I have struggled with my role as a military spouse, now more than ever. For a long time I felt like there was something I just "didn't get." It felt like a lot of the seasoned spouses I knew were comfortable in their roles and maybe even enjoyed some of the challenges of being a military spouse. I felt like I needed to hang on, dig deep, and that it would come together and I would figure it out.
Tour after tour happened and my life shifted in various ways. I pushed my dreams off for another duty station and yet another, when the time would be "right." I focused on my family because, as a military spouse, we move from duty station to duty station where we do not have a built in support network. Even if we build those support networks at a duty station, there is still a period in time where we have to hustle and line it all up. Doctors, dentists, childcare, schools, preschools, playdates, friend circles, mommy meet-ups, on and on. There is not a line of people waiting to make friends with you, bring you dinner, watch your kids, be on stand by if your toddler has an asthma attack in the middle of the night.
It feels like my role as a military spouse is to give until I have nothing else to give and to do so quietly and supportively.
I move every 1-3 years with our busy household. In our 11 years of marriage, we have PCS'd 5 times and lived in 7 houses and we are months away from our 6th PCS and 8th home. I set up our moves. I navigate those timelines and organize the house so it's ready for the packers. I make all the phone calls and argue with the moving companies and follow up with our flights and drives and hotels. I keep the receipts. I unpack with all of our kids-- wearing our baby. I was home alone with 4 kids and a horrible case of mastitis (where the doctors hoped to save my breast-- that bad), unpacking our house-- by. my. self.
I put in my two cents as to where we want to go next. But the locations are contingent on the jobs offered to my husband and where the Navy wants him. When we get orders, I just start researching what the kids can do, the school districts we want to live in, if we want to rent or buy, what kind of commute to base we want.
My husband's schedule is ever changing. They tell him, "You will deploy on x-date." Then the next week, "Oh, it changed to y-date." And it changes and changes... and we have these huge chunks of time that we just consider he won't be home for. We keep our lives on hold until we actually know what his schedule will be. They tell us he will deploy in June. That moves to July. That moves to August. To September. To October. To November. And that whole time we keep thinking, "This is our last weekend together." I cancel plans to be home, so the kids can spend time with their dad. For months and months and months. I try to be pleasant and upbeat when the stress is killing me because I don't want to have a stressful last weekend with him.
We always change our schedule for him. I'm out running errands and he unexpectedly gets the afternoon off-- we come home. I don't sign the kids up for classes that will interfere with the one day he has off. I plan dinners, birthday parties, date nights, anniversary celebrations, vacations-- everything-- around his schedule. And then his schedule shifts and I'm back to the drawing board. Or, worse, we have to just proceed without him. He has missed so much. And I have missed so much, because I think, "I will wait until it works for his schedule," but then his schedule never does work out and so I never island hop, never visit that nearby city, never take that drive I've been wanting to do. Never sign up for that class I want to take. Never push for a job opening I saw. Because... who will do all of the other things I have to do? I don't have anyone else. If I pushed for whatever it was I wanted to do, I would only be adding it to my already full plate.
My friendships don't last if they aren't understanding of his schedule. I have canceled plans. Rescheduled parties. Backed out at the last minute because his boat pulled in and the kids want to talk to their dad on the phone. It is literally the only time they will get to talk to him for months. I have be available 24/7 for our children because I can't rely on him. I have to alter my schedule so that it always, without fail works for school pick up times, after school activity times. I am the only one who is there at our new duty station. Everything I schedule in the day has to work with them.
And in the end, I'm the only one that loses.
I give up all that time, all those dreams, all those pieces of myself, all that frustration and waiting, and dropped plans, and lonely nights for someone that doesn't ever do that for me. Because he can't. I lose all those friendships. I lose all the community support that I build at one duty station when we move to another. I lose all the teachers that have come to know my family and are understanding and supportive of my kids. I lose all the neighbors who are willing to lend a hand. I lose all the resources I accumulated.
I feel like I kept waiting for military spouse life to make sense, but, 11 years later, I'm wondering what I think I saw in the seasoned spouses before. Did they have it all together? I've seen marriages crumble. I've seen deceit and lies. I've seen strong women turn into meek shells of their former selves. In a lot of ways, I feel like giving up and to stop fighting. Maybe I'm not meant to get my degree. Maybe I'm not meant to finish my book. Maybe I'm not meant for anything else than this. Maybe this is all I'm ever meant to do and I am fooling myself for thinking otherwise, or for making it harder than it is. Or for dreaming of something else. Maybe my blog was stupid.
The military asks and asks and asks and gives nothing. Calling my husband at work is a nightmare when they are in port, and there is no guarantee he can come home. He doesn't get sick days. I had a complicated pregnancy that I went through alone because he couldn't take all the time off I needed. He deployed afterwards, leaving me to take care of 5 children while I was struggling with post-partum complications. When I got those fixed surgically, he had to go back to work before I was cleared to lift 10 lbs. And I'm balancing our whole lives on top of this-- 2 asthmatic children, 3 kids in elementary school, a breastfeeding newborn who-- at the time-- had an undiagnosed dairy allergy, plus a toddler. It feels like, what else can I give? What else can I drag myself through?
