Yep Roughnecks are a crazy bunch. I got my little brother on as a Roughneck working for Nabors Drilling when he was fresh out of the Army. He was 225 lbs of solid muscle then and loved the hard labor/tripping pipe. He moved up the ladder pretty quick and was doing pretty good for himself and his young family, was working on a site up near Casper Wyoming when I had the unfortunate duty to call him and inform him that his beautiful wife was cheating on him back home. He came home/got divorced/& got custody of his Son. That was the end of his Roughnecking Career.
Thats a all too common scenario.
Its a young man's job with no wife or kids.
A lot of guys get on, start making good money, with their improved income comes lifestyle creep, then comes a point where they can't get out because they can't replace the income with another job. I had alot of friends in the oil field and it was hard on all their families.
There is some truth to your words there. Hell, before it happened to my little brother the exact same thing happened to me, and it was him that called me on the road LOL. I was running a project on a Jack-Up rig in Brownsville. Young man with lots of responsibility and worked a chit ton of OT with few days off. Just trying to work as much as I could and save money so I could buy a house for my wife and 2 young kids, and a nice car for my wife. Then one day at work my little brother calls to inform me that my wife was cheating on me back home while I'm out there busting azz every day staying faithful.
I've never been a Roughneck, but have worked in other sectors of the Industry for a long time now. You go from making minimum wage in HS, to $250k + a year, and it's awfully hard to get out and take a job making a lot less money. It get's in your blood, and you grow accustomed to having a little money put away. You want a new gun, you buy it etc. Lifestyle creep happens to a lot of folks in the patch. Me personally, I would rather save money than spend it...but looking back now, hell I should have spent it ALL on whatever the hell I wanted because the Ex took it all anyway.
Being gone working in the patch is hard on a lot of families. You're either fussing/fighting with your wife because you are gone all of the time chasing that dollar, or you are fussing/fighting with your wife because you took a job back home @ 40 hrs/week for less pay and now you don't have money to do anything or go anywhere. This has been my personal experience. Good Lord, damned if you do, damned if you don't. I suppose none of this would matter if you were lucky enough to marry a good/faithful & loving woman that would never do you wrong no matter what. Especially if everything you are doing is for her. My little brother and I just laugh at each other now, and we have both just learned to accept the fact that when it comes to women, we just have really chitty luck.
It's not just the patch. Hell, look at all of the folks in our military who are away from each other a lot longer than us. I've seen marriages fall apart there too. I used to play music all the time. After playing another gig one night at a local dive here (when the base was still open), this VERY good looking lady (smoking hot) took interest in me. Long story short, she wanted to do a little mattress dancing. I had just been divorced so of course said HELL yeh, let's roll....then I discovered that her HUSBAND was in the Navy and was gone for a few months on an assignment somewhere. Ah hell naw, as tempting as she was there's no way I would do that to that man. As pretty as she was, she was damn ugly to me at that point. Sorry azz cheatin' POS, and I told her just that as I walked out the door. Cheaters gonna cheat.