Military Life Is Not Like Any Other Job
11 months. That’s how long I have gone without seeing my husband because of his job as an Infantry soldier.
15 months. That’s the longest he has lived away from us because of his job as an Infantry soldier.
5 months. That was the length of his shortest deployment because of his job as an Infantry soldier.
When someone joins the military, everything changes. Their families have to adapt to their new career path. When someone joins the military, what used to apply no longer does, and there is a huge learning curve.
No, the military isn’t the same as any other job.
That does not mean other jobs are easy or that other families do not make sacrifices, but military life comes with a level of uncertainty, separation, and obligation that affects the entire family.
I will be honest, when I hear people say that the military is just like any other job, I just don’t understand it. They must have had a very different type of military spouse experience than I did.
My husband and I have lived many different seasons of life. Some of it as a civilian family, some as an active duty family, some as a national guard family, and some as a retiree family. And I can tell you that those military years were completely different than our non-military years. So much so that during those years, I created a whole blog about it 🙂
When the Mission Comes First
As a military spouse, we are not guaranteed that our spouse will be there for the birth of every child. Most commands do try to make it happen, but at the end of the day, the mission comes first.
As military spouses, we have to change our mindset when our spouse joins the military. We have to understand how important their job is. We have to understand that their job will come first, even in cases where the job wouldn’t if they were working a different type of job.
Orders Can Change Everything
As a military spouse, we move when they get new orders. We might leave our friends, we might leave our jobs, we might leave the only home we have ever really known. And we might not be ready to move on.
As military spouses, we often have to adjust our expectations and accept that the mission may come before family plans. It doesn’t matter if our child is graduating from high school or our brother is getting married; the mission comes first.
This does not mean we have to forgo everything, but sometimes, we don’t get to do what we otherwise would be able to do if our spouse was not in the military.
Making Plans Can Be Hard in Military Life
Over the years, you will get used to some of this, and at the same time, still get frustrated by it. You might need to vent to a friend when you find out your husband is deploying three months before your planned trip to Walt Disney World. You might get angry when you have to reschedule your anniversary trip for the fourth time because of a training schedule. You might break down in tears when you find out that your spouse will miss your son’s first birthday, just like he missed the 1st birthdays of your other three children.
There are rules, regulations, and ways of doing things that don’t always make logical sense. You will have trouble making plans because things change all the time.
Military Life Affects the Whole Family
Your children will have to say goodbye to one of the parents more often than other kids. They will listen to their mom or dad read them bedtime stories on a video. They will work with you to send care packages to far-away lands that most have only heard about on the news.
We create support groups both locally and online to help us spouses through the stresses of this life. From moving to deployments to general military life frustrations. We find friends to help us through, friends who become family.
Why Military Spouses Need Community
Serving in the military is a sacrifice. Doing so is giving up freedoms that other Americans don’t for the sake of our country. Being a military spouse is supporting those who serve in a very personal way. But because we do, our lives are changed forever.
And through the struggles we endure, we become stronger. We, seasoned spouses, can reach out to the new spouse and help them through what they are dealing with. We can figure out ways to endure through our more challenging days. We work hard to be strong, even if we don’t always feel like we are.
Military Life Changes You
At the end of the day, we look at our service member and know how important their job is. Whether they are deploying to Iraq or going down to Florida to help with hurricane relief. Whether they are preparing to train all summer long or moving with your family from your hometown in Ohio to a new home in South Korea. Whether they serve five years or retire after 30.