Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life

military life

Dealing With Disappointment During Military Life

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Have you ever planned a vacation only to have to cancel or reschedule it because military dates changed?

Have you ever given birth when your husband was deployed because they simply wouldn’t send him home like you thought they might?

Have you ever wanted to be stationed close to home only for your spouse to get orders clear across the country?

Most military spouses have been through one or all of these disappointments not to mention others that can happen when you are a military spouse. Dates change, your spouse can’t always be around when you need them, and you don’t always get a choice in where you are going to live.

What can you do when disappointment hits? How can you turn things around to get to a better place? 

Shock

When met with disappointing news, you will probably be in shock. They say to “hope for the best, plan for the worst” and we know things might not work out the way we want them to, but we still hope that they do. And then when they don’t? We can’t believe we are hearing that news.

If you feel shocked when you realize things are not going to be the way you want them to be, you are not alone. It’s normal to feel this way at first. You had the hope of a better outcome, and now you have to start to accept your new reality, and that isn’t always easy to do.

Dealing With Disappointment During Military Life

Sadness

After shock comes the sadness. You are going to have to move to Alaska even though your family lives in FL. Your husband is going to deploy right before your 30th birthday. Your family trip to Walt Disney World will have to be postponed by six months.

You might need to take a moment to cry into your pillow. You are allowed to be sad about this; you are allowed to have those emotions. Let things out, call a friend and vent, have a good cry, and then move on to planning.

Planning

Every time I get some disappointing news because of my husband’s job, I eventually find myself coming up with a plan. I know that I will need to be creative to move forward. I will need to figure out a way to get through whatever it is I am dealing with.

If it is a matter of an unexpected deployment, I try to figure out what I can do during that deployment to stay as busy as I can, I think about how the deployment pay can help us, and I think about extra things I can do that I might not have time for if he wasn’t going to be deployed.

Being able to have a plan to deal with the disappointment will go a very long way in finding relief.

Dealing With Disappointment During Military Life

Relief

Relief happens when you get to a place where you feel like you can figure out a way forward. It might not always be easy, you might not always be happy about what happened, but you can figure out how to get through it.

If you assumed your husband would be at the birth of your first child and they are not, you are going to go through a wave of emotions about it. You will eventually figure out who you want with you because he can’t be. And then you will start to accept that this has to be your new normal. And with that comes the relief that you can, in fact, give birth without your husband. 

You Got This

Remember, you got this. Reach out to your friends, make plans, and figure out how to deal with disappointment in your military life.

Disappointments will happen in military life. They say to write all plans in pencil because all plans can change, no matter how close you are to the date they are supposed to happen. We as military spouse want to support our service members and getting to a place where we can move forward is a good way to do so.

What do you do to get over disappointment during military life?

6 Tips for Solo Parenting With Anxiety

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I hate solo parenting. I hate being the only parent in the house. I love having my husband there. Yes, I love having someone else that can help with the kids, but I also like having that other person to bounce ideas off of or to work through problems with. When he is gone, solo parenting gets to me. My anxiety goes up, and that makes solo parenting even harder than it could be.

Over the years, I have found ways to make this part of military life easier for myself. I have figured out ways to cope, to make myself get through whatever issue I am having, and to help remind myself that I can do this, even if my other half is on the opposite side of the world.

Over the years I have learned that I am not the only military spouse that deals with anxiety. That I am not the only one that struggles with this. That, through conversations with military spouses over the years and my own experiences, I have learned how to handle solo parenting and how to get through a deployment when my anxiety wants to take over.

Although solo parenting with anxiety makes thing even more difficult, there are ways to get through. This is what has worked for me:

Lots of lists

I try to make lists of everything I have to do. For work. For the home. For my kids. I have a planner I check all the time. If it isn’t written down, I might forget so I make sure to do that as soon as I can.

Writing everything down is a visual way for me to stay organized and manage everything I have to do. Sometimes things can get quite crazy around here, and I need those lists to stay grounded. And that helps with my anxiety levels.

Solo Parenting With Anxiety

Make a plan for getting out of the house

When I first had my 2nd son, I was overwhelmed with the thought of us all leaving the house. I had a two-year-old, a newborn and a deployed husband. So I broke everything down.

The first step, gathering everything I needed to bring with me. The second step, make sure baby was ready. Third, make sure I was ready. Fourth, make sure 2-year-old was ready. Fifth, recheck baby because you know there could always be a dirty diaper to change right before you need to leave. When I broke things down like that, it made leaving the house a lot easier.

These days, my boys are older and can do most of getting ready to leave the house themselves. But in my head, I still kinda go through a checklist before we go anywhere. Doing this is good for my anxiety levels and ensures that I rarely forget things, although that can still happen every once in a while.

