Soldier's Wife, Crazy Life

Milspouse

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. 

What Military Spouses Signed Up For

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We have all heard people say it, in the middle of our deployments, “you knew what you signed up for when you became a military spouse.“

Only…we didn’t. Whether we married someone already serving or made that decision together, there is no way any of us could have known how difficult military life could be. No road map tells you exactly how you will feel when your spouse of 10 years has to leave for a year. We simply get through these difficult situations the best way that we can.

But as military spouses, there are some things we signed up for…

That we will support our spouses

We might not know how supporting our spouse will look like over the years, but we committed to doing so. That is what spouses should do for one another, military or not. Being there for one another, no matter the circumstance.

Whether that is standing by during a deployment or helping them through training. Whether it is being faithful during time apart or working hard to make sure they get any help they might need after a deployment.

That we will love on our children

No matter what happens, we military spouses are committed to helping our children through whatever it is they are going to have to go through. We might not always know the best way to help them, but we will figure out how to do so. We will fill the role of both mom and dad, doing what we can when our service member is away.

That we will be a part of the community

The military community is a good one. There are a lot of supportive people that we can connect with. Whether it is through your FRG or MOPS community, befriending others in your neighborhood, or finding a good friend in an online group. Although sometimes finding your tribe isn’t easy, know that there are plenty of good military spouses out there to befriend and get to know.

That we love our country

At the end of the day, we love our country. We see the reason why our spouse has to serve, why someone has to serve, why we need to have a strong military. Whether we have an R or a D behind our name or are not even sure where we belong, we love our country and our military and want the best for it.

Not only for the sake of our own spouses and families but for all the other men and women who are serving. We know that this life means sacrifice, even when that is hard. We know that we will have to give things up, even if we don’t want to. We know it is all for a bigger purpose.

That we can be patient

We might be heartbroken when our spouse’s deployment gets extended, we might vent about where we have to PCS to next, we might hate the fact that we can’t ever rely on our spouse to help us put the kids to bed but overall, military spouses are patient.

We have to be. We are always waiting and waiting, even when it seems like we should already have what we are waiting for. We wait for paperwork to get done, we wait for a deployment to end, and we wait for orders to get cut. We know waiting is part of the deal, and we do the best we can, even if the waiting drives us nuts.

While we don’t know what we signed up for with aspects of military life, we know what we can bring to the table. We know that we can support our spouses, that we can love on our children, that we can be a part of the military community, that we love our country, and that we can be patient.

None of these things are easy, but they are in our heart as we strive to make our way through this crazy military life.

What is the most difficult part of military life for you?

Make it Through That Last Week of a Deployment

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Make it Through That Last Week of a Deployment

The deployment begins, and you get into a routine. You have good deployment days and bad deployment days. Then, you hit a slump. Still, so many months left to go. Still, so many more deployment days to get through. Then, you get a homecoming date.

If you have been through a deployment before, you know this date will change. At the same time, you know that simply having a date is a good sign. It means things are wrapping up. It means you are getting close to the end of a deployment.

Having that date means that there is probably a unit ready to replace your spouse’s unit. It means that boxes from the desert will start to appear on your doorstep and it means that you will be told to no longer send any mail.

All these signs together are good ones that tell you, the military spouse, that your deployment days are coming to an end.

And then, somehow, someway, you have made it, and you have one week left of the madness. One week left of sleeping alone. One week left of being both mom and dad to your children.

That last week of deployment isn’t going to be easy. Even though you are at the end, even though you can now countdown in hours, that last week will drive you crazy.

The last week of your deployment

You are almost there. You are almost done but not quite. You are almost to the end of a deployment.

You still have to wait. Through flight changes, weather scares, and anything else that might get in your way.

Your mind will play tricks on you, worried that things will change and they will get extended. You worry about what things will be like when they get back home. You wonder how your children will do and what your spouse will think of the changes you have made during the time they have been away.

That last week will be exhausting. You might not be able to sleep. You might not even want to eat. You will clean your home and then clean it again, forgetting that your spouse isn’t going to care if it passes a white glove test.

You will want time to fly and yet feel like you are not going to be ready for the day they come home.

