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

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 along way in what we have available to us as military spouses.

Things have changed even in the time since I became a military spouse in 2005. If you talk to someone whose spouse served in the 90s, or the 80s, or even before that in the 70s, or in the 60s, or if you have ever talked to a World War II spouse, you know that things have changed.  While we still have a long way to go, things have changed for the better.

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.

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

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

~ You make easy dinners with your Instant Pot.

~ 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 Walmart’s Grocery Pick-up service.

~ 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 in Afghanistan 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.

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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.

~ Free childcare once a month while your spouse is deployed.

~ 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???