Google it

When my husband is gone, I don’t have him to bring up the little things with. So Google steps in. If I am worried about something that might not be that big of a deal, I Google it. I see if anyone else has had that worry. I check to see if it could be something else.

Now, you can’t trust everything you read on the internet; I know this well. However, it can be a starting point for figuring out what is going on. I know I can also send an email or call my children’s doctor for more serious health-related questions.

Ask a friend

Sometimes asking a good friend about your worries is a good idea too. You never know if they might be struggling with what you are struggling with too. Acting like we have it all together is way too easy to do, I am guilty of that. I know when I am more open with good friends about struggles, we can talk them out and help one another.

I might be struggling with a child at school, a friend might be struggling with potty training, but we can offer our advice and help one another out. While when my husband is home, this is easier to do with him, I know I can depend on good friends to work through these problems too. If we have that type of relationship when he is gone, it can carry over even after my husband comes back. That can make for stronger more longtime friendships.

Solo Parenting With Anxiety

Respite and breaks

When my boys were young, in the midsts of deployments, having respite and breaks was a lifesaver. Maybe that was dropping them off at hourly for a couple of hours a few times a week, maybe it was going to MOPS on a regular basis, or maybe it was simply trading babysitting with a friend, so I could get my grocery shopping done.

There are quite a few ways to find childcare in the military community. They might not all work for you or your situation, but they are worth checking out. Having a small break can energize you and allow you to work on your parenting goals even if your spouse is far away.

Involving my husband

Just because your spouse is deployed, it doesn’t mean they can’t have any say in what is going on at home. You know your spouse and what they can handle. See if you can talk with them about what is going on at home.

The trouble sometimes is that since your spouse is not currently living in your home, they can’t see the whole picture. This means that the advice they give might not work for you. That’s okay, but talking about your struggle with them can help them feel connected back home and offer you something to think about.

I never look forward to solo parenting. I know that my anxiety levels will be higher than when he is home. However, I want to do what I can to make the best of solo parenting with anxiety, to find solutions to the little issues I am dealing with, and to have a better experience than I have had in the past.

What are your best tips for solo parenting when your spouse is away? What works for you and your family?

When You Don’t Feel Strong Enough For Military Life

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I couldn’t believe he was gone. I couldn’t believe this deployment had started. I couldn’t believe I had to go through this again.

I certainly didn’t feel strong enough for this. I didn’t feel strong enough for the deployment. I didn’t feel strong enough for military life.

And yet, somehow, the days went by. Somehow I made it through that deployment. Somehow I was strong enough to do just that.

Through that deployment, and other past deployments, I realized something powerful.

Not feeling strong enough to get through something doesn’t mean I am not strong enough to do so.

Often times, us military spouses feel like if we are not 100% prepared for any possible situation, if we can’t get through everything military life brings with a smile on our face, if we can’t do a thing without a couple of meltdowns, we are not a good military spouse.

This isn’t true at all!

The truth is, you are not always going to feel as strong as you want to. I certainly don’t. Some days I might feel like I have military life down, and other days? Not so much.

So, if you are not feeling strong enough for military life, you are not alone, and there is nothing wrong with you.

Sometimes military life makes it hard to feel strong.

But what can you do about this? How can you find your inner strength? How can you get to a place where you feel like you can handle what military life is currently throwing at you?

Depend on your friends

I am not sure what I would have done over the years without my friends. They truly got me through, each and every deployment. From helping me stay busy, to being a shoulder to cry on. Depend on your friends, they can help you up when you are feeling down.

Don’t compare

This one is hard for me. When it feels like your husband is always the one who has to go, being happy for others can be more difficult. When it seems like your kids are the ones who have to go without their dad around, life can feel pretty unfair.

The best thing to do is to stop comparing yourself to other spouses, both civilian and military. Some service members deploy more than others. Some civilian spouses will never have to spend more than a weekend away from their spouse. And that is so hard to take.

But we can’t compare and dwell on how unfair everything is. We have to pull ourselves out of that. And if we can do that, we will be able to get to a better place and we won’t struggle with jealousy quite as much.

This too shall pass

If you need to tell yourself, “this too shall pass,” 50 times a day, do it. Reminding yourself that this deployment is a temporary situation is going to go a long way. I can’t tell you how many times I would feel like I was in stuck in a deployment funk, but simply reminding myself that the deployment was temporary helped me feel so much better.

When we are going through a difficult time, feeling like this is how life will always be is way too easy to do, but that isn’t the case. Look at how far you have come, and know you can be strong through the rest of the deployment too.