That last week is a weird time as you run around getting everything done and also counting down the seconds until you see your spouse again.

The last week of your deployment

You will be asking a friend to come with you to take photos or booking a photographer. You will be finalizing your homecoming outfit. You will be wondering what to have on hand for that first meal together or wonder if it would be best to stop for food on the way home from picking them up.

You will reflect on the months they were away. On the memories, you made without them. On the friendships, you developed. You will start to think about how your friendships will in fact change once your spouses are back home, especially if one of you is supposed to PCS sometimes soon after homecoming.

You will look at your children and remember how little they were when their mom or dad left.

You will wonder what life will be like parenting in person again and what fun things your family can do together now, as a full family.

You will look back and see how strong you have been. You will see the months that went by, the long deployment road you walked along, sometimes crawled along to get yourself to the finish line.

You might be worried that your spouse will come home different. That your already rocky marriage might not survive reintegration. You are not sure if you will go through with that divorce or seek the counseling you think that you need.

For some, that last week of deployment is a terrifying time when you are just not sure what life will be like, and that scares you. The truth is, reintegration can be the hardest part of a deployment, and it shouldn’t be taken lightly. You have changed, they have changed, and now you need to work together to get started on the post-deployment chapter of your lives.

Deployments are a part of military life. They start, then they end, and all the time in between is you figuring out how to get through them, even if that is taking it one day at a time.

You can find more deployment posts here! 

To the Military Spouse That Didn’t Marry a Service Member

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To the Military Spouse That Didn't Marry a Service Member

We were standing in a circle and he was talking about his time in Egypt. I thought that was pretty amazing. I had only ever been to Mexico before and this guy had been to Egypt. He also talked a bit about his time in the Army. I thought that was pretty cool too. He had served for a few years in the late 90s. It was now 2001 and he had been home for quite a few years.

We started dating soon after that. I learned more about him and his time in the Army. He told me about being stationed at Ft. Drum, his roommate and his 6 months in Egypt.

In 2002 we got married.

2004 we had a baby and moved to Kentucky.

2005? Well, that changed everything. In November of 2005, my husband re-enlisted in the Army and everything changed.

You see, when we got married in 2002, I was marrying my husband, someone who had served in the Army in the past. I didn’t marry an active duty soldier.

I know I am not alone. While plenty of military spouses married their spouse while they were serving, some of us did not. We had civilian weddings and years with a civilian spouse. For a lot of us, the first time our service member was away from us for an extended period of time was several years into our marriage.

My husband and I had been married for three years, three months and about three days before he left for Germany, starting our military life adventure. When I think back to that time before the Army, I am amazed that life used to be like that. Back then I didn’t know what it meant to go through a deployment, I couldn’t tell you what PCS, or MWR, or DEERS were. I knew what a military installation was, I had been on one before but I never saw them as my home.

Looking back, his re-joining the military made so much sense. The Army is a part of who he is. I married a soldier and I didn’t even know it. The military was and is in his blood.

So to the military spouse who didn’t marry a service member, know that you actually did.

There was always a part of him or her that wanted to serve, even if they never talked about it. With your spouse joining the military, you will be starting a new chapter of your married lives. You will look back at the pre-military years and feel how different they will be from the military ones. The years you have spent building up your marriage will help you through the deployments, through the moves and all the challenges that come with military life.

To you, the idea of becoming a military spouse might feel pretty scary. You might never have imagined yourself going down this road. You might have assumed you would spend all of your married years just 20 minutes from where you grew up and now you’re headed to Germany.

You might have thought that your spouse would get home from work every day at 5 pm just like your dad did and you are now learning was 24-hour duty is like. You might have pictured the love of your life by you for every birth, just like he was with your oldest child, realizing he won’t be home from his deployment until your second baby is four months old.

So to you military spouse, the military might not have been a part of your future plans but being a military spouse is your life now and there will be ups and downs.

There will be days your soldier walks through the door and seeing him in his uniform will take your breath away. There will be days when you get in the car to pick up your airman with butterflies you hadn’t felt since the week you met.

There will be days when you will miss your marine so much that you will laugh at the time you thought you were going to lose it because you visited your best friend and you were away from him for the weekend pre-military. There will be days when you will watch your sailor get promoted and know deep down that he is finally in the perfect career, even though it took years to figure that out.

