, conditions and housing information.

PACMAN — ADF Pay and Conditions Manual

This is one you will probably hear whenever questions about entitlements, allowances or conditions of service become complicated.

PACMAN contains the formal rules covering a large number of ADF pay and condition matters.

It isn’t light reading. You also don’t need to read the entire thing.

If something affects your household financially or determines an entitlement, finding the current rule rather than relying on “someone in the group said…” can save a lot of confusion.

IET — Initial Employment Training

Training undertaken after initial recruit or officer training to prepare the member for their particular employment category. Depending on the role, this can mean another period away from home after recruit training.

Exercise

Military training activity. An exercise may last a day, several weeks or longer. The effect on families varies enormously depending on the member’s role and unit.

Deployment

The deployment of ADF personnel on an operation. Not every period away is a deployment, despite the terms sometimes being used interchangeably outside Defence.

Chain of command

The formal line of authority and responsibility within Defence.

Your member has one. You don’t.

You will hear advice. Lots of it.

Once people know you’re new to Defence life, advice tends to appear.

Some of it will be excellent.

Some of it will have been accurate three posting cycles ago.

Some of it will apply to Army but not Navy, one employment category but not another, one housing classification but not yours.

And some of it will be confidently wrong.

Defence policies, programs and providers can change. Eligibility can depend on the member’s circumstances. Use community knowledge to help you work out what questions to ask. Use current official sources when you need the actual answer.

If money, housing, an entitlement or a major family decision depends on it, check.

Please don’t compare your Defence life too early

One family might move three times in five years.

Another may remain in the same location much longer.

One partner may spend months every year solo parenting.

Another member may work fairly predictable hours.

One partner may love posting somewhere new.

Another may be trying to rebuild a career for the fourth time.

None of those experiences tells you what yours will be.

It takes time before you learn the rhythms of your member’s role, their unit and your family.

You don’t need to prepare for every possible version of Defence life today.

Learn what you need for the stage you’re in.

Then add to it.

A few things worth doing early

You don’t need a giant Defence-life admin folder before your member has finished training. A few basics will help.

Know how to contact the Defence Member and Family Helpline.

Start keeping important household information somewhere you can access it when your partner is away.

Talk about how you’ll handle money, emergencies, household decisions and communication during periods apart.

Make sure you each know where important documents and insurance details live.

Keep your own emergency contacts.

If you move, build some connections that aren’t dependent on your partner being available. And when something Defence-related affects your family, ask where the written information is.

That last habit is useful.

There is no prize for doing Defence life the hardest way

You will probably become more capable at managing uncertainty, moves, solo stretches and strange acronyms than you ever expected. That doesn’t mean you have to make everything harder to prove that you can cope.

Use the support that applies to you. Ask the obvious question. Take the practical help. Keep the freezer meal. Call the friend. Say no to an event because you’re tired. Join the community group if you want company. Skip it if you don’t.

Your member’s career will bring things into your family life that you can’t always control. You still get a say in how you build the rest of it, and you do not have to work all of that out on day one.

Welcome to Defence life.

We’ll help you work through it one bit at a time.

About this information

Boots Back Home is an independent resource for Australian Defence families and is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Australian Department of Defence, the Australian Defence Force, Defence Housing Australia or the Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

Defence policies, benefits, services and eligibility requirements can change and individual circumstances differ. Where a decision depends on an entitlement, condition of service, housing arrangement or Defence policy, check the current official information or contact the relevant Defence service before making financial or family decisions.

Information checked: September 2026.