Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life

Military Life

To the Young Military Spouse Who is Struggling

by

To the Young Military Spouse Who is Struggling

Being married at a young age can be a fantastic thing. You found the person you want to spend the rest of your life without having to wait years to do so. You can take comfort in the fact that you will get to grow old together, starting in your 20s or even late teens. There is a lot to be excited about when you get married at a younger age.

However, being married young can also be tough. All marriages have their challenges. You can get married in your 30s and be divorced by your 40s. There isn’t a particular age in where you can make sure your marriage will be a good one and will survive, but being young can add some extra stress to your marriage. If you marry young, you will be growing up together, working through issues that other people resolve on their own before marriage. Marrying young means having to push other parts of your life onto the backburner. College and the first few years of your career can be skipped over for an early marriage and becoming a mother. There is so much to think about when marrying young.

Being a military couple adds in other stresses. From being a part through basic and AIT to moving far away from home and then deployments and trainings. No matter how old you are, these stresses can get to you and hurt your marriage if you let them.

For the young military spouse, all of this can lead to plenty of frustrations. While your friends are off at college, you are trying to make a home in a new state with a husband who is off at war. You can no longer relate to them, but you struggle to make friends where you are. This can create loneliness, and that frustration can lead to blaming the marriage or even your spouse for how you are feeling.

So what can you do? What do you do when you feel so helpless and alone? When you wonder if you should have waited a bit longer. When you question if going to college would have been a better choice. What do you do when your spouse is overseas and doesn’t seem to want to talk to you and in some cases even tells you he doesn’t want to be married anymore? What do you do when it seems your marriage is falling apart before it has even had a chance to start?

Remember, all marriages have seasons

There is a time for all things. Some seasons of your life will be happier than others. You will go through challenges as a couple. Money problems, military frustrations, issues with work, with your children and even other people. Some seasons will be easier than others.

Just because being married young is going to be a challenge doesn’t mean your marriage won’t make it

For every couple that married young that didn’t make it, another one did. Try not to listen to those who say you won’t make it because you are so young. They are not a part of your marriage. Keep what’s important in mind and do what you can to make the marriage work.

Military life adds additional challenges

No doubt about it, marrying into the military is going to give you extra challenges. A year-long deployment a few months after you get married is going to challenge you in ways you never thought possible. Remember, you are not alone in going through this. Many couples have gone before you and have gotten through.

Love your spouse through the difficult moments

When things are difficult, keep loving your spouse. Remind them of the time when you fell in love. Write letters, emails and send care packages. Sometimes service members can get into deployment mode and that can complicate things. They might not be acting like the same person you know and love. Keep in mind that deployments can change the way things are and even if they do go back to normal when they get home, you will each grow through them.

Stay busy when they are gone

When your spouse is gone, stay busy. Go to college, online if you can’t go to a physical one. Start working, build up your career. Make friends, make plans. Go out to lunch and plan dinners. Work on your home or get involved in volunteer work. This is always something you can do to stay busy.

Don’t push for babies, enjoy your pre-baby time

This is complicated. Some of you came into the marriage with children. But if you haven’t, wait. Even if you wait until you are in your mid-20s, you will still be a young mom. Children are awesome and can add so much to marriage but they are also a lot of work and getting pregnant right away, especially when they are in the military can be too much for some people. Wait if you can, even if you wait an extra year. Enjoy your pre-baby time because once you start having children, everything changes.

Don’t be afraid of counseling

If you need to, see a counselor. If your spouse won’t go to counseling, go by yourself. Military One Source has a lot of resources. Being able to see a counselor on a regular basis can be a good outlet to help you see what you need to work on and what you two can work on as a couple.

Find older spouses to learn from

Learn from those who have gone before you. Talk to your grandma, your mom or an older sister or friend. They have been through what you are going through in the past and have some words of advice. As you start your military journey, you will be able to connect with other spouses that have been living the military life longer than you have.

Fight for your marriage

Sometimes you will have to fight for your marriage. Sometimes you might be the only one doing so. This is going to wear you out but keep thinking about what you have committed to and commit to working through whatever it is that you need to work through to help your marriage.

Embrace the military life

Being able to embrace the military life is going to help you navigate through the challenges you face. This doesn’t mean that you have to be happy about everything the military does or that you will not go through times when it feels like you can’t make it another day, but being able to look at the positives of this life will be a good idea, especially when first starting out.