Remember, you will not have to go through this life alone. There are a lot of other military spouses you can connect with both off and online. There is support out there and ways of dealing with the challenges of military life.

How long were you married before your spouse joined the military?

10 Truths About Military Life That Military Spouses Know Are True

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10 Truths About Military Life That Military Spouses Know Are True

On November 8th, 2005, my husband re-enlisted in the US Army. This was a huge change for us and our family. My husband had been in the Army when he was a lot younger, years before I met him. He had gotten out, returned home and we met a few years after that. We got married and had our first child and it wasn’t until we had been married about 3 years that we started talking about him going back into the Army.

18 years have passed since that day and I now consider myself a seasoned spouse. We have been overseas, been through 4 deployments, multiple trainings and have experienced both Active duty and National Guard life. Over the last 18 years, I have learned so much about military life. I didn’t realize how clueless I was until he joined and learned about these truths the hard way. I assumed some things I shouldn’t have. I have grown as a person since then and the last 18 years have made me who I am.

Here are 10 Truths About Military Life That Military Spouses Know Are True:

1. Just Because You Are Told Something, It Doesn’t Mean It Will Happen That Way- There have been so many times in the last 18 years when military plans have changed. From deployments to trainings to appointments. Military life is all about change. Nothing is ever set in stone and it is probably best to assume nothing is going to happen a certain way until it actually does.

2. Military Life Isn’t Fair- It wasn’t that I thought everything in military life was going to be fair, but it is a hard reality to realize much of this life isn’t fair or equal at all. Your spouse might deploy a lot more than other spouses. You might not ever end up at the “best” duty stations and it will seem others do. Some service members take longer to promote than others. The best thing to do is celebrate when you are the one to get the good news and be humble when you see that your friend or neighbor has not.

3. Not All Military Housing Is Created Equal- When we moved into our orange duplex at our 2nd duty station in Germany, I cried. That house was amazing! And to think we got the house just because we moved to a new duty station, not because of rank or position. That the two homes could be so different was amazing to me. Some housing is much better than others and that can be a frustrating reality of military life.

4. Making Friends Isn’t Always Easy- As much as you want to find your tribe and your people, sometimes that will take longer than you want it to. Making friends depending on a lot of factors. From putting yourself out there to who is at your duty station. Don’t lose hope if you haven’t made friends at your new duty station yet, it might just take you a bit longer this time.

5. You Will Grow Without Your Spouse- During military life you and your spouse will grow. You will change. Everyone does. Sometimes this will happen when they are not home. During a year deployment, you can grow and change and because you have, life can be a bit of a challenge once your spouse gets home. Keep this in mind during the redeployment period and remember why you decided to be together in the first place.

6. Your Parenting Will Look A Little Different- Survival mode is very real and sometimes being in survival mode means you let things go and your parenting will change because of that. Try not to let this get you down, real life sometimes doesn’t mix with our ideals. Do your best and at the end of the day, give yourself some grace.

7. You Will Surprise Yourself- During the last 118years, I have done things I never thought I was capable of. I have been stretched and have become stronger because of everything I have been through. Military life will mold you into the person you are meant to be. And you will look back and might be surprised about everything you have had to go through to get there.

8. When Military Life Is Over, You Might Not Want To Leave- As much as you think you are ready to leave military life behind, doing so isn’t as easy as you think the transition will be. You might find yourself missing parts of military life and wondering why you and your spouse decided that chapter needed to be closed. You might get upset that your spouse had to leave because of medical issues. Give yourself time to adjust to the after military lifestyle.

9. The “Worst” Duty Station Might Be Your Favorite- There are a few duty stations out there that are talked about as the worst. Places you really don’t want to go and for a lot of them, there is a good reason for that. But sometimes, the “worst” duty station may be your favorite place. Maybe you have figured out how to bloom where you are planted or maybe you just made some amazing friends, but whatever reason you will always look back at that duty station as some of the best years of your military life.

