Many years ago I stood with a few other spouses and I watched the bus drive off with our husbands for a combat deployment. I wasn’t naive as they thought, I had heard the whispers and rumors. Dh and I were 20, married less than a year. I was pregnant. He had no idea when he was coming back. Combine this with the reality that I was married to a soldier and everyone knows military marriages never end well… no one thought we had a chance. And when he came home that time, more than half a year later, dusty, battle worn and a whole lot more grown up, if not much older, than he had been when he left, we did struggle. We hurt each other. We had a baby and new home and we tried for a while but then we stopped trying because it was hard and we thought it would be easy. Somewhere in there he brought up the idea of leaving for selection for another unit and I told him he was welcome to do it. Single. We struggled, but somehow and by the grace of God, by the next tour I was still there. But the hard truth is that when I was saying goodbye that second time, those other wives I had stood with before? They weren’t there anymore. Their loss was weirdly hard for me, like it represented a collective failure of our community, an omen, an eventuality. And now after more than 16 years and 4 deployments, I can almost count on one hand the spouses I knew then that are still around now. Dh and I, we have no magic in us. There’s plenty of couples who are the same…
Today I cleaned the kitchen. This isn’t *that* shocking, I keep a relatively clean house, only because when my house is cluttered my head feels cluttered. But this morning, I had no intention of cleaning. When you live apart for half a year, or, say, more than half of the past 3 years, or huge chunks of an entire 14 year marriage, sometimes big things happen. Sometimes a couple grows apart, someone is unfaithful, someone wants to leave, can’t wait anymore or is just plain done. But other times, other times none of those things happen. You are still very much in love. You’ve never had the time, energy or even the smallest interest in an affair. You’re in this for life Instead something else creeps up when you don’t expect it. Turns out I got really comfortable alone. I made my own choices, my own decisions. If I wanted to leave at 8pm and go shopping, or skip the gym in the morning, or make grilled cheese for dinner all week, no one was there to say anything. Then he is home and I resent it. He is in my space. He has a voice in my decisions. He speaks up and sometimes he says things I don’t want to know or make judgements I am not interested in hearing. So things are tense. Adjusting is hard. I’m not fun to live with, and sometimes that means neither is he. Fuses are short. Sometimes one of us pushes it too far. This morning it was Dh, but that doesn’t mean it’s never me. It just wasn’t me this time. When both of us went to work this morning neither…
A few weeks, maybe days after Dh left I found these bowls. My kitchenware is eclectic. I don’t have a set, instead I have bowls and plates and mugs that I chose separately. For Dh’s sake I chose all the same bowls, all the same plates… but the mugs don’t match the dinner plates, and nothing matches the desert bowls. So I’m always on the hunt for ones that I like. And back in October, I found these ones. Dark colored with a big red flower on each, they match the colors of my great room and so I added them to the collection. That was 6 months ago. They are now part of my routine, they hold my breakfast oatmeal and soup for dinner. They have a place in the cupboard. They fit in here now. It’s down to days/weeks now before Dh will return. It occurs to me this morning he’s never seen these bowls. And I have never told him about them. Why would I? Occasional rushed phone calls and emails that share the more important information over 6 months, it’s just one of those things that doesn’t come up. And yet how strange it must be to return home and see them there, in a space they weren’t before, part of a routine that is no longer familiar. The media often paints reintegration as a terrifying balance of happiness and rage, shows like Homeland reach to the extreme and other movies with returning soldiers often focus on panic attacks,anger, fear. There’s huge issues that certainly happen, confronting infidelity, financial misuse, PTSD, traumatic physical injury. Dramatic scenes play out on the soldier’s…
