Life Cycle Of A Military Spouse
There is a life cycle that every military spouse goes through. We need different skills for each stage, and we have different questions that need answers, but for the for most part, every military spouse you know has passed through each of these phases, and we’ve definitely done some more than once.
1. We meet someone
If you are like the stereotypical military couple, the time between meeting someone and getting married happens rather quickly. That was the case for my husband and I. We got engaged after five months of dating and married after 11, but plenty of couples don’t match that story. We have friends who dated for years and many who were together long before the military entered the picture. My husband was fully committed to the military when we started dating, so the military was always part of the package
2. We get married
I know that marriage isn’t always the path that a couple takes, and there are probably plenty of readers on my blog who haven’t taken that step. There are a lot of protections that the military has in place for spouses that only exist when there is a ring involved, so I think there is a lot of value in marriage in the military outside of my own beliefs about the commitment. That being said, we all go through the same hardship of saying goodbye and constantly changing plans. Marriage is how most of us get fully enmeshed in this life, and every military spouse you know was at one point or another a newly wed who managed to plan a wedding despite the craziness of military life.
3. We try to figure out what the heck is going on
Being a military spouse means getting an ID, figuring out Tricare, adjusting to varying schedules, and learning every acronym under the sun. It is a lot of information, and there are a lot of decisions that have to be made quickly and don’t have easy “undo” buttons attached. Our service members may be brand new to the military, too, but even if they aren’t figuring out the dependent system, it can be a whole new ballgame compared to the options available to them.
4. Our partner goes TDY
TDY’s can give us a taste of deployment. It’s a practice of separation. Hopefully, our first one is pretty short. But TDY’s still bring a host of disruptions to our lives and communication with our partners. Every TDY is different because they happen at various points in our lives, which means that they cause different problems every time. Our first TDY was just a few weeks after getting married. It was the first holiday that my husband missed and the first time we had to go no contact for a week, but as much as that TDY sucked, it is far from the hardest one I’ve gone through (he might rank that first one as the hardest, though, because no one likes SERE).
5. We PCS
Our first move might happen very quickly after a wedding, or it might take a while. I have friends who were fortunate enough to meet their spouses at the beginning of an assignment, meaning it was a few years before they had to pick up and leave. We moved across the country two months after getting married. It doesn’t matter how long you have been there; packing up and moving everything is an ordeal. There are a lot of choices with how to handle a move; each one brings a different set of rules and paperwork. And that’s just the logistics of moving. There’s also the mental and emotional burden of saying goodbye and heading to a new place, especially one you never wanted to go to.
6. Our partner deploys
This is always the fun one (I hope you can sense my overwhelming sarcasm). Deployments bring disruption to our lives. They change relationships and responsibilities. They affect our mental health and put us to the test. Spouses have survived deployments for years by continually finding new and better coping strategies. Nothing takes away the suck, but we find our way through it. There is a lot of support out there for those going through a deployment, but knowing how to access it can be a huge impasse of getting the resources you need.
7. Four, five, and six repeat for anywhere from two to forty years
The shortest military contracts are for two years and if two years is all your partner plans to do then you may not go through this entire cycle. It’s completely possible to spend two years in the military and never PCS or deploy. But that doesn't necessarily stop the disruptions to life that military service can cause. On the other hand, the longest someone (typically) can stay in the military is forty years. There are rare exceptions, but most people must retire by age 60. There is a lot of military life in forty years. A decent amount of people join and just work their contract, which covers anywhere from four to eight years. Many people make military life their career but don’t go past the twenty years of service unless they have to.
8. We are no longer a military spouse
There are two paths to this outcome: divorce or retirement. In a sense, we will always hold the title of military spouse because parts of our identity remain even when we’ve moved past those stages of life. But there is a life outside of the military, and it can be a difficult space to navigate without guidance. We have many rights and benefits as military spouses, but there are many that exist after military spousehood as well.
The one thing I’ve learned with certainty in my five years as a military spouse is that there is a lot out there for us. But it is useless to have these resources if we never know they exist or how to use them. If we expect to make our way through military life with any ease, then we have to have the keys to unlock the doors that stand in our way. Fighting for our dreams happens best when we can remove the barriers one part of life has thrown at us. We can find the path. I am going to find the path, and I am going to make sure that no spouse is left behind as much as I can.