10. Just When You Are Comfortable, Life Will Change- I was sitting at a friend’s house with about four or five friends. The kids were all playing nicely and we were having a good conversation. In the back of my head, I thought, “This won’t last forever.” And that was true. Within 3 years, everyone in that room has moved somewhere else. This is the reality of military life. People are always moving, either you or them. Commands change, deployments come and go. Just when you get comfortable, things change.

How long have you been a military spouse? What have you learned along the way?

7 Things You Don’t Have To Do Even If Other Military Spouses Are Doing Them

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Does it feel like every other military spouse you know is doing something that you have no desire to do? Do you ever feel lost in a sea of other spouses? Sometimes we can get stuck thinking something is wrong with us if we are not military spousing like other people are. But the truth is, we should military spouse the way that works best for us, not everyone else. You be you.

7 Things You Don't Have To Do Even If Other Military Spouses Are Doing Them

Here are seven things you don’t have to do even if other military spouses are doing them:

1. Shop at the Commissary and PX/BX on a regular basis

When we lived in Germany, shopping at the Commissary and PX was a must if we wanted anything American. In the states, things are a little different. Unless your duty station is in the middle of nowhere, there are a lot of other stores in your city to get the same type of things you can find at the Commissary and PX/BX. You don’t have to shop at these places if other stores work better for you.

7 Things You Don't Have To Do Even If Other Military Spouses Are Doing Them

2. Drink wine

While it might seem like every other military spouse out there is drinking wine on a regular basis, I assure you they are not. Some spouses don’t drink at all. Some only do when they go out with their friends. “Drinking wine” has turned into a phrase that simply means, “letting loose and trying to relax.”

3. Live on post/base

We have lived on post, in government leased housing, and off post/base in our own home. If my husband was active duty, I think I would want to try living on post again. There are so many pros and cons to each decision based on where you are and what you want for your family. If on post/base doesn’t work for you, living off can be the right choice.

4. Be a SAHM

One of the stereotypes about military spouses is that they don’t work. But in real life, the military spouse world is made up of SAHMs, WAHMs, moms who work outside the home, and moms who also serve. While there are a lot of SAHMs in the military world, there are plenty of spouses who are working in a career or going to school to do so. And if you do want to be a SAHM, that is good too. There are so many reasons, and even seasons when being a SAHM is what makes sense for your family.

7 Things You Don't Have To Do Even If Other Military Spouses Are Doing Them

5. Send a lot of care packages

Care packages are a lot of fun and can be an excellent way to connect with your spouse overseas, but if they are not something that works for you and your spouse, don’t feel like you have to do them. For my husband, I usually would send him a care package when he would ask for something specific verses on a regular basis. If you are the type, who loves to send care packages, have fun and enjoy making them.

6. Hate the military

Sometimes I hate the military. Sometimes I love the military. It just depends on the day. If you don’t hate the military, that is okay. Not everyone does. And whether you hate the military or not might just depend on the year.

7. Hate your duty station

There are some duty stations that are more popular than others. Sometimes hating these not so popular places is the thing to do. You find out you are going there and everyone tells you how awful that place is. However, some people love unpopular duty stations. Maybe they just bloom where they are stationed; maybe the place just fits their personality. Whatever the reason, if you like your duty station, that is fine. Don’t let negative talk about the place get to you.

What would you add to this list?

You Know You’re a Modern Military Spouse When….

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Military spouses have been around for a very long time. While to a certain extent “if the military wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you one” is true, we have come a long way in what we have available to us as military spouses.

My grandma said goodbye to my grandpa for three whole years. The only way they could communicate was through letters. Think about that! They had to number them, so they knew what order they were written in. I love a good handwritten letter, but I can’t imagine that being the only way I could talk with my spouse, for years at a time.

So us military spouses today, I suppose you could call us modern. The millennial military spouse might work except some of us are a little too old for that title 😉 There is something different about this time period, and being a military spouse will look different in the future I am sure.

You Know You Are A Modern Military Spouse When...

So here how you know you are a modern military spouse…

~ You gave birth with your husband by your side, on your iPad, over video chat.

~ You make easy dinners with your Instant Pot or Air Fryer.

~ You met your husband online, while he was at his first duty station.

~ Your wife serves, and you stay home with the kids.

