The Second Biggest Issue Affecting Military Families

Time to move on to the next big issue affecting military families: time away from family. We meet on the homefront, and our service members face this battle when they are away. It never gets easier; we just get newer and better coping skills. Every separation brings with it its own difficulties.

Personally, one of the worst separations for me was a TDY. It was two weeks long, which was nothing compared to the five-month deployment that we had done. But I was seven months pregnant. Between severe heartburn, hemorrhoids (we do not warn pregnant people enough about these), and just an overall uncomfortableness with my body, I was barely sleeping, eating, and in a lot of pain.  

But there was also the five-month-long deployment that we did. That was our first significant separation and felt like the most overwhelming task when I looked at it. I survived and thrived through most of it, but that is not to say it was easy. Day 25 was the worst day of that deployment, and I will never forget it (maybe one day I'll tell the story of that day). But there were other hard days, even if they weren't the worst ones. And there were still other days where I faced what felt like impossible situations, only to laugh about them later, like when I came home from a week away to discover a dead mouse under my car. Let me tell you, I am very glad no one was around to hear me shriek every time I pushed that mouse out to the curb with a broom. I was definitely not the most mature in handling that situation.

And then there is the separation we just went through. It was a TDY across the world that was just under a month. It was our first time dealing with a 14-hour time difference. And it was the first time since we had our son. Solo parenting was tough even though I did it on easy mode for most of that time (I went home to be with family, so I had a ton of help). My husband had a hard time leaving home, and despite being in a country that he had wanted to see for most of his life, with many of our friends, he wasn't all that happy because he missed us (If we had gone out to Japan with him, that would have been great, but a $4,000 14 hour flight with an 8-month old sounded very painful). Fortunately, our son is young enough that the separation didn't really phase him. But unfortunately, he is changing and growing every day, which meant my husband felt like he'd missed out on some first-time moments with our son.

We've been lucky that our time in the military, thus far, has only resulted in one deployment. And while I can't even count how many TDYs we've done, I have either gotten to go with him, been out of town, or just stayed home because it was only a few days. I know that isn't true for everyone, though. Some of our spouses have jobs where we can't follow them, even if it's just a simple training mission. Some of our spouses deploy every few months. Some of our spouses are gone for a year or longer on hardship tours. Some of our spouses keep running into blocks that prevent them from going, even if that's what they want to do.

I'm not here to stop our spouses from following their dreams. Even though I don't quite understand, and probably never will, I can respect the fact that our service members don't want to be left behind when the call comes. I know they are an integral part of their squadron, crew, and whatever other terms each branch uses. I know that they build a family at work, and it is just as hard to leave that family short a person as it is to leave the family back home. I know they want the opportunity to do what they've trained for. I know that they joined to serve the country, and they should have the chance to fully pursue their dreams.

I don't have a great solution here. It is really hard when the circles of what we love don't line up. Our spouses have a dream for us. They have a dream for the military. And they have so many other dreams that they hope to pursue one day. And there will be times when one dream takes priority over another. As spouses, it is our job to support their dreams. But, by the same token, it is their job to support ours. We deserve the same level of ability to pursue our dreams.

The deployments aren't going to stop. The TDYs will be random and frequent. The military will always change plans at the last minute and throw a wrench in everything we've created. We don't have to be happy about it. Believe me, I still struggle, and I honestly don't see a day coming when I take every change with grace. But I will support my husband's dream; if that dream changes, I will support his new one. For now, it's the Air Force all the way.

If this is where we are planting our family, then we need to figure out how to support my dreams along the way. If it is the spouse's job to adjust our lives to the military, then our service members must come alongside us to help our dreams work in the new life. Our dreams are our responsibility, but it takes a village, and our spouse's support will be essential to our success, just like we are for theirs.  

So as we tackle the issue of time away from family, we will look at a few things. We will address our strategies for coping on the homefront. We will talk about ways to support our spouses when the separations are hard on them (a bad day does not mean that this is the wrong dream to pursue, and I have to remind myself of that over and over). We will discuss how to pursue our dreams during all stages of separation. The separations aren't going anywhere. That's just part of the job, and unless the military sees fit for something else, I don't know a way around it. But there are so many strategies to cope when those times come, and we can still find a way to pursue our dreams even when the military changes our game plan.