I keep blowing it. No matter how many anniversaries my husband and I rack up, I still keep making some of the same mistakes in my military marriage.
I’m not alone. Gretchen Rubin, bestselling author of The Happiness Project, wrote this month about the mistakes she continues to make in her marriage. She fails more on the side of demanding gold stars and using a snappish tone.
The mistakes I keep on making in my military marriage are far more likely to be about the MILITARY part of my life. These are my five mistakes and what I keep doing about them.
Getting mad when the military does military things. What does the military do that makes them THE MILITARY? Ummm, they wear uniforms. They have shortie-short hair. They deploy/train/do field exercises/do workups/travel/attend schools/fight wars. In other words, they leave. Granted, they come back mostly. But it is characteristic of the military that they are gone a lot. I work on this by pretending that my husband is Captain Nemo and will be gone every minute of his three-year sea tour. Then I get pony-for-Christmas happy when he is home. Actually, I do pretty well at this, but sometimes a couple of extra days at sea make me just crazy.
Comparing myself to civilians. I dated civilians. If I remember correctly, I did not want to marry any of them. If I had, I would be using a snappish tone right about now. When I look over the fence these days, I have a terrible habit of only seeing how the husbands of civilians attend sports meetings, mow their lawns, take the kids to school. The civilian life is not my life. The civilian life has nothing to do with my life. I chose someone who is pony-for-Christmas happy about serving on a ship. I love that guy. But that doesn’t stop me from wishing civilians were invisible.
Acting like a single mother. Even women who used to be single moms who are now married to military dudes say that being a single mom is NOTHING like being married to the military. Sometimes I act like it is, making decisions for the kids as if my husband had no vested interest in them. I work on this by talking over some of the more mundane decisions (tennis or swimming lessons?) with my husband and then working him back into conversations with the kids (Dad says that you are old enough to choose for yourself, Kid). The kids like this, especially when Dad is on their side.
Worrying where my fifth grader will go to high school. We have moved 16 times. This, I believe, has permanently scarred me. I find myself worrying about where my fifth grader will go to middle school and high school. I don’t know if you noticed this, but anyone who has already moved 16 times will probably move again. Just like I didn’t know anything about when or where we moved before, I will not know anything about where we move again until it happens. I mostly handle this by saying out loud: DON’T BORROW TOMORROW’S TROUBLES TODAY. This scares strangers.
Forgetting we need alone time. When Brad comes home, I feel ultra-generous with his time. I want people to see him. The kids. Our parents. Our friends. The entire congregation at church. Sometimes I swear he must feel like a science fair experiment. I forget we need long stretches of time just to chill together without an audience. I work on this by blocking out a day on the calendar during his time at home. This is especially good if we can score this alone day on a weekday.
What kind of mistakes do you keep making in your military marriage? Are there any you have stopped making? How do you do that?
About Jacey Eckhart
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Thanks for this post Jacey. I find if I visit Spousebuzz every day or two it really helps me realize I am not alone. I learn a lot from everyone who posts and comments. It helps me keep my head on straight and count my blessings!
Things I forget:
1) I try to never send snarky email replies late at night, but every once in a while I forget how this just never helps any situation because I'm so set on making MY point. I usually save drafts & delete them the next morning when the tired, frustrated emotions have passed and I wake up with a fresh attitude.
2) I forget that when he calls home grumpy he's craving the comfort and love of home. It is too easy to be grumpy back and that never ends well. It's hard to be sweet & loving to a tired, grouchy guy but it doesn't take long to bring him around if I remember why he's calling and act accordingly. I can literally see his heart and breathing rates go down over Skype!
3) I forget that his very brief, couple of sentence emails are because he's a guy and most of them just aren't as long-winded and flowery as we ladies often are. It is not a sign that he doesn't love me or care about me. He shows it more than he says it.
4) Sometimes I forget to just let him talk without giving him my two sense about everything. I need a lock on my lips.