~ You don’t have to take all four of your children shopping by yourself as you are a big fan of having your groceries delivered.

~ You take your kids to the park so that you can get yourself a Starbucks, which is right next door.

~ You can take a call from your husband overseas from wherever you happen to be at the moment, no waiting at home until they call.

~ Netflix binge-watching is your favorite sport.

~ You take 1,000 photos whenever you do something fun, and your parents in California see them minutes later.

~ It’s been two days since you talked to your spouse and can’t believe it has been that long!

~ You learned about your future duty station, from a group of strangers you never met in a Facebook group.

~ You earned your BA in English while your spouse was in South Korea, all from the comfort of your home.

You Know You Are A Modern Military Spouse When...

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~ You love or even hate your FRG, but you do in fact have one.

~ You serve too, as you and your spouse met during basic training and now you are a dual military couple.

~ You have been guilty of oversharing on social media, but at least you are aware of the rules for OPSEC.

~ Amazon Prime is your favorite Transformer.

~ You depend on the friendships of others you have never met because they get exactly what a deployment is all about.

~ You have never met your boss in person. You live in Ohio, and they are in New York.

~ You can honestly say apps make the deployment a little easier.

~ You are in charge of the bills, which makes sense, since sometimes your spouse is deployed.

~ You didn’t have to pay for your breast pump, TRICARE gave you one after you had your baby.

~ You are a SAHM, a WAHM or you work outside the home. You do whatever works for you and your family because you can.

~ You wake up every morning, supporting your service member. Through the deployments, the PCS moves, and anything military life throws at you.

What makes you a modern military spouse???

 

Stop Saying That We Knew What We Were Getting Into

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Stop Saying That We Knew What We Were Getting Into

“You knew what you were getting into”

If you have been a military spouse for any length of time, you have heard someone say this. This phrase comes from civilians, military spouses, and military service members. I don’t like it.

My response to this is, no, we didn’t know what we were getting into. 

You see, us military spouses, we know there will be time apart, we don’t know how lonely that can be.

How quiet the house can get when you are the only one in it. How you will crave the little daily chats, you used to have with your spouse, and how sad you can get when you think about those moments.

We know we will have to move often, but we don’t know how hard it will be to leave someone that is like a sister to us.

The person we spent last Christmas with. The neighbor who helped us when our son was in the hospital. The friend that we could talk to about anything. The person that became closer to us than anyone else ever had.

We know there will be deployments, but we don’t know how they might break us.

How we might get so overwhelmed with them that we can’t imagine going through another one, even though we know that with our spouse’s job, that will be our reality.

We know there might be children, but we can’t know what their struggles might be or what having one parent gone all the time will be like.

We can’t predict what raising a child on the autism spectrum will be like when your other half is gone for a year at a time. We can’t know how drained we will feel as a SAHM, even though that is what we always wanted to do.

We know that we might have to sacrifice our careers for theirs, but we don’t know how hard that can be or how long we have to wait on our own career goals.

We can’t know if we will be in a state where we can work using our degree or if we will have to settle for something else because that is all there is. And then have to deal with the emotional toll of all of that.

We know this life will be a hard one but what that looks like, how we will be able to get through the difficult days, and what the years our spouse will serve will look like is a surprise. 

Life is filled with surprises. This is true for everyone, military or not. What you thought your life might be like will look different than what happens.

No one knows what they are getting into. No one can predict that. No one can be 100% ready for what this military life brings.

Even if we did know what we signed up for, that doesn’t mean we can’t vent a little on our more challenging days, cry into our pillows when we just can’t take anymore, or simply ask for help because everything is just too overwhelming at times.

Before you say, “You knew what you were getting into,” think about your own life and all the ways things turned out differently than you thought they would.

Be compassionate to the military spouse that is having a more difficult time. Understand that everyone handles deployments differently. Know that some of us ask for help because we are trying to better our situations, not because we want to fail.

Military spouses are strong but only because we have had to become that way. Through trials, challenges, and the surprises that military life brings.

What has been your biggest military life challenge?

Don’t forget to check out The Newbie’s Guide to Military Life: Surviving a PCS and More by Soldier’s Wife, Crazy Life and Mrs Navy Mama. Your guide for learning about military life.