Be wary of what you tell your family

When you marry young, you might have just left the home you grew up in. Almost overnight you could have gone from a teenager finishing high school to a spouse. This can be a complicated process, and in some cases, it is hard to make that change. If you and your spouse are going through some difficulties, be careful of what you are telling your family. They can remember what you say and bring that back up years later, even if you have moved beyond it.

Find good friends and choose wisely

Be careful about who you share things with. Not everyone you meet is going to have your best interests at heart. Get out there and make friends but save your secrets for the people you can trust and rely on the most. The ones who you trust to get advice from and those who know how to keep a secret.

So, to the young military spouse that is struggling, you have to want to be married to the person you have chosen to walk down the aisle to. You made that decision, and you have to want the relationship to work. While not everyone who tries for their marriage will succeed, every person that did has tried to make things work, even in the most difficult of circumstances. *

What advice would you give to a younger military spouse?

* If you think you are in an abusive relationship, seek help and figure out a way to get out. You do not need to try to make things work with someone who is hurting you. That is not okay and there are resources out there to help you.

To The Military Spouse With Toddlers

by

To The Military Spouse With ToddlersTo The Military Spouse With Toddlers

2007 was a year for me. I had a newborn, two-year-old and a deployed husband. We were in Germany and man, that was quite the challenge. The toddler years are rough for anyone, add in the Military and a deployment, and you can find yourself in a stressful situation.

These days we are just months away from that two-year-old turning 13 and becoming a teenager. My newborn? He will be 11 this year, and his “baby” brother is almost 6.5. Time goes by, and kids grow up. The toddler years, as difficult as they are, go by and soon you find yourself in a different stage of life.

As I look back on those years, the ones where I had two in diapers, the ones that never seemed like they would end, I am reminded of how difficult they were for me and how much I struggled with them. People tell me that the teen years are worse and I pray that isn’t true for us because those toddler years? They just about did me in.

I do wonder what those years would have been like had my husband never deployed. Would I have been more patient? Would those years have been easier? Would I even know how much harder things could have been?

So, to the military spouse with toddlers that is feeling so burned out and frustrated, know that I have been there. I know what that is like.

What it is like…

  • To wake up in the morning and wonder how you are going to make it through the day with these kids. To have to find things to do and ways to occupy your time.
  • To not have someone coming home later that night to help. To be the only parent in the house. To be the one that does everything when it comes to the kids. To be both mom and dad for months at a time.
  • To wonder what the heck you are going to make for dinner because your toddler only likes chicken nuggets and you hate to cook.
  • To be envious of friends who have never had to solo parent more than a day or two.
  • To countdown the hours until your husband is home from work, only the hours are weeks and work is Afghanistan.
  • To have to figure out how you will get all of your groceries, a baby and a two-year-old up to the third floor in one trip. You realize you can’t possibly do that, so you have to decide who is going to go first.
  • To not be the parent you want to be because you can’t seem to figure out how to do it all by yourself and you have to let things go.
  • To have to make decisions about your child all by yourself because you simply can’t talk with your spouse for more than five minutes at a time.
  • To not have any family nearby to help you out when you could use them.
  • To be so tired and exhausted that you can’t possibly imagine going another six months alone, but then you do.
  • To fly across the world with just you and the kids. Two in diapers, one still breastfeeding and knowing that you will probably get 500 stares along the way.

download (4)

So to the Military spouses with toddlers, it’s going to be okay.

You are living some of your hardest years as a parent, and you have to do a lot of that on your own. Sometimes it really sucks, and there isn’t much you can do to change that. You just have to remember that this too shall pass and this stage will be over before you know it.

You have to depend on your friends, have vent sessions, meet for coffee, take the kids to the park and relax when you can. Know that you are doing the best you can with the life you have. Know that kids do grow and things get a little better. Know that as your children get older, life will get a little easier. Know that you won’t always feel like you do right now. Kids grow. They start school. They learn how to use the potty. They learn how to get dressed without you. They learn how to make breakfast.

They do, I promise. And when you get to that stage, you will look back and remember the days when it didn’t seem like all that was possible.

Do you have toddlers? What are your tricks for getting through difficult days?

To the Military Spouse Worried About War

by 3 Comments

To the Military Spouse Worried About War

I was in college on 9/11. I was dating my husband at the time and we pretty much already knew we would be getting married the next year. He was in IRR (Individual Ready Reserve) at the time.

When I heard that some IRR units were being activated, I started to freak out a bit. This was before we ever talked about him going back into the military, before I ever knew I would be a military spouse, before I ever thought about sending my husband off to war.