If you need extra help

If you are going through a deployment and you struggle with anxiety (which I do) or depression, please don’t be afraid to ask for extra help. Your mental health is so important and working on that during a deployment is a must.

The Truth About Military Life, In 30 Military Life Memes

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The Truth About Military Life, In 30 Military Life Memes

Military life is truly an adventure! Over the years I have found myself in different situations, going through different challenges and meeting some of the most amazing people. Here are 30 memes that talk about the truth of military life. Enjoy these military life memes!

Military Life Memes

Yes! Sometimes we have to take those deployment days one day at a time!

 

Military Life Memes

Summer block leave is the best!

 

Military Life Memes

Such is military life!

 

Military Life Memes

The reality is, summer is always hard to plan.

 

Military Life Memes

Yes, I thought Prom was it, but now there is the military ball!

 

Military Life Memes

Because they are always worth waking up for…

 

Military Life Memes

So true. They don’t care. The homecoming dresses are for us.

 

Military Life Memes

I am pretty sure I still have stickers from 2006.

 

Military Life Memes

Yep. Don’t shop on payday, just don’t.

 
Military Life Memes

Yep! Just keep working towards that finish line.

 

Military Life Memes

For reals! At least we don’t have to share every night!

 

Military Life Memes

Yes, it is totally okay to cry sometimes. Totally.

 

Military Life Memes

Yep! Not all of us get to live near the beach 🙂

 

Military Life Memes

We all want to make a deployment a little easier!

 

Military Life Memes

You got this! PCS like a boss!

 

Military Life Memes

Yep! All the cereal, all the time.

 

Military Life Memes

Seriously! You really don’t know that far ahead of time.

 

Military Life Memes

Yep! Sounds about right!

 

Military Life Memes

So true. That’s hard, no matter what age your children are.

 

Military Life Memes

So true! We are always learning about military life!

 

Military Life Memes

Yes! That’s what military life is all about!

 

Military Life Memes

No, there really isn’t.

 

Military Life Memes

Seriously! If it’s not one thing, it’s another.

 

Military Life Memes

Sounds good to me! All of these things will help through those deployment days.

 

Military Life Memes

So true, that is the best way to make friends at your new duty station.

 

Military Life Memes

So true, especially in this military life!

 

Military Life Memes

Going through the stages, one at a time.

 

Military Life Memes

That is the best! You never know when you will see your military friends again and a new duty station.

 

Military Life Memes

Yes, remember, deployments don’t last forever.

 

Military Life Memes

Yes, yes we do need those military friendships.

Here are more military life meme posts to enjoy:

13 Memes About Military Spouse Friendship

22 Memes All About Military Marriage

14 Memes for Your Milspouse Life

12 Memes About Military Kids

22 Signs That You Have Been Stationed in Germany During Your Spouse’s Military Career

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I was recently added to a Facebook group for my husband’s first duty station in Schweinfurt, Germany. While the post has been closed, the group is mostly about our memories of our time there. My husband arrived there in late 2005 and me, and my son joined him in March of 2006. We lived there until May of 2008 when we moved to our second duty station in Germany, Grafenwoehr. We were there until we moved back to the states in 2010.

Spending four years in Germany was quite the experience. Sometimes I loved being there; sometimes I hated it. Sometimes I couldn’t quite believe we were living in Germany. Having a baby, raising toddlers, and having a deployed husband can make for a different kind of experience than we might otherwise have had.

As I think back to those years, I realize there are quite a few things about being stationed in Germany that will stick with you forever. That those of us that had the experience have a bond, one that can connect us over the years.

Here are 22 signs that you have been stationed in Germany during your spouse’s military career:

1. You can still recite AFN commercials, even years later. I mean, you did see the same ones over and over, how could they not stick in your head?

2. No matter how bad on post housing is now, you can handle it; you survived stairwell housing, you can survive anything.

3. You miss your beer truck. Enough said.

4. You are still finding Euro coins, in every corner of your house.

5. You have at least one child who was born there if not two or three.

22 Signs That You Have Been Stationed in Germany During Your Spouse's Military Career

6. “Ausfahrt” still makes you giggle.

7. The German section at your local Commissary simply doesn’t measure up.

8. You can talk about that one time when you flew nine hours on a flight with a one-year-old on your lap, trying to save $700 on their ticket. Not worth it. 

9. You get excited when ordering a soda and it arrives with ice in it.

10. German music still makes you smile.

11. Whenever you meet another spouse and hear they were stationed in Germany, you have to talk about your shared experiences.

