If you have kids, know someone who has kids, or pay attention to memes that parents post on social media – you are probably familiar with the joy that children bring.
Scenario: It is the middle of the night and you are pulled out of a dead sleep by a screaming child. They are sick as a dog, but they can’t articulate what is wrong (you know since they are a young child). You take their temperature and it is boiling hot. You call the advice nurse or take it upon yourself to play doctor and WebMD it. There are a million symptoms, none of which are pointing out the root cause of their pain. You are in full-on panic mode. You have another kid you need to drag to urgent care with you. You have to work in a few hours. Your husband is at work. There isn’t family nearby. You suck it up and head to the urgent care with a half-asleep child, a screaming child, in a state of disarray.
- While the person in the scenario above is literally saying “what the f*ck” in their head, you probably read it and conjured up a multitude of questions. Why not call your husband and have him come home from work? Or, call a friend? Maybe see if your family can drive down to your house and help out? Seems logical. Unless you are the unspoken hero.
- Your husband can’t come home from work because he is 10,000 miles away. You don’t have any “friends” because you are a transplant to the area you live in. Your family can’t just drive over because they live across the country. Sounds similar to the everyday life a single mother pushes through but that isn’t the angle here. The unspoken hero is the military spouse.
Doing it alone. Just imagine being removed from your family, friends, support system, everything you’ve ever known and plopped into a new town with your spouse – and then have them completely removed from the picture. To be honest, it sounds miserable. To be really honest, it is miserable. Tack on the loneliness from all of the aforementioned, long-distance relationship while your spouse is deployed, and the myriad of feelings this military life brings… most spouses would hit the easy button and bounce. ✌🏻
Society. The military spouse is overlooked by the majority of society. They live a difficult life and endure a ton of sacrifice – most of America complains and voices their negative stance on the military daily – so I imagine the military spouse would receive even less support. They are asked, “what do you do for a living?” They respond with “xxxxxx” job title or they say, “I stay at home with the kids.” In floods the judgment. A stay-at-home mother in 2020? How archaic and anti-feminist is that?!? Well, are they supposed to keep a job their spouse leaves for work at 5 a.m. and gets home after 7 p.m. (or later)? The military member travels ALL the time, sporadically, and has days where they remain at work for 24 hours several times a month. Yeah yeah, we get it – they chose this life – blah blah blah. Whatever bro, they chose a person to love and cherish. They didn’t choose to be forgotten about whenever the military rang.
To any person that would ever pass judgment on a military spouse for raising their children and maintaining the household, I have this to say: Go. To. Hell!
– Me as I write this, 2020
Dependa. Then again, there is the “dependa” stigma that plagues the ranks of military spouses… Google it if you are curious. Click the “image” tab – the fact that you’ll see a dozen memes and grotesque photos just goes to show how much appreciation they receive. The “dependa” is a rarity and they bring the negativity upon themselves. I don’t bear much respect for someone who takes advantage of their military spouse and their benefits. I digress.
Money. I feel there are a ton of military spouses who feel inadequate in comparison to their spouse when it comes to contributing {monetarily} to the household. Are you freaking kidding me? Dude, how are you supposed to maintain a real job without emptying your bank account to pay for daycare? Your spouse is deployed or works insane hours when they are home, travels on an irregular basis regularly, and you are expected to maintain any semblance of a normal life? GTFO! While it might be possible, and there are people that maintain a dual-income household within a military family, it isn’t easily duplicated or replicated. All the sh*t a military spouse has to endure is insane. They deserve far more credit than they receive.
Support. If you have a neighbor, friend, family member, co-worker, etc., – and their significant other is deployed – try reaching out to them and see if they need anything. Odds are, they will say no based solely on pride. Odds are even better that they don’t mean it.
Anonymous Animosity 
How to milspouse
Step 1. Leave your career behind, for your husbands career
Step 2. Never be able to get a decent career again because places dont want to hire or promote the girl who will just move anyway
Step 3. Be called a dependa after losing everything in your life for your husband and his career (family, friends, home, job)
Step 4. Listen to the military leadership tell your husband that your marriage and spouse are worthless because it wont last, even though you gave up your family, career and any lasting friendships.
Step 5. Listen to other women who tell you that you cant look at the only positive to what you now call life (getting the priveledge to shop at the commissary, discounts and tricare)… you literally have nothing else…but do not by any means think you deserve to shop there… it doesn’t matter that you no longer get to have a life… even though you never signed anything
Step 6. Get bullied and say nothing
Step 7. Have all of your items broken, damaged… you literally have nothing else.. but now you don’t have anything you own either
Step 8. Solitude. Your husband is gone for months, you sit with a tv dinner and watch the months pass
Step 9. Learn your place, you are insignificant. Most spouses at this point have depression, anxiety and are now seeing therapists where they never had to before.
Step 10. Lose your right to post online. Anything you post, your husbands leadership sees and that makes your home life that much tougher
Step 11. Look at programs for single soldiers and wonder and wish you could join the programs, just for a sense of community and belonging
Repeat step 4. You will be told that you are worthless in some way because you did not sign the paper to join, you have uprooted your whole life for their cause and again and again you will be told that you are no one and the military tells you that if your husband abandons you in this world after what you gave up, they do not care. You could be left homeless and without a job in some random city (ladies make sure you know who you are marrying.. know them well.. because you will give up your life for this man). Listen to them call you a dependa as your depression takes over or you have a kid and cant get a job. Other spouses are just as miserable and they will bully you too, especially if one of them manages to find the unicorn in the job world and doesnt have to stay home with the child. In the old world, it was expected that the woman would stay with the kids and pay was acceptable for that, in this new world, without the upgrades and help of the military.. you are expected to work… but the problem lies in the fact that you are expected to do this while you have no one to watch the soldiers kids.. the moment your husband deploys.. goodbye again to work.. because childcare will cost more than you make…then if you don’t have a job.. you are a dependa and you will barely scrape by. Remember you are a worthless dependa who has no job, you deserve no special privileges and your husband will be told your marriage means nothing.
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