5) Sometimes I forget that it is not as easy for him to think about home as it is for us to think about and miss him. He has to keep his head in the game and I think getting too emotional about missing home can be dangerous, especially if he thinks we're struggling. Despite his game face, I know his number one priority is our family.
I forget to make room in my "deployment" life for him when he returns. While I enjoy staying busy when he's gone, sometimes I forget to slow the pace when he does return. No longer can I do double and triple workouts. The dogs walk with the baby may need to be skipped if he's too tired to come along. While having a routine helps me, I have to remember to be flexible when he returns
Single food is not acceptable when he returns. When my hubby is gone, I slap a meal together and call it good. When he returns, he thinks I'm going to be still cooking full meals. Sometimes it takes a week or two to get back into this. He cuts me slack, and I go back to eating better foods. It's not so often now that we have a son who needs to eat.
I'm not civilian. It's so hard when I talk to people who aren't military. I throw terms in there that I am used to, and they look at me like I'm speaking another language. I have to back up and try to remember what a civilian term would be. On the other hand, I don't appreciate people trying to push for plans months in advance, I don't even know where I'll be in two months!
Militar Bride, I wish could tell you this goes away after militay retirement but, I would be lying! My husband retire from the military in 2011. We went to our first civilian job. I thought we were going to stay put, boy was I wrong! 9 months into this civilain job they pulled him for a totally different position in a totally different town. Yep, 9 months of civilian life and I was moving again. When he told me we were being transferred I didn't even bat an eye just said, yeah okay whatever where to now? After the move was set up and we were ready to go just like I had been all those years in the military I told him……….you know we didn't move that soon in the military…….LOL
You are a civilian.
When you're a military spouse, you cease to be a civilian, you become a military spouse. You live a life dictated by the military. It's hard, but it's always worth it. So no, she's not a civilian, she's a military spouse.
Unless she has signed a contract to be in the military, she is a civilian. As a military spouse we are allowed to utilize base resources and we are a part of a community that many know little about. We are not controlled by the military. We always have the option of saying "no" unlike our spouses who have signed a contract to serve and obey the orders they receive.
Either way I'm not a civilian, I'm a military vet. And I have signed papers. And I signed papers making me a military wife too. It doesn't matter if you agree or not, you really aren't a civilian. I don't have the same life my none military friends do. I can't make plans the way they do.
I used to make a mistake that I quickly fixed. I don't focus on dates on a calendar! When we first got married I expected him to be home and home on time. After two years of that not happening I quit. I don't mean I quit my marriage, not only am I still married to him……..we have been a happily military retired couple for almost 2 years now. The entire time we were married he was either on a field op, deployed or if he was home he was preparing for something that caused him to not get home until 10PM or later. Yes, it was our anniversary date but, it's just a day on a calendar. I don't get mad cause he's not home, I don't get mad because he was so busy he forgot and of course did not get me a present. He loves me I know that, he's more likely to buy me a gift because it's Tuesday not because it's our annivesary date. Quit getting wrapped up about a date on a calendar, I would much rather get a gift because he saw it thought about me and got it, than think he has to because it's another year of being married.
I'm not worried about it. I was a military kid, I'm a navy vet and I'm married to military. It's been that way my whole life. We never look at calander dates. Year before last we had Thanksgiving/Christmas/New years/Valentines/birthday and our anniversary all in a week. It was kinda fun to catch up on all the holidays we missed. I enlisted in 2007 and we've known eachother the whole time. Those are just the little mistakes I make during a deployment. I grew up with my dad doing the same thing, my mom taught me how to cope really well with dad being gone. Thankfully that makes married to military easier.
I forget that as a recrutier he works crazy hours, and his "I'll be home in a minute" could be, and often is, 120 minutes.
I forget that I shouldn't plan on him, ever, and I still try to make plans around him to include him, which disappoints our kids.
I forget that he has no clue what time he expects to come home even within thirty minutes of him actually being home.
I forget that just because he is in town, doesn't mean that I can see him. I need to start thinking of him deploying every morning, and we'll be reunited sometime in the night unexpectedly.