Usually when I’m asked to speak somewhere or write something, it’s to give insight into the lives of Canadian Forces families to a culture that doesn’t know a whole lot about them. Or what they do know, they see on the news or on Lifetime, a jaded, spun and less than realistic portrayal of a life. Many many days, the military plays very little role in my day to day activities. I get up, I go to a gym in my (civilian) community. I get my kids off to (a civilian run) school. I go to work. I happen to work on the base part time, so that part is a little skewed. But then I come home. I take my kids to Jiu Jitsu at another off base gym. I clean up and watch Netflix. I start over. So while the undertones of my life have been set by my spouse’s employment (I live where we were told, not where we choose. I sleep alone though I’ve been married 14 years), for those mundane daily activities we’re not any different. We’re average. My spouse, though in a combat trade and on his 4th deployment, has never been wounded, emotionally or physically. We walk through life like everyone else. Except we don’t. Not always. And there are times of year where the military stops being one of those quiet sideline participants and starts screaming for center stage like a tantrum throwing toddler. That’s the season of life we are in now. And I could yell from the rooftops that the military is ‘just a…
So, your spouse is in the Canadian military? Maybe you are a new couple, or maybe your spouse just enlisted. Either way, I get a LOT of messages from you wondering about practical advice on where to start. I have virtually none. I dont know who gave you the impression I know what I’m doing, but they were sadly mistaken. I’m winging it like everyone else. However, I will give you what I’ve got. It’s been 15 years, 3 kids 3 houses and 4 deployments, and I’ve learned far less than I should have by now, but maybe enough to get you started in the right-ish direction. Here we go. 1. It’s all in the name. And your name needs to be on EVERYTHING. Bank accounts. Cable bill. Cell phone. SunLife. Everything. Look at a monthly bank statement and all those bills that are paid? Make sure your name is on the account. Because if your spouse is away, he or she may be impossible to contact and those companies will NOT talk to you if there’s a problem. Being unable to communicate with his Visa company could mean a damaged credit rating on his return, and if you can’t speak to SunLife regarding her account, you may not be able to seek any reimbursements for the extent of their absence. 2. Power of Attorney If you are in a committed relationship (marriage, common law, etc), that piece of paper is vital. It’s the difference between you being able to relocate, make bank changes, etc or being stuck without a means to change mortgage or sell the house. I have used Power of Attorney to list and sell a house, secure…
So with Dh coming up on his HLTA in the next month or so, we are reflecting on past leave experiences and I thought I’d share a bit on how to make your very on HLTA a disaster. Because here at She Is Fierce I like to be encouraging… or at least be a shining example of what not to do. This is Dh’s 4th deployment but his first did not have a home leave, so this is our 3rd HLTA. (By the way, that ridiculous acronym is brought to you by Home Leave Travel Allowance, and is just an armyese way of saying his mid – deployment vacation.) I can’t speak for Air Force or Navy but most (not all) Army deployment have a 16 day HLTA anywhere from 6 weeks in to 6 week before the end, depending on which rotation they get. You would think it would be all sunshine and rainbows. I mean, you haven’t seen them in a long time and your being given approximately 2 weeks to spend ‘relaxing’ right? Everything will look like a thousand YouTube videos of cammo hugs and rainbow unicorn kittens…. Ya. You COULD keep assuming that. Or learn from our mistakes: 1. Raise Your Expectations He’s going to get off that plane and you’ll jump in his arms. You’ll instantly love being around him 24/7. Your children will be on their best possible behavior, everyone will get along and he will immediately and completely readjust to life at home. Maybe. Or maybe the first hug will be awkward. The kids will be scared or angry with him for being away. One of you wants to jump into bed and the…
Here in my house, pity parties are not allowed to last the night. Sure, it’s okay sometimes to sit with your glass of wine and your bag ‘o chocolate and moan because you’re doing it on your own again, or because you’re little family won’t be complete at Christmas, or because not one child will have dad home for their birthday this year….. but then you pick your bloated, wine filled ass off that couch and you pull yourself together. Life moves on. And sometimes pulling yourself together just involves enough energy for yoga pants and wiping the grime from the toilet before someone thinks there’s a frat house using your bathroom. But it’s still progress. In my house, we move forward because experience has taught me nothing gets better if you’re waiting for the ideal moment to try. So last fall when Dh left I decided we wouldn’t be sitting on our butt waiting for community to magically appear and make this 4th deployment easier. We were going to make community. Inspired by Sarah Smiley and her book, we started our Invitations Deployment Project. Each Sunday, we invite someone new for dinner. Each Sunday, we have a new chance to expand our community. You can see how our first month went here. The first week in December, I already had Christmas decorations up. I love to decorate for Christmas, and without Dh to pull back the reigns a little, I can get going pretty early. So by the time General Dean Milner and his beautiful wife Katrin came to our door I had already strung the lights, hung the garland and decorated the tree. They brought wine. I was going to…
