5 Lessons Learned From 5 Years in the Army – Part 1

2016 – Surviving Long Separations

This month marks 5 years since my husband enlisted in the Army. Considering the fact that when we joined, we fully expected to be out of the Army a year ago, it’s kinda crazy to think that we’re here and that this is our foreseeable future. When I look back over the last five years, my predominant emotions are gratitude and pride. Military life is not easy, but it’s been a tremendous blessing for our family. We’ve undergone periods of lengthy separation. We’ve dealt with career and life disappointments. We’ve had three kids, moved twice, bought a house, owned a business, started a podcast and a blog, and achieved a goal we’ve been working towards for the last five years. Those are some crazy blessings, and we’ve worked hard to be deserving of them.

We’ve got a long way to go ‘til retirement. Sometimes that hits me and I wonder if I can make it another 15 years. As good as the last five years have been to us, we’ve taken a few beatings in that time as well. Army families do not have a corner on the market of challenges, but we do experience some hardships that are unique to the military lifestyle. After a lot of personal reflection, I’ve come up with 5 lessons I’ve learned from the last 5 years as an Army spouse. When I began to write them down, I realized it was too much information for just one blog post. So I’ve turned it into a 5-part series! Part 1 is the main lesson learned from 2016—enduring long separations.

Michael left for Basic Training three days after our first baby was born. We got to spend one (sleepless) night at home with our daughter after coming home from the hospital before he left. I kissed him goodbye in a spit-up drenched nightgown, looking and feeling bedraggled and overwhelmed. I was unshowered, eaten up with anxiety and postpartum hormones, and barely holding back tears. Aside from one 20-minute phone call, our only communication for the next 11 weeks was through letters.

Psalm and I got to see him for two days at Basic Training graduation before he headed off to Advanced Individual Training (AIT). He wasn’t allowed to drive or stay overnight in the hotel with us, so I had to drive him back to the barracks the first night of graduation weekend. Despite my best efforts, when we pulled up to the gate, I was sobbing. The MP who checked my ID gave me a sympathetic look and said, “It’s alright, honey! You’ll see him tomorrow!” She was right, of course. But I was already thinking of making that same drive back to post the next night when we’d have to say good-bye for five more months.

As often happens in the military, five months turned into seven almost as soon as he arrived at AIT. They’d overbooked his class, and he was randomly selected to have to wait until the next class started, eight weeks later. “I’ve been dreading telling you all day,” he said dejectedly when he called that evening.  We were able to visit Michael for two four-day weekends while he was at AIT, but for the first nine months of our daughter’s life, she had spent a total of only twelve days with her dad.

Since being reunited after initial entry training, Michael has been away from our family many more times. Sometimes for a few days here and there, sometimes for weeks or months. What that first year in the Army made us realize very quickly was that I, as the stay-at-home parent, was the only constant. It was up to me to create a schedule and routine, to establish rules, and to build our family culture. Michael still plays a significant role in those things when he is home, but when he is away, his job is to support me while I take the leading role. When you are an Army spouse, you sign up to be a pillar for your family. The thing to which everyone is tethered. It can be a heavy burden sometimes, so it’s important to know that this is what you’re getting into when you join the military or marry a service member. A single soldier can go anywhere whenever and then pick life right back up when they return. But a married soldier is leaving behind a world that must continue spinning in their absence. And their spouse is the one who ensures that it does.

For me, that has meant sleep training and potty training kids without my husband around to help. It’s meant helping my children struggle to grasp separation and going from a two-parent to single-parent home overnight when they are too young to really understand those concepts. It’s meant creating schedules and habits that streamline our routines so that I can manage 1, 2, or 3 children on my own. And it’s meant learning to schedule in time to take care of myself when there’s no one around to do it for me.

My civilian friends will often say, “I struggle when my husband is gone for a day or two, I couldn’t handle him being gone for months at a time!” But I’ll let you in on a secret. My patience and sanity is directly proportional to how long Michael’s absence will be. When he’s gone for a 24-hour guard duty, I’m completely burnt out by the time he’s home. If he’s in the field for two weeks, I manage to keep it together until right before he gets back. And when Michael has to go on a months long TDY (temporary duty), I have days when I handle the separation like a Rockstar and days when I completely fall apart. Even after five years of doing this, it’s still really hard to be the only parent. There is no secret sauce that magically makes some women good at being Army wives or single moms. We do it because we don’t have any other option. Just like mothers of children with special needs adapt to their new lifestyle for the good of their kids, military spouses adapt for the good of their family. Over the years I’ve learned coping mechanisms and tricks to make the separations easier, but that’s a subject for a different blog post.  

Has your spouse been deployed or gone for long periods of training? What have those separations taught you about yourself, your marriage, and your family? I’d love to hear your thoughts!