In the end, his unit did not get called up. It would be another five years before my husband would have to go to war. He started a deployment out of Germany in August of 2006.

That deployment was originally nine months, yet became 12 and then ended at about 15. That deployment was a difficult one for everyone. During this time we were right in the middle of the Iraq war.

So many people in the military were being deployed. So many men and women were going overseas.

Ever since then things have taken a tone towards “less war.” Yes, people are still getting deployed to very dangerous places. Yes, people are still going to war, but in the last few years, the tone has changed a bit.

This is to be expected. Things change over the years. Things change with different Presidents. Different decisions have to be made. The military ebbs and flows. If you have been a military spouse for more than a few years, you know this.

As tensions start to heat up again in places around the world, us military spouses can start to get a bit worried.

And rightly so. More war means more deployments. More war means more time away. More war means stepping up what it means to stand by someone serving in the military.

So to the military spouse worried about war, I get you. I know how scary this worry is, especially if you have never had to experience a deployment before. I think there is a good reason to be a bit worried when we hear about what is going on in the news.

Even though our head knows that going to war is exactly what our spouse has been trained for, even if we understand that on a logical level, our heart doesn’t quite get it.

Coming to peace with all this is a difficult thing to do. Coming to peace that our spouse, the mother or father of our children, the one we laugh with, make dinner with and enjoy life with will have to go somewhere scary is a difficult thing to do. Coming to peace with the realities of war, especially a long war, is a difficult thing to do.

So as you worry, know that so many of us are worried too. Know that we come from a long line of strong military spouses who have also sent their spouses off to war. That no matter what happens you will always have the sisterhood of other military spouses behind you.

There is nothing anyone can say that can totally take away the worry we military spouses face when we know the love our life is in a war zone.

We just have to figure out ways to get through, to try not to dwell on that part of the job, to move forward and make the best of the time away. This the reality of being married to a service member.

There are so many reasons why a deployment can be so challenging and having a spouse in a war zone is one of them. Let’s all remember that we can get through this, even if the days get hard, even if the nights get lonely and even if we get so scared that we are not sure what to do.

How do you make peace with this part of military life?

What You Can Do to Avoid Drama in Your Milspouse Life

by

What You Can Do to Avoid Drama in Your Milspouse LifeWhat You Can Do to Avoid Drama in Your Milspouse Life

Drama. It’s everywhere, isn’t? You want to stay away but you can’t. You want to get out there and make friends, but you don’t want the drama that comes with that. The truth is, drama is everywhere, but you don’t have to let the frustration take over your experiences. You don’t have to make the drama the center of your world.

Here is what you can do to stay away from the drama beyond staying in your home with the doors locked. (Because sometimes that seems like the best plan.)

Walk away

It’s simple. If you see drama, walk away. You don’t have to be a part of the drama if it doesn’t concern you or something you are a part of. Sometimes when we get bored, drama sounds exciting, and we want to be a part of it, even if the situation isn’t our business. Just walk away.

Be choosy

When you are making friends, be choosy. If you meet someone and they seem to be all about the drama, keep your distance. You can still be nice to people and not get involved in their drama. You might have to work with people you don’t always get along with, that is life, but if you can set up boundaries for yourself, you will be better off. Keep in mind that most people who gossip about other people will probably turn around and do the same to you in the future.

What You Can Do to Avoid Drama in Your Milspouse Life

Be kind

If you can be kind to others, the kindness will spread. People are less likely to be rude and disrespectful when other people around them are being kind. This doesn’t mean you have to take it when other people are rude to you. You don’t have to put up with that, but you can also be kind in your responses to the way you handle those people. Being kind is a good trait to model for your kids as well. In their friendships and relationships with others.

Don’t engage

A lot of drama comes from engaging with others about the issue is. Pick your battles. Is it worth getting into a fight with the person down the street? Should you go after someone you met at the FRG meeting? When you have to live around other people, try to keep the peace. Of course, this isn’t always possible but check yourself before you engage someone else about their behavior and make sure letting go wouldn’t be the better thing to do.

Don’t be a rumor mill

Don’t spread rumors and make things worse, especially about other people. If someone tells you something in confidence, keep that to yourself. You don’t need to be sharing secrets if someone asked you not to. That is how you can break a friendship. If you hear something about someone you know, don’t assume the rumor is true. What you heard could have been made up by someone else.

