Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life

military spouse

No, The Military Isn’t The Same As Any Other Job; It’s a Unique Way of Life

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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.

No, The Military Isn't The Same As Any Other Job; It's a Unique Way of Life

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.

No, The Military Isn't The Same As Any Other Job

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.

No, the military isn’t the same as any other job.

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?

When Your Spouse Wants To Re-Enlist in the Military and You Don’t Want Them To

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It’s almost time for your spouse to re-enlist, decisions have to be made, and you feel like it is time to walk away from military life. However, your spouse does not agree and would love to do 20+ years in the military.

What should you do?

What can you do?

Is it even fair to them to say you don’t want them to re-enlist?

Breathe

First of all, take a breath. This is a big decision and not a simple one, and while this is your spouse’s career, you both need to be involved in planning your joint future. What you decide will affect you the spouse, and your children or any future children you might have. The decision to re-enlist in the military shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Ask yourself why

Ask yourself why you don’t want them to re-enlist. Break it down. Is it the solo parenting? Is it the up and downs of military life? Is it because you want to focus on your career and that is hard to do so with a spouse in the military?

Figuring out why you don’t want them to re-enlist is important. Make sure to talk this all over with your spouse. Let them know what you are afraid of. Let them know why you want to walk away.

Can you compromise? 

Can they re-enlist for three more years with the plan to re-evaluate at that time? No one signs up for 20 years at a time. Can you make a plan that he will serve for a certain amount of time, and then you will go back to school? Can you agree to try to be stationed close to home if possible?

Sometimes you have to suck it up

At the end of the day, sometimes you just have to suck it up. What people in this type of situation do is going to be different for each couple, for each person. There are different reasons why people want to walk away from military life, and only the couple can decide if they are worth giving up a military dream.

For some couples, this means the spouse will have to work out how they will handle more years of military life. For others, it means the service member will need to find another way to pursue their career goals. There isn’t one hard and fast rule for every couple.

If you find that you and your spouse are arguing about this and can’t seem to come to a good conclusion, it can be a good idea to seek extra help. Any marriage is going to have times when a decision has to be made about the future, and the couple isn’t always going to agree right away. Communication is so very important here, as well as keeping everyone’s feelings and desires in mind.

What To Do When Your Spouse Wants To Re-Enlist And You Don't Want Them To

There are situations when a couple can not agree on this, and sometimes a marriage will end over it. Other times, there will be a lot of hurt and frustration on both sides. A service member who doesn’t feel supported by their spouse, a military spouse that doesn’t feel like their spouse understands why they can’t do this anymore. Those situations can be so difficult and are never easy to navigate.

While I can’t tell you what to do in your own marriage, I can help with dealing with the frustrations of military life. Life as a military spouse isn’t easy, and you have to work hard to figure out ways to make it through.

This doesn’t make you weak but allows you to be strong.

What has worked for you when you have felt like you just wanted your spouse to get out of the military? What are your best tips for someone who is dealing with all of this?

When There is a Natural Disaster and Your Spouse is Deployed

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What To Do When There is a Natural Disaster and Your Spouse is Deployed

I have been through my share of earthquakes growing up in California. Fortunately, I was never in any danger from any of them.

After moving to the south, I have been through my fair share of tornado warnings, and they have been pretty scary sometimes.

The biggest issue we have dealt with when it came to weather when my husband was deployed was losing power during a storm, for about 37 hours. While we didn’t have any real damage, and USAA replaced all our food, it was a struggle not knowing when the power would come back on, and being on my own with three little kids during the power outage.

Hurricanes, fires, tornadoes, tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes, and even massive snowstorms can cause us to panic a little bit, or even more than a bit. We want to feel safe in our homes, but mother nature doesn’t allow us to always feel that way. Mother nature also doesn’t care if our spouse is deployed or not.

Dealing with a natural disaster with a deployed spouse is a bit terrifying, even for the most independent military spouse. You want them right by your side during this time, but they can’t be.

So what can you do when there is a natural disaster and your spouse is deployed?

Don’t panic

What you want to try not to do, is overly panic. I know it can be difficult, natural disasters are scary, especially if you have never been through that type of disaster before. You want to try to stay calm so you can figure out how to prepare yourself and your family.  You want to be able to think with a clear head.

Take warnings seriously

Blowing off a weather warning can sometimes be easy to do. There can be a lot of worry over a storm, and nothing comes of it. However, this isn’t always the case. It is better to be overly prepared than not prepared enough. Take any warnings about your area seriously.