22 Signs That You Have Been Stationed in Germany During Your Spouse's Military Career

12. You miss the community feel that you can only find overseas.

13. You get annoyed that you have to pay for a care package. You miss when they were free. APO to APO shipping was the best.

14. It takes you two years until you stop asking every store and restaurant if they take a card. Of course, they do silly.

15. You keep wondering why your waitress wants to rush you out of the restaurant, in Germany, they let you chill for as long as you wanted.

16. You still get super excited that you can go to Target anytime you want.

17. You cry when you break a dish because you know you can’t go back to the little German shop you bought it from and buy another one.

18. Your children have been to 10 countries already, and they are only six year’s old.

19. You swore you would never go to Taco Bell or Burger King again, but that only lasted three months.

20. The idea of being 9 hours behind your deployed spouse is crazy; you are used to just a couple hours difference.

21. You feel guilty throwing away anything that isn’t food scraps and wonder why your American city doesn’t recycle at all.

22. You have fond memories of your time there, the people you met, and the adventures you have. And you hope every military spouse gets the chance to experience something just like that during their time as a military family.

Have you ever been stationed in Germany? When were you there?

To The Military Spouse That Is Having A Bad Day

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To The Military Spouse That Is Having A Bad Day

Some days are better than others. This is true for everyone. Whether you are married to a member of the military, married to a teacher, married to a CEO, or married to a truck driver. This is true even if you are not married at all. Having bad days is a part of life.

Over the years I have had bad days because of deployments and bad days when my husband has been home. I have had bad days right after a PCS and bad days when we have been living in the same place for three years. I have had bad days when I didn’t have anyone to talk with and bad days when I have been surrounded by good friends.

So to you military spouse who is having a bad day, know that not all days will feel this way.

If your husband just deployed, know that your bad days will get better and that you will find the tools will get you through the rest of the deployment.

What do you do when you are having a bad day? How do you get to a better place?

If you are missing your best friend who just moved away, know that you can still be best friends and that you will make new friends in the future.

If your kids are not listening and you are about to lose your mind if you have to spend one more day solo parenting, know that kids grow out of their annoying stages and you move on. You find new tools to keep in your parenting toolkit. And that you won’t always have to be a solo parent.

If you are having a bad day because you just lost your job, a job you loved, know that there will be more jobs to love in the future. You won’t always be out of work. Keep on trying, and you will find a job you love again in the future.

If your paycheck isn’t reaching as far lately, if the extras that come from life are getting to you, know that you can figure out a way out of this situation. Go back to your budget and see what you can do to make your bank account happy again.

If you want to find a new career path and you feel like you have nothing to give, you do. Take a step back and think of all the skills you have, redo your resume, and start applying for jobs.

What do you do when you are having a bad day? How do you get to a better place?

If you feel lost and scared because your husband just got orders overseas, to a place that scares you, know that you will get through that deployment just like you got through the rest of them.

If you are upset because you were hoping for orders to the duty station 20 minutes from your childhood home, and you get them for a place across the country, know that your experiences there can still be good ones. Plus, moving there will give your family a chance to visit you in a completely different place.

Whatever it is you are dealing with, whatever is making you have a bad day, know that this too shall pass.

Life is all about change. Jobs change, friends change, and children change. Look and see what you can do to make life better and let the rest of it go.

As military spouses, we don’t have control over deployments, or where we will live, or what life will bring us. We do have control over how we handle deployments, what we do in our communities, and how we handle the bad as well as the good days.

So to the military spouse who is having a bad day, I get it. I have plenty of bad days myself. This week has been full of them. But I have to remind myself that tomorrow is another day, that things will change, and that overall things are pretty amazing.

Taking a step back to look at what you have instead of what you don’t can help with your mood. Remember years past when things didn’t seem so great but then ended up working out in the end. And be a person others can go to when they are not having the best of days themselves.

What do you do when you are having a bad day? How do you get to a better place?

How to be a Military Spouse With Boundaries

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How to be a Military Spouse With Boundaries

I recently saw a post on Facebook that talked about how you can still be a good person and say no, and that you are not required to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm and I loved it.

So many times, we as military spouses, get to a place of extreme burnout. We are simply taking on too much. And while I think there is nothing we can do about being the only adult in the home for months at a time or putting up with different military life challenges, we can control our boundaries and what we allow in.

I try so hard to avoid burnout. I don’t like the feeling that I have taken on too much. When I do that, I find myself way too stressed out and that isn’t good for anyone.

Boundaries are important for everyone. They can keep you grounded, and allow you to live your best life. They can help you stay calm in an otherwise stressful time in your life.