I used to feel empowered carrying my family through situations like that. It sounds silly, but I did. We would have hard deployments or hard times and he wouldn't be able to come home and I would think, "I'm a boss. I handled this." And this past tour I realized, I shouldn't have to handle all of these things on my own. I have no community, no support. I live across country from my family. I am literally in a life or death situation and taking care of the day-to-day lives of our children on top of this. I have no degree. I have no work history. I have nothing to show for all my years as a military spouse and, yet, the military is asking for more.
We did not walk into this military lifestyle with eyes wide open, knowing every hardship we would face, and choose this. But when a military spouse feels lost or struggles and reaches out to her civilian friends, we are told we chose this. "This is what you chose marrying a man in the military."
Tour after tour happened and my life shifted in various ways. I pushed my dreams off for another duty station and yet another, when the time would be "right." I focused on my family because, as a military spouse, we move from duty station to duty station where we do not have a built in support network. Even if we build those support networks at a duty station, there is still a period in time where we have to hustle and line it all up. Doctors, dentists, childcare, schools, preschools, playdates, friend circles, mommy meet-ups, on and on. There is not a line of people waiting to make friends with you, bring you dinner, watch your kids, be on stand by if your toddler has an asthma attack in the middle of the night.
It feels like my role as a military spouse is to give until I have nothing else to give and to do so quietly and supportively.
I move every 1-3 years with our busy household. In our 11 years of marriage, we have PCS'd 5 times and lived in 7 houses and we are months away from our 6th PCS and 8th home. I set up our moves. I navigate those timelines and organize the house so it's ready for the packers. I make all the phone calls and argue with the moving companies and follow up with our flights and drives and hotels. I keep the receipts. I unpack with all of our kids-- wearing our baby. I was home alone with 4 kids and a horrible case of mastitis (where the doctors hoped to save my breast-- that bad), unpacking our house-- by. my. self.
I put in my two cents as to where we want to go next. But the locations are contingent on the jobs offered to my husband and where the Navy wants him. When we get orders, I just start researching what the kids can do, the school districts we want to live in, if we want to rent or buy, what kind of commute to base we want.
My husband's schedule is ever changing. They tell him, "You will deploy on x-date." Then the next week, "Oh, it changed to y-date." And it changes and changes... and we have these huge chunks of time that we just consider he won't be home for. We keep our lives on hold until we actually know what his schedule will be. They tell us he will deploy in June. That moves to July. That moves to August. To September. To October. To November. And that whole time we keep thinking, "This is our last weekend together." I cancel plans to be home, so the kids can spend time with their dad. For months and months and months. I try to be pleasant and upbeat when the stress is killing me because I don't want to have a stressful last weekend with him.
We always change our schedule for him. I'm out running errands and he unexpectedly gets the afternoon off-- we come home. I don't sign the kids up for classes that will interfere with the one day he has off. I plan dinners, birthday parties, date nights, anniversary celebrations, vacations-- everything-- around his schedule. And then his schedule shifts and I'm back to the drawing board. Or, worse, we have to just proceed without him. He has missed so much. And I have missed so much, because I think, "I will wait until it works for his schedule," but then his schedule never does work out and so I never island hop, never visit that nearby city, never take that drive I've been wanting to do. Never sign up for that class I want to take. Never push for a job opening I saw. Because... who will do all of the other things I have to do? I don't have anyone else. If I pushed for whatever it was I wanted to do, I would only be adding it to my already full plate.
My friendships don't last if they aren't understanding of his schedule. I have canceled plans. Rescheduled parties. Backed out at the last minute because his boat pulled in and the kids want to talk to their dad on the phone. It is literally the only time they will get to talk to him for months. I have be available 24/7 for our children because I can't rely on him. I have to alter my schedule so that it always, without fail works for school pick up times, after school activity times. I am the only one who is there at our new duty station. Everything I schedule in the day has to work with them.
And in the end, I'm the only one that loses.
I give up all that time, all those dreams, all those pieces of myself, all that frustration and waiting, and dropped plans, and lonely nights for someone that doesn't ever do that for me. Because he can't. I lose all those friendships. I lose all the community support that I build at one duty station when we move to another. I lose all the teachers that have come to know my family and are understanding and supportive of my kids. I lose all the neighbors who are willing to lend a hand. I lose all the resources I accumulated.
I feel like I kept waiting for military spouse life to make sense, but, 11 years later, I'm wondering what I think I saw in the seasoned spouses before. Did they have it all together? I've seen marriages crumble. I've seen deceit and lies. I've seen strong women turn into meek shells of their former selves. In a lot of ways, I feel like giving up and to stop fighting. Maybe I'm not meant to get my degree. Maybe I'm not meant to finish my book. Maybe I'm not meant for anything else than this. Maybe this is all I'm ever meant to do and I am fooling myself for thinking otherwise, or for making it harder than it is. Or for dreaming of something else. Maybe my blog was stupid.