Decide what you are going to do

If you live in an area that can get hurricanes, make sure you talk over with your spouse what you will do if one comes while they are away. What is your game plan? Do you have family or friends you can stay with?

In the case of tornados, make sure you know where your family is supposed to go once the alarms sound. Talk this over with your children, so they are aware of what to do. Practice earthquake drills, and be prepared for whatever type of natural disaster might hit your area.

Emergency kits

Put together your emergency kit, just in case. You might not need it, but it is a good idea to have. Check out Disaster Prep: 8 Things to Have on Hand for an idea of what you need in your kit. Do your research so you have the supplies you need.

Band together

Band together with your neighbors and military spouse friends. If you have a close friend, you might want to hang out together until the storm has passed. See how you can help one another out. You can do things like trade childcare as you each take turns going to the store to prepare your home for the upcoming storm or just be there for one another.

What To Do When There is a Natural Disaster and Your Spouse is Deployed

Follow the news

This is the time to watch the news during a deployment. Follow what is going on, you don’t want to be caught unaware. In our area, under a tornado warning, the news will show when the threat is supposed to hit your area by the minute. Make sure your weather radio always has working batteries and that you always have a way of being notified of a warning even if you are sleeping.

Here are some website and resources about natural disasters to help you:

10 Ways for Military Families to Prep Before Hurricane Florence

Disaster Preparedness 101

Military Family Preparedness

Creating a Family Emergency Plan

How military families should prepare for natural disasters

Steps to Take After a Flood, Fire or Other Natural Disaster

Hurricane Evacuations, Military Entitlements, and Insurance Coverage

Tips To Make Your Home Earthquake Ready

Red Cross- Find An Open Shelter

Sesame Street- Support After An Emergency

Prepare for Wildfire

Tornado Safety Tips

Tornado Warning: 7 Ways to Prepare Yourself

Another Hurricane Is on the Way: Is Your Military Family Prepared?

The MilSpouse’s Guide to Catastrophic Weather

Prepare for a Tsunami

Pets and Animals

Please stay safe if you are in harm’s way. Pay attention, and know you can get through this, as hard as it might seem.
 
 

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?

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.

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.

Why Military Spouse Friendships Are Important

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The first military friends I ever met were after I moved to Germany when I was 27 years old. I met most of these ladies through the FRG. I also met people through playgroups and PWOC. Over the years I have been able to make friends at places like swim lessons, MOPS, and our local Bunco group.

Sometimes it can take a while to find those people that you will connect with. When you move somewhere new, thinking about finding those friends can feel pretty overwhelming. Where do you go? How do you make friends? How much do you have to put yourself out there?

Military Friendships

Finding military friends might be difficult sometimes but worth it.

Here is why…

Friends make the time pass

Let’s face it, having friends helps the time to pass. Whether you are busy making lunch dates, dinners out, or just getting together with the kids every so often. Staying busy is a must and friends help you do just that. If you are new to your duty station, finding a friend who has been there a while can help you get to know the area too.

Friends get you through the hardest parts

Having a bad deployment day? You can call a friend. Not sure how you will get through the next few months? Let people know. Most likely they will understand what you are going through and want to help. Knowing you have people to go to just to vent or to work out a problem is a good thing.

Friendships

Friends help you make memories

When you spend time together, whether you do so on a holiday when both your husbands are deployed or you meet up regularly just to chat, you will be making memories you will always cherish. Once you or they move away, you will think back to those memories that you have made and smile. Even when several years have passed, you will look back at those moments and be so thankful that you had those times together.

Military friendships can last forever

Even though the military means you have to move around and saying goodbye to people becomes the norm, you don’t have to say goodbye altogether. The military world can surprise you and you never know when you two might end up at the same duty station again or when one of you will be visiting nearby. Stay in touch, post to each other on social media, and make plans to meet up again, even if it is years down the line.

They know what it is like to miss their spouse

When you are talking with friends who have never had to live without their spouse, there can be a bit a disconnect there. Not that they can’t support you, they can. But only those who have felt that deployment ache, know how hard being without your spouse really is.

They understand why cereal for dinner makes sense, they understand why you cry yourself to sleep, they understand how exciting homecoming can be even if you are nervous about what having them home will mean. Other military spouses can truly understand.

Why Military Spouse Friendships Are Important

The most interesting part of this life has been the people I have met along the way. Some have become close friends, ones that I will always talk to. Others are more casual friends, and although some have moved away, I will always remember the fun that we had.

As you go through your military life journey, be open to new friendships and meeting people along the way. They will be the ones that will get you through and help improve your life.

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