“So, who’s *your* support network?” I was talking to another military spouse in church and after explaining the ways I had meddled got involved with the various services during this deployment to support other spouses, this wasn’t the question I was expecting. At this stage in my life, I enjoy being the nosy overbearing support for other spouse’s. I’ve spent more than my share of time being the one supported over the years. I try to be the one to organize the events, to contact the lady on the message board who feels alone, to bring a meal or a babysitter or an ear to someone who’s struggling. I like ensuring that someone is getting their snow cleared or that there’s a regular coffee time for others to make new friends. These things make my heart happy. They are why I run a Spouse’s Night Out group, why I drive onto base a couple times a week from my house 20 minutes away. For the most part, they are why I run this blog. “Who’s YOUR support network?” Well, I don’t really need one, do I? This is our 4th deployment. I mean, if there was an emergency I’m pretty loud empowered. If I thought about it I know who I could call if I needed to. I can make Christmas happen, I can plan an HLTA, I can attend school meetings and work a Power of Attorney and sell a house. I know my acronyms and I can yell at deal with Brookfield. I know when it’s free to send packages and I know…
Fun facts about DH as he turns 31… – He loves Van Morrison. It drives me nuts because the hard drive of our van has a bunch of Van Morrison songs on it, which is jarring when you go from Skillet to ‘Brown Eye’d Girl.’ And for the record, I have blue eyes. – He wear slippers all the time and, more importantly/disturbingly, he brings them with him places to wear at other peoples houses! Are we 80? ‘Hey, what’s in your purse?’ “oh, pardon me, that’s just my husbands slippers.” – The only thing that make him look older from 10 years ago is desert sand induced eye wrinkles. And they only make him look sexier. – He’s the one who wanted my daughter’s ears pierced. Because I shaved her head when she was 3 and had lice. Since then she’s just had very short curly hair. I think to him he feels like the earrings make up for the hair. – This weekend, he made us watch the new Footloose on Netflix. That’s all I’m going to say about that. – Speaking of Netflix, I secretly email TopGear begging them not to update their seasons on there for fear of losing my husband again. –He has never had a cavity. Ever. I not so secretly hate him for that. – He enlisted at 17. He was married at 19. He went to Afghanistan for the first time when he was 20. He had his first child 9 days after he turned 21. He had three tours to Afghanistan and…
This weekend, on May 19th, is mine and DH’s 11th Wedding Anniversary. And I’m going to let you in on a little known fact. It’s actually not. It’s true, even ask my husband who had his security clearance papers returned because he used this date as his wedding date. If you look at our Marriage Certificate, our actual anniversary is in March. Why, you ask? Because we were 19. We were broke. We couldn’t even afford an apartment and if we were going to be married and actually live together, we needed to live in military housing. Military housing required a marriage certificate to place us on the waiting list for a house. The waiting list was one month long. Before we were married, I lived with my parents in a city about 3 hours away from him. He lived in the single quarters on base. It was not an option for either of us to move in with the other, so had we waited until our wedding to put in our names for a house, we would have had to wait a month in order to live together. A month still being apart after our wedding. We were unwilling to do that. So we went to the office of our Pastor with 2 of our friends and signed papers. In our jeans a t-shirts. With no one there but the required witnesses. We didn’t invite our parents. I think we might have gone out for lunch with a friend after. And that was that. When I walked down the aisle at that fancy dream wedding I mentioned here, I wasn’t scared he’d run. Technically, he was already my husband. The army, it…