Be the bigger person

At the end of the day, be the bigger person. Don’t go off on someone that annoyed you in a Facebook group. Let things go. You don’t even have to respond to their behavior. If you get involved in a situation with someone on your military community, try to be the bigger person. Seek advice from good friends on what you should do. Don’t feel like you have to get revenge on everyone who has wronged you. Hating other people will bring you down. So be the bigger person. That will make your life easier.

Talk things out

If you do run into a situation with someone else, talk things out. See if you can come to an understanding. Sometimes the drama is because two or more people don’t understand one another. And if you could talk things out, the situation can get cleared up, without a lot of drama.

At the end of the day, remember, you can’t make everyone like you, and you can’t please the whole world. You got to be you, and you also need to live in peace in your community. Yes, there is going to be drama, but you don’t have to be a part of that drama. Do what you can to stay away and live a better military spouse life.

Have you experienced milspouse drama? What did you do about it?

Finding Your Military Spouse Tribe

by

Finding Your Military Spouse TribeFinding Your Military Spouse Tribe

“Find friends,” they say. “You need friends to get through military life,” they say. You understand why they say this. Life IS better with the support of other people. The problem is, you have been at your duty station for six months now and are still struggling to find your people. You had people, but they all moved away. You are so busy with your kids that time with friends seems to never come.

You have never been one to make friends quickly. You are choosy and don’t trust a lot of people. You have been hurt in the past, and you just don’t want to give your heart to anyone. At the same time, you yearn for a circle. A circle of friends who get you and your life.

Finding Your Military Spouse Tribe

Friends who understand why you can never just turn off your phone, even during a meeting.
Friends who get how hard it can be to tell your child their Dad is not coming home at night.
Friends who know what saying goodbye to the love of your life is like and not just for a weekend business trip.
Friends who feel the pain of being 2,000 miles from your mom even though you need her at the moment.

These friends, you want them too. You see how close your spouse is to deploying and you know you want to find your people before that happens.

The truth is, sometimes friendships come easily. You met someone at swim lessons and the next day you are sitting in her backyard sharing memories about how you both were over in Germany. Her in 2002, you in 2010.

The truth is, sometimes they don’t come so quickly even though you are putting yourself out there, going to play groups and joining the FRG.

The best thing to do, the only thing to do is be a good friend, continue to put yourself out there and believe you will find your military sisters, even if it takes some time. Look at your local community, figure out what you can do each week to meet new people and have faith that your circle is out there.

Finding your tribe might take some time, but once you do, the benefits will be worth it.

14 Memes for Your Milspouse Life

by

14 Memes for Your Milspouse Life

14 Memes for Your Milspouse Life

Whether you are getting ready for your 3rd PCS or just started your 1st deployment, milspouse life is unique and comes with its own challenges. Some days will be easier than others. Some years will be easier than others. Here are some milspouse memes to help you through…:)

milspouse memes

If you have ever been through a deployment before, you have probably been through these stages. #4 can be the hardest but #5 makes you feel like the strongest person in the world.

milspouse memes

One of the best feelings is to be reunited with a good friend! Good thing the military world is so small.

 

milspouse memes

Yes, yes it can 🙁 Just remember, deployments don’t last forever.

 

milspouse memes

Having your own battle buddy on the homefront will make any deployment a bit easier. You two know what missing your spouse is like and how hard solo parenting can be.

 

milspouse memes

Seriously! Deployments don’t go by too fast…they usually go at a snail’s pace. So never say that to someone about their deployment.

 

milspouse memes

Yep, they wouldn’t happen any other weekend…of course not. Gotta love the drill weekend.

 

milspouse memes

Would the military please make up its mind??? You just want to know where you will be living!

 

milspouse memes

Just keep at it, friends will come, even if it takes a while.

 

milspouse memes

Truth! Remember this! It will save you some heartache and frustration.

 

milspouse memes

Basically, be a good person 🙂

 

milspouse memes

If you need help, ask for you. Some couples need a little extra help to get through the time after a deployment.

 

milspouse memes

Yes. Never stop the love! Keep it flowing, even across the ocean. Say it as often as you can.

 

 

milspouse memes

Yes, be kind. You never know who just say goodbye to their husband. We might all be dealing with something.

 

milspouse memes

Each day down is another day closer. You got this! You really do!

What’s your favorite milspouse meme???

 

Debunking Myths About Deployment

by

Debunking Myths About Deployment

Waiting for a deployment to start can be a bit scary. There is a lot of advice, and you might be feeling a little unsure about what a deployment will be like. Will the deployment be too hard for you? Will you struggle every day or be able to find a way to get through? Will you thrive or just simply survive?

