Why We Have To Show Compassion To Other Military Spouses

There is more than one way to be a military spouse. We all have different strengths as well as weaknesses. While I might cry to get my emotions out, another military spouse might do so in other ways. We also never quite know the journey someone else is on.

What we put out there in social media, is hardly ever the whole story. Someone can appear that they have it all together when they are just getting by. Others are more vocal about their struggles than their friends are. That doesn’t mean those who don’t share aren’t struggling too.

Us military spouses need to show compassion to other military spouses, even if we don’t understand their journey.

We need to show compassion, whether they are dealing with a miscarriage, a divorce, or just having a difficult time with military life. We need to show compassion when other spouses are struggling because you never really know how bad things are or how long they have been dealing with their struggles.

It’s okay to miss your spouse, no matter how long they might be gone. While a long deployment is going to be harder than a drill weekend, that doesn’t mean the spouse going through a drill weekend is having an easy time with her husband being away. And while you might be able to rock a month-long training without a beat, someone else might need to have a 10-minute crying session every night to get through.

Sometimes a shorter deployment will be more difficult than a longer one.

Sometimes that 5th deployment is the one that seems impossible to get through. Sometimes the two-week training that doesn’t seem so hard, is one of the first times a spouse has been without the person they married. Sometimes a spouse just hits her breaking point and can feel like she can’t make it one more day without her spouse by her side.

What seems hard to us might be easy to someone else. What seems like “no time at all” can be “the longest time” for different people. This is why we have to have compassion because any time away from our spouse sucks and we all have to work hard to make it through.

Having that compassion is the right thing to do. It helps the struggling spouse know that someone is listening. It helps them not feel so alone.

Having that compassion helps build up the military community instead of tearing it down.

It helps foster friendships and allows people to truly get to know other spouses. It helps local military communities as well as the online ones. Compassion will go further than rudeness any day.

Having that compassion helps set a good example to the brand new military spouse. When you are new to this life, everything seems so overwhelming. Knowing that you are going into a community that cares makes a difference.

Having that compassion is important because it makes life a little easier for everyone. Helping a spouse who is missing her husband will help her in the future. Knowing there are people you can reach out to will make life easier for you. And who needs the drama that comes with being nasty?

Photo by Dương Hữu on Unsplash

The truth is, you don’t have to agree with everyone.

We might all handle the same type of military spouse experience in different ways. Some will take each separation more to heart than others. You never know how you might feel about a future deployment, even if you feel like you are rocking your current one.

We have to show compassion to other military spouses so that our community can be a strong one. So that we can truly depend on one another. So that we can make it through the struggles that military life brings.

When has another military spouse shown compassion towards you?