The military asks and asks and asks and gives nothing. Calling my husband at work is a nightmare when they are in port, and there is no guarantee he can come home. He doesn't get sick days. I had a complicated pregnancy that I went through alone because he couldn't take all the time off I needed. He deployed afterwards, leaving me to take care of 5 children while I was struggling with post-partum complications. When I got those fixed surgically, he had to go back to work before I was cleared to lift 10 lbs. And I'm balancing our whole lives on top of this-- 2 asthmatic children, 3 kids in elementary school, a breastfeeding newborn who-- at the time-- had an undiagnosed dairy allergy, plus a toddler. It feels like, what else can I give? What else can I drag myself through?
I used to feel empowered carrying my family through situations like that. It sounds silly, but I did. We would have hard deployments or hard times and he wouldn't be able to come home and I would think, "I'm a boss. I handled this." And this past tour I realized, I shouldn't have to handle all of these things on my own. I have no community, no support. I live across country from my family. I am literally in a life or death situation and taking care of the day-to-day lives of our children on top of this. I have no degree. I have no work history. I have nothing to show for all my years as a military spouse and, yet, the military is asking for more.
Military spouses do not choose this lifestyle.
There is nothing in life that people can fully choose before they live it. The college we choose. The degree we choose. The job we choose. The person we choose. The decision to have kids. We can't even choose if we will get pregnant, even when we are trying. We can't choose our kids or their personalities. We didn't choose to have twins.
We did not walk into this military lifestyle with eyes wide open, knowing every hardship we would face, and choose this. But when a military spouse feels lost or struggles and reaches out to her civilian friends, we are told we chose this. "This is what you chose marrying a man in the military."
I have 11 years with this man. 11 years, 4 lost babies. More hard times than we can count. He knows where every scar on my body came from. He has stayed up with me on many nights as my heart broke into a million pieces and held me as I tried to gather the pieces. He deployed as I held my broken heart in my hands and prayed we would be okay. We have 5 children here on earth with us. Our oldest turns 10 this summer. Our children love their father. He comes home and, before eating dinner, before changing and showering, before even taking off his boots, he picks them up (or as many as he can carry) and sits down to read with them. He stays up until 10 pm doing dishes and gluing broken toys and tackling Laundry Mountain. He spends all his off-hours doing Costco runs, working on our vehicles, teaching our kids how to throw a ball, or fixing bikes. He does this joyfully, without complaint, because that's where his heart his.
I chose him. Do I walk away because he's under contract? Neither of us knew everything the military life required. Military families are people. Military spouses are people. There are reasons why people are in the military, how people end up going career. We can't just walk away from the military; the answer isn't cut and dry.
Yet, to be with him, I have to keep living this life as a military spouse, where I don't have much of a voice. Where my entire life is waiting. Where my position isn't respected by the military or by the community. (Check out the Military Spouse Magazine blogpost: "The True Cost of Being a Military Spouse.")
In that regard, yes. I chose this. I chose this lifestyle where my whole day, my whole schedule, the next 5 years until he finally retires, start and end with what he's doing, where we are moving, when he deploys, when he will be home, if he gets off early, if he has a port call, if we have a good community of military spouses around us, if we have local support. I've done this for 11 years already. What's 5 more years of quiet support.
Thank you for this post, Kimber. You are able to convey my thoughts in such an eloquent manner. I, too, am going through some difficult times being a military spouse. I am often torn between feeling proud of my accomplishments in my career and guilty because pursuing them means living away from my spouse and missing countless important events. We have put off having children that we so desperately want. I ask myself frequently if my career is worth the sacrifices we have made in our marriage and family plans. I feel disconnected from his squadron because I live away from where he is stationed and yet I feel incredibly different from my friends/support where I am because my spouse lives elsewhere. I'm not sure military spouses are truly able to rectify the incongruence in our life plans. I used to think that women could have it all - a successful career and a happy family, but I don't know if it applies to military spouses...I hope to have a better answer someday.
ReplyDeleteE.Navv,
DeleteThank you for your comment! It is really hard. I have felt for all this time that I have been investing... investing in what? My marriage? My family? His career, which in turn would give all of us-- him, myself, our kids-- a better life? I felt like my time would come. But this past tour has felt like the military has shown me exactly where "my place" is in all of this and how they view the spouses and family. It's felt like it has always been under the surface... how supportive the military is of families-- to a point. As long as it doesn't interfere with the military member. And with that mentality, it is really difficult as the spouse to find your voice and to find your stride. It has felt like a choice the entire time-- the choice to live near him, the choice to have children, have come at a cost. It's felt like a one-sided cost. I don't know the answer either. I have heard that the military is discussing longer tours places, but at the same time, I don't see necessarily how that would be the answer. At our current duty station, there is nothing here for me. Being here longer would push off my ambitions even longer. What I find very frustrating in all of this is how much sacrifice the military spouses make and how little respect they are given for it. I also am hoping to have a better answer and hoping that I can feel less like I'm spinning my wheels at our next duty station, where I'm going to dive into school. But then, from there... what?
Thank you for commenting on my blog and for opening up about your own struggles. It is always good to hear that someone else is sharing your same struggles. It makes it feel far less isolating. Hopefully one day all our voices will rise in a way to make a positive change, to change how military spouses are treated and the attitudes toward us.
Kimber