Confessions of an Army Wife

With hungry, needy kids in tow, single mothers know how hard it is to get things done on their own. Working mothers know how difficult it can be to create balance in their lives and meet their goals. Other families move often. Still other families have a parent that travels often. On top of the above-mentioned issues, the military spouse has additional challenges. I didn’t choose to fall in love with a solider, but when I chose to marry him I already knew that the military is tough on families. There’s a lot of frustration, a whole lot of waiting and definitely some crying. But there’s also spirit, service, passion, pride, love, laughs and all that warm and fuzzy stuff, too.

The most difficult part of being an Army wife can be summed up in one word: deployments. The waiting, the separation and seemingly endless loneliness really stink! But the fear is worse. A few times I heard explosions in the background of our video chats. Chris, my husband, would disappear, and I would spend the next few days anxiously waiting to hear from him. When a soldier is killed overseas everyone in that location is forbidden from calling home and all outside communication channels are cut off. They do this to give the Army the chance to notify the fallen soldier’s family before they hear it on the news or from the grapevine. Logically, you know that if it were your loved one, you would have been told within hours. Still, you panic until the blackout is lifted.

The first time Chris deployed after we were married, he was gone 13 months. He was home from that deployment for almost 11 months before disappearing for another 15 months. Instead of missing one Christmas, one birthday, one anniversary, we missed two, sometimes even three in a row.

This life of constant transition and frequent challenge is more than any person can handle alone. Having a group of friends to rely on has made a huge difference in my life (and to my sanity). Every Friday night, we girls, a group of fellow “milspouses” got together. We’d enjoy dinner while laughing at (but secretly enjoying) Lifetime’s Army Wives. We took turns making dinners and we watched each other’s kids. We went to cheap (and sometimes free) movies on post. We did our best to stay active. I even found time between my full-time job and a full-time load of night graduate classes to train for and run the Army 10-miler in D.C.

Of course, the down side to making close friends in the military is that either you, or they, will inevitably move. Though I keep in touch with my friends through Facebook, Skype, the phone and sometimes good old-fashioned letter-writing, I still have to start over, building new friendships every time I move. It gets exhausting.

When it’s time to move (again), we submit a list of our top 10 location choices with the understanding that there are no guarantees. Ultimately our next posting is based on the needs of the Army: I might desire a beachside villa in Hawaii; the Army might require us to move to Alaska. With each move comes a new home, new schools, new friends, new doctors and a new job. On the bright side, we see a lot of the country (and some other counties) that we may not otherwise have seen. Kansas was never on our ‘to do’ list, but now that we are here we love it. If only it didn’t get so cold….

It’s often said that the spouse has the toughest job in the military. Yet military spouses are often the subjects of unflattering stereotypes. You hear about the loneliness, overwhelmed young mothers, heartless gold diggers, helpless and depressed women. I’ve certainly witnessed some shocking behavior, but that behavior (and the ensuing stereotypes) isn’t representative of most of us. Most of us rise to the challenge of being a temporarily single parent, of moving at a month’s notice to a location we’ve never seen. Most of us are just like you. We are trying to be the best partner, friend and parent we can--regardless of the circumstances.

Victoria Pressley is a military spouse and mother of two currently stationed in Leavenworth, KS. On top of her 9 year marriage to Major Christopher Pressley, she has also experienced military life as a child, with a stepfather in the air force, and as an army reservist in Australia.