The Support of the Family-A Military Wife part 1

A few weeks ago, a friend of me hit me up on a chat to interview me for her education program. Her project revolved around unemployment/underemployment affecting military spouses despite higher degrees, work experience, etc. I was honored that she had thought of me, so when she asked her questions, I took them seriously and put some thought behind my answers.

Before I get to her questions and my answers, I want to put it out there that while I am a former military wife, my husband is no longer with the military, my experience is one of a Guardsman’s wife. My husband served in the Utah National Guard for more than a decade of our marriage, but he was full-time the entire time, which is different than many other guardsmen. We went through several short deployments to Afghanistan and one long one, 16 months, while he was with the military. These occurred when our four oldest children were very little. I will also continue to address topics from my military wife experience. If you have a question or topic you would like to ask or address, don’t hesitate to comment, and I will be happy to address that in a later post. I’m always up for suggestions on topics!

**Side note on this. I was speaking as a military WIFE. That does not mean that there are not men in a similar situation with their wife being the one on active duty or same sex couples who do not endure the same if not more discrimination. However, it’s easier for my flow of thought to use wife and husband in my own context.**

***Those questions and comments in bold are what I received to answer. They are directly copied from our conversation.***

Do you feel that your husband’s military career has negatively affected your career choices?

My husband’s military career has been mainly with the National Guard, and while he worked for them full-time for the time he served, it was different experience from most other active duty wives. First off, I was mainly in the same place for a longer amount of time. His career choice affected me mentally more than anything, because I was isolated. I didn’t have the support of other military wives surround me nor did I know of any resources that may have been provided for military spouse to help in getting a job. Because my advanced degree is in Library Science, not having the option of moving wherever there may be jobs does cause issues. However, that has more to do with the fact that my husband, who doesn’t even have degree yet at all, can make far more money than I can anywhere is the US as a Librarian or any related field.

Do you think the military needs to overhaul its relocation/assignment system to help families establish roots and a familiar support system?

Do I think they need to overhaul how they treat families, YES! For one, ALL branches need to be addressed. Women whose husbands serve in the Guard or Reserves are going without their husbands around the same amount if not more than many active duty wives. However, those women and their families are isolated away from a “home base.” They do not have others as neighbors who know what they are going through. I had so many people always say they were there for me, and let me know if you need anything, while my husband was deployed. One, I am shit all at asking for help, and two, after the fifth woman goes “I know what you are going through, my husband had to go (blank, somewhere safe and within the US) for two weeks, and I thought I’d die.” or “I don’t know how you can do it?” You stop wanting to be around those people no matter how much they may want to help. They have NO concept of what it is like to live a year or more with your spouse overseas in dangerous situations, while you try desperately to keep your house together at home and make sure your kids never sense your own anxiety, because they are already worried about mommy or daddy serving.  These people may mean well, and I don’t think most of them realize how hurtful saying these things are, or how isolating they are. Military wives (husbands,) as a general rule, are stubborn, independent women (or men). They are freaking amazing people, not to toot my own horn or anything, but unless you have endured deployment with children, you cannot understand how extraordinary they truly are, and don’t even get me started on how amazing the kids are that endure being without a parent or parents for months and months on end!

There also needs to be a major overhaul in child care when it comes to military families (well, all families actually). 99% of my career choices, were made solely based on the fact that no matter what job I took, I would be making no extra money for my family, and actually would have lost money with the cost of child care. Some bases I know provide child care, and I am not sure how much it costs mostly, however, I was never offered those services, or they weren’t available where we were stationed at the time, and/or we were too far away from a base for those services to be of any use even if they had been offered/available. I believe, there were some papers I could have filled out for some relief during his big deployment, however, I had no resources to figure out how to fill them out or what they hell to do with them.

Again, we need to remember ALL branches of the military, and the military does need to remember that while the one spouse may hold the actual enlistment, they are not the only one who serves. And those who are left behind have far more complicated needs than the soldier. My husband would always tell me, deployment was easy, coming home was hard. It wasn’t that being away from home or his job overseas was all unicorns and rainbows. However, when he was deployed, he had ONE thing on his mind: his job, and part of that is obviously staying safe so he could come home. However, when he came home, life got infinitely more complicated. He not only had to deal with his job, but his feelings about what happened while over there, his wife and her needs and feelings, his children and their needs and feelings, his home, car, life, future, etc. While a spouse is deployed, the one left behind gets to handle all of that alone. Without others who are going through it too, it is an experience I would not wish on anyone. I love that my family made the choice to serve their country, but I admit it has taken much out of me. I feel like they are not willing to really help lift up the families that are left behind.

How has volunteering/working helped with your sense of fulfillment while your husband has been deployed or away on Army assignments? My paper is largely a feminist-driven one with accounts from military spouse who are highly educated and dealing with military demands.

         Volunteer work gave me something to do, something to keep my mind off of where my husband was. However, it was a luxury that was only afforded to me once my youngest, at the time, was finally in preschool at least. It’s also good to note that the volunteer work I could engage in was limited to their schools, so that I could always be on my children’s schedules when it came to volunteer work. Again, this was because as with any job, volunteer work being simply work without pay, and having a child in tow is limiting, and not the way to get a job done up to my own personal standard. You can play at getting things done, but you don’t actually get things done the way they really need to be or at least not in the time frame that is ideal. You can’t pay for childcare because then you really have no money. I did love volunteering. I loved working when all my kids were finally in school full time even though the job was not really in my field of study, I was grossly underpaid for what I was doing especially  as a person with a Masters degree, and yes, my choice of job was dictated by the fact that said job allowed me to have the same days off as my children, which was largely more cost effective, and more stable for my children’s mental health while their dad was in service overseas.

         I will add this. Those spouses that are serving at home by keeping their families going, need to understand too that we are all going though the same thing mostly. Yes, there are nuances within each family that are different, but we should try to pull together to help each other get through. I am now stationed overseas with my family. My husband no longer is with the military, but has found employment outside of the US. We live in a closed community. Not everyone here works for the same people or even speak the same language. However, most of us are experience living away from our homelands, and still they allow petty shit to divide them. Plus, the ones who offer to help all the time make me laugh, because it’s always the women who also work outside of their homes, that offer. They aren’t home when I actually need help 😊. When a man or woman enlists or chooses to serve his or her country in a myriad of different ways, the system must remember that it is not only that person enlisted who serves when they have a spouse and/or children. It is the entire family, and the goal should always be to make sure that family comes out the other end not only intact, but healthier and happier than ever. You want happy servicemen and women? Make sure their families are happy too. That takes one very big stressor off their already considerable shoulders.

         **Anything to add?**