Stop Complaining About Military Life

Who is helped by hearing constant complaints?

I understand that some spouses find military life hard. But I also think some people would just find any kind of life hard. Some people just suck the joy right out of life. And if someone is struggling, let’s be uplifting instead of tearing them down.

Some spouses seem to constantly complain of every aspect of military life. They’re so weary with the PCSing and the deployments and the stress and inconveniences.

I’m weary too.

I’m weary of the negativity and complaining about military life.

I’m also tired of people proclaiming that all military spouses are the same. We’re just lumped all together with Coach bags, MLMs, pregnant, flouting our husband’s rank. It’s a tired stereotype.

I’m sick of hearing that military spouses are uneducated and jobless and mooching off the government.

I don’t raise my family any differently because we’re a military family.

I’m not a different wife because my husband is active duty Air Force.

But perhaps I have a bit of an edge having grown up a military brat. I don’t remember a time when I didn’t go to a commissary or eXchange or travel on a road trip without stopping at a base or post to check out the history there or even stay in TLF on the off-season. My dad traveled lots as a reservist and GS. His dad was active duty Navy and he lived all over the coastal USA.

I realize some spouses have no prior experience with military life, but they should certainly research before starting a serious relationship with a service member.

Normal life is what you make of it.

We live in the greatest era for connection there has ever been. It’s 2020, not 1915! We have the Internet – with Facebook and Skype and Google and all sorts of ways to research and communicate with others. There are no excuses for lack of availability of information. Learn how to Google. Stop crowdsourcing for your affirmation. Seriously.

When my husband deployed the first time, we had just PCSed to a new state. I had four kids under the age of ten. No friends, no church, no family nearby. I homeschooled and I got no break for almost a year.

And he left on our anniversary.

And I had never experienced winter before.

For like that whole deployment, it was winter, y’all. I’d never lived anywhere that had winter. I learned to drive in blizzards and buy snowsuits and boots for our kids. I found out where to go sledding. Then it snowed again and our basement flooded on Memorial Day in May. Fun times. {I’m not made for winter.}

There were occasions when I was miserable. There were evenings when I cried in a ball on the kitchen floor. There were nights I put the kids to bed at 6:30 so I could just be alone. I lost my temper with my kids. I hated my husband. I hated myself. I hated God.

But mostly, life ran like clockwork.

There was so much less laundry! I had leftovers from dinner for lunch the next day. I could cook bell peppers all I wanted (Aaron doesn’t like them)!!! My eldest daughter and I stayed up late on weekends, talking and watching movies, after the babies went to bed. The house was spotless. Everything was so efficient.

I am quite capable of parenting, housework, homeschooling, yard work, and simple home repairs. I knew other military wives who really could not function alone, and they had way more help from family, friends, church, and community than I’ve in my entire life. I was a single mom and homeowner for four years. So maybe that’s why it’s no big deal to me to go it alone sometimes. I trust myself.

I can get lazy and rely on my husband too much when he’s available to help. I get expectations. Without having to defend my parenting or having to divide my time between a wife’s role and parent’s role, it was often more peaceful.

I missed most the being able to sleep in an extra half hour or so on Saturday mornings while he made pancakes for the kids. But I also learned how capable my kids could be if given the chance.

Our expectations must change if we are to focus on the positives instead of the negatives. If we see everything as a learning opportunity rather than an inconvenience, it will help us make better memories for our families as we teach our kids what’s most important.

Are we different or special because we’re a military family?

Sometimes.

Is life hard for us because we’re a military family?

Sometimes.

Sure, there is often a lot of stress.

But despite all the negatives we could focus on, we realize how blessed we are to be able to live in different places and experience different cultures and learn so much about the world when other families miss out on that.

My son, our youngest child, told me the other day: “Mama, I love it that we get to move around and live in all these cool places and see the world.”

I just won life.

We got to live in Hawaii, Germany, Texas, Georgia, Utah, Germany, Ohio – and see such amazing sites rather than just the challenges – the stress and negativity that can come with inconveniences, deployments, TDYs, and PCSes.

I want my kids’ memories to be about the great opportunities we get to experience!

Resources:

• Third Culture Kids 3rd Edition: Growing up among worlds by Ruth E. Van Reken, Michael V. Pollock, David C. Pollock
• This Is Where You Belong: Finding Home Wherever You Are by Melody Warnick 
• Almost There: Searching for Home in a Life on the Move by Bekah DiFelice
• God Strong: The Military Wife’s Spiritual Survival Guide by Sara Horn
• Tour of Duty: Preparing Our Hearts for Deployment: A Bible Study for Military Wives by Sara Horn
• Chicken Soup for the Military Wife’s Soul: 101 Stories to Touch the Heart and Rekindle the Spirit by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, and Charles Preston
• Faith Deployed: Daily Encouragement for Military Wives by Jocelyn Green
• Faith Deployed…Again: More Daily Encouragement for Military Wives by Jocelyn Green
• Faith, Hope, Love, & Deployment: 40 Devotions for Military Couples by Heather Gray

You might also like:

• Celebrating the Holidays During Deployment
• Reintegration
• How Deployment Affects Kids
• When a Parent Travels
• Military Children and Toxic Stress