There are some ideas about deployment that I just don’t think are true, at least not for me. Here are some myths about deployment and the truth behind them.

Debunking Myths About Deployment

 

Never countdown the days

I love counting down the days when my husband is gone. I love waking up in the morning and crossing a day off the calendar. It’s what gets me through. Not everyone likes countdowns, but they are a part of how I deal with deployments. If you like countdowns too, use them, just remember to never make them public on social media.

Keeping busy will be enough

Although the number one piece of advice during a deployment is to keep busy and doing so will help, keeping busy isn’t everything. Sometimes being too busy can make your flustered. You might need that downtime, just not too much of it. Filling up my calendar with a lot of activities but also leaving room for chill days is how I make things work during a deployment.

Going home will solve your problem

Going back home for a deployment can be a very good idea, especially if you have a supportive family. However, you are still going to have stressful deployment days. You will still really miss your spouse, and there could be other issues that come up if you are home. You could be the only one in your friend circle without a spouse around, you could feel too much pressure to see all the people you used to hang out with, you might not get along with your family as much as you thought you would. Really reflect on the decision to go home during a deployment and know that it could come with its own set of challenges too.

Deployments will get easier the more of them you do

If only we could get a degree in deployments. If only the more of them we go through, the easier they would become. The truth is, you will have hard deployments and more difficult deployments. The details of what is going on in your life during each deployment can be so different. One deployment you could be pregnant, the next you might have a two-year-old. Try to take what you learned from each deployment to help you through the next one.

You can’t have fun without them

There is this idea that you shouldn’t have any fun when your spouse is deployed. This isn’t true. While you will miss them when you are making plans, you need to be able to have fun without them, especially when you have kids. You have to be able to take them places, make memories together and enjoy your life, even when your spouse is deployed.

Shorter deployments will be easier

I once thought that the shorter the deployment, the easier the deployment would be. Not true. One of my hardest deployments was just six months long, one of our shorter deployments. Although I would always take a six-month deployment over a 15-month deployment, shorter doesn’t always mean easier.

Once they get home, all will be perfect

When your spouse is away, it is easy to focus on all the good things about your relationship and ignore any issues you were having or anything that needs to be worked out. Even if things were going well for you when they deployed, know that reintegration can come with struggles. As they come home and you get back to everyday life, you will have to get back to the daily challenges that come with raising a family, being married and having a spouse who just returned from a war zone. Getting excited about the homecoming is a good thing but always be aware that there could be a lot of work to do once the ceremony is over.

No Cost Breast Pumps for Military Spouses

by

No Cost Breast Pumps for Military Spouses

no cost breast pump through Tricare

This is a sponsored post! All opinions are my own!

I had my third baby in 2010, right in the middle of military life. I was thankful that my husband was home for the birth as he was deployed when our 2nd little boy was born. However, after he was born, we learned that my husband would, in fact, deploy again when our baby was just 2.5 months old.

Breastfeeding has always been important to me, even before I had any children. I knew that was how I wanted to feed my babies. With my first, we struggled a lot, especially at first but I was able to breastfeed him until he was 17 months old. With my 2nd, I breastfed him about nine months, and now that I had my third baby, I wanted the breastfeeding relationship to work. I wanted to be able to give him breastmilk for as long as possible.

The struggle I had was juggling three boys, with a deployed husband, one of them being a breastfed baby. My plan was to breastfeed him for at least a year, but a few weeks after my husband deployed, I started struggling. I was tired and not making as much milk as I could have been. I was stressed from the deployment and raising three kids on my own.

After a few weeks of wondering if we could continue to breastfed, I was able to start using a breast pump. The double electric pump allowed me to be able to give my baby breast milk for longer than I would have otherwise. The pumping allowed me to make more milk and continue to feed my baby what I wanted to feed him. Having a breast pump helped take a little bit of the stress away and made things easier.

These days, getting a breast pump as a military spouse is a very simple process. Tricare will provide female military personnel as well as military spouses with a breast pump as well as breast pump supplies for no cost. will help you do so.

How do you go about receiving a no cost breast pump from Tricare?

  • Get a prescription from your doctor. The Breastfeeding shop can contact your physician for you.
  • Select your breast pump. Find the best one that works for you.
  • Fill out the order form. You can find the form at .
  • Your breast pump will be directly shipped out to you.

Having access to a no cost breast pump is going to help a lot of women continue in their breastfeeding relationship. Visit for more information and to start the process of receiving your breast pump.