Here is how to have them as a military spouse:

Say no

It’s okay to say no sometimes. I know, that can be so hard to do, but saying no sometimes is necessary. Saying no can be necessary to our physical, emotional, and mental health. Saying yes to everything just because we are asked is a quick way to become overwhelmed with everything.

Remember, you aren’t meant to solve everyone’s problems

Helping other people feels so good, and there are so many chances to do so on a daily basis. But remember, you are not solely responsible for everyone’s problems. You can lend a listening ear, or even direct them to a place that can help. You don’t physically have to do everything for them. That is just too much for one person to take on.

You can be picky about your friends

You are going to run into all types of people in your daily lives. Some of them you will get along with and some of them you won’t. That’s life. You might have a coworker that gets on your nerves or a long-time friend who doesn’t respect you.

A part of having boundaries is recognizing that you don’t have to be close friends with everyone. You can be respectful of other people, without having to let them into your personal life. You can be choosey when it comes to who you spend your free time with.

Remember, saying no to one thing means saying yes to another

One of the most important things about boundaries is that by saying no to one thing, you can be saying yes to another. There are only so many hours in the day, and you can’t say yes to everything. Think long and hard about every yes you give. You don’t want to say yes to something you really hate when that means you will have to say no to something you really love.

That being said, you will have to say yes to things you don’t want to do all the time, especially if you have kids. But even with that, choose your best yes, and what works for your family. Saying no sometimes will free up time to say yes to things that are most important to you.

Following these tips can be difficult sometimes. Saying no isn’t always easy, even if you really want to. But having some type of boundaries in your life can make things a little easier, especially when you add in challenges that come with military life.

The Type of Military Spouse It’s Okay To Be

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The Type of Military Spouse It's Okay To Be

It’s okay…

You see it’s okay to be you. You are your own person. You have your own likes, dislikes and belief systems. You are who you are.

It’s okay to cry during a deployment, and it’s okay if you don’t. We don’t all handle deployment in the same way.

It’s okay to go home for a deployment because you feel that is what you need to get through. It’s okay to stay at your duty station because you can’t imagine going anywhere else while they are gone.

It’s okay if your house is kinda messy all the time and it’s okay if you are a neat freak that can’t sleep if anything is out of order.

It’s okay if you binge watch something every Friday night, and it’s okay if you never watch tv.

It’s okay if you have two children, or three children, or five children. It’s okay if you never want children and want to stay childfree.

It’s okay if you are a Christian, it’s okay if you are a Muslim, it’s okay if you are Jewish, it is okay if you are Hindu, and it’s okay if you don’t practice any type of religion at all. We all come from our own backgrounds and we all worship who we are going to worship.

It’s okay if you are a Republican, it’s okay if you are a Democrat, and it’s okay if you are not sure what you are and don’t want to pick a party.

It’s okay if you want to buy a house at your duty station and it is okay if you don’t want to own until after military retirement.

It’s okay if you want three dogs and it’s okay if pets are the last thing you want to deal with.

The Type of Military Spouse It's Okay To Be

It’s okay to be frustrated that you can’t find a job and it is okay to be happy that you are finally a SAHM.

It’s okay to be from a tiny town in Georgia, and it is okay to be from New York City and it’s okay that the two of you are best friends who met at a base in Hawaii.

It’s okay to love the show Army Wives, and it’s okay to hate that show with every fiber of your being.

It’s okay to be excited about going to spend four years in Germany, and it’s okay to be scared to death about leaving everything you have ever known.

It’s okay to go all out, hire a photographer for homecoming and spend $100 on an outfit. It’s okay to bring along a friend with an iPhone and to wear your favorite outfit from last year.

It’s okay to go to every ball and dance the night away. It’s okay to skip them and never attend, even if your spouse has to go.

It’s okay to love the FRG and volunteer to help. It’s okay to say no thank you and not attend spouse events as a general rule.

The Type of Military Spouse It's Okay To Be

You see, these are the types of military spouses you are okay to be. It’s okay to be you.

What is not okay is to bash others you don’t understand. It’s not okay to make fun of a spouse that is having a harder time than you are. It’s not okay to be unfaithful to your spouse, especially when they are deployed. It’s not okay to use the D word (you know the one) when referring to those you don’t understand.

You see, the military community is a diverse place. Military spouses are not all the same, and we can learn from one another. We come from all over the US and even other countries. We have different backgrounds and don’t all think the same.

But the one thing we have in common is that we are married to someone serving in our military. We have to say goodbye to them as they leave for deployment. We have to pack up everything and move every few years. We have to be strong, even when it feels like we can’t be anymore.

You see, the type of military spouse that it’s okay to be is one who is loyal, one who is able, one who is willing, and one who will do what they need to do to get through each day.