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You are here: Home / Military Life / I Could Never Do It

I Could Never Do It

May 23, 2016 by Julie 5 Comments

“I could never do it.”

“I couldn’t be a military spouse…”

“There is no way I could handle my husband being away from me”

I Could Never Do It

If you have been a military spouse for any length of time you have probably heard people say that to you before. It just seems to be the thing to say. I am sure it is not because people want to insult us or make us feel bad.

I am sure saying this is just an honest response to hearing about our lifestyle but it still bothers us. This phrase makes it sounds as if we are more okay with our spouses being away than other people would be. That we are more okay with going months and months without our spouse by our side. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Before my husband joined the Army, I couldn’t do it either.

I said I could never handle him being away or having to parent my son alone. I just couldn’t imagine a world where that would be our reality. Then a few months passed and we decided he was going to re-join the Army.

I had to start being a solo parent right away. Even though I didn’t think I had the strength to do so.

I said that I couldn’t do it when there were rumors that our deployment would be 15 months. I didn’t think I could get through that. But I did.

When I thought about giving birth without him, I didn’t think I could do that either but I did.

When I got married, I did not see deployments in the future as I walked down the aisle.

Even women who married someone already in the military could not have imaged how hard military life would really be. The military is not something you can plan out ahead of time. The military life is a journey with all kinds of twists and turns. Sometimes you will come up against a struggle you don’t think you can get through. But you do.

At the end of the day, we love our spouses. We know what their job is and we stand by them. Even if it hurts, which is does. Even if we sometimes think we can’t be strong anymore.

We push through the hardships because we know that the man or woman we see in uniform waiting to hug and kiss us after the deployment is worth all the waiting. We know that if our spouse thinks that they should be serving in the military, that we will stand beside them.

Know that sometimes us military spouses can’t do it either. That we are not always so strong and that we sometimes need a little more support.

So when you see a military spouse, try not to tell her that you could never do it. Because I bet if there was a time in your life when you and your spouse had to be apart, you would be able to somehow do it too.

Know that military spouses are not strong because we are a special type of person, but that this life has made us that way.

Know that we want our spouse home every night just like you do. That we hate that they have to miss so much. That some days are harder than others and that we know that someday we won’t have to be apart anymore.

Instead of saying you could never do what a military spouse does, tell your military spouse friends that they are capable of making it through. Tell them that if they need to break down sometimes, that is okay and that you are there to listen whenever they need to talk. Be their friend, give them hugs and know that life brings each of us challenges and that this one is one of theirs.

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Filed Under: Deployment, Marriage, Military Life Tagged With: army wife, deployments, getting through a deployment, military wife

About Julie

Owner of Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life. Writer, reader, coffee drinker. Mom to three boys, wife of a National Guard soldier. Living life in Tennessee.

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Comments

  1. Julie S.

    May 23, 2016 at 11:05 pm

    I love how you said that – the life makes us strong. We weren’t necessarily strong before that. That’s so true. And oh man, that comment. I recently did a post “what it’s really like to be a military spouse” and got so many “I couldn’t do it”s. Come on, now!

    Reply
    • Julie-Soldier'sWife,Crazy Life

      May 30, 2016 at 10:43 am

      Yes! We are not special, just had to get stronger through everything.

      Reply
  2. Amy

    June 17, 2017 at 10:11 am

    I am a military brat. I grew up watching my manage a successful career, take me back and forth to hospitals alone and care for an aging parent, all while my father, who we adored, was away for 6 months at a time. I also saw her loneliness on Saturday night, “their night”.

    She dais that not everyone was cut out for this life, that you had to be strong,capable and independent. I am grateful to her for being all of those things and for teaching it all to me.

    Hats off to you ladies. Whether you start off that way or you become so, your strength makes you special, especially to us.

    Reply
    • Amy

      June 17, 2017 at 10:12 am

      I’m sorry, this was hard to write and I typoed. I was talking about my mom.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Can Anyone Make it as a Military Spouse? says:
    January 8, 2018 at 10:00 am

    […] you love your service member, you can get through anything. When my civilian friends tell me they could never do what I do, I want to tell them they could if they had married a service member […]

    Reply

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Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life

Welcome to Soldier’s Wife, Crazy Life! I am so glad you are here.

My name is Julie and I have been an Army wife for almost 15 years now.

My husband of 18 years has served in the active-duty Army and now the Army National Guard. We have lived in Germany & Tennessee during our time as a military family.

We have three boys and have been through four deployments together.

I hope that you can find support for your own deployments, pcs moves, or anything else military life brings you 🙂

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