Lessons I Have Learned as a USMC Wife

Yesterday marked the end of a major chapter in my life. My hubby is no longer an active duty Marine, and never say never, but at this time, I am no longer a military wife. This day came with a lot of reflection on the past 4+ years. What an adventure it all has been!

When Adam decided to become an officer in the Marine Corps, I had no idea what was to come. I was finishing up college, and we had been dating for a bit over 2 years. At first I wasn’t even sure if I could endure being a military girlfriend, but I remember the exact evening while he was in training when I made my mind up that I was going to stick it out with him, through whatever craziness came our way. This was hands down the best decision I’ve ever made in my life. There were plenty of people who made me think that we couldn’t make it through, but I listened to my gut and did what I felt was the right move for me. Lesson #1: Listen to the advice of others, but ultimately follow your heart. And, lesson #2: Do whatever you can to keep the people who make you happy in your life. 

At first, deployments seemed like an impossible feat. Though we had dealt with a long distance relationship, I couldn’t image spending months on end apart. I wasn’t so sure I could deal with it…. until I had to. At that point, I had to change my mindset from ”I can’t do this” to ”I can and I will get through this,” which is exactly what I did – for two long deployments and several shorter ones. Lesson #3: You can do whatever you put your mind to. And, lesson #4: A good attitude can only help you.

I’ve always been a pretty outgoing & independent person, but I became even more so when we move 2,500 miles away from my homestate to San Diego. I attended events where I didn’t know a soul, joined clubs to meet people, started volunteering, and explored the area as much as I could. When Adam deployed a bunch of weeks after we arrived in California, I spent a lot of time dating myself. Somewhere along the lines, I realized that I had come to know myself better. All of that self-exploration made me more conscientious of the person I wanted to be, how I wanted to spend my time, and the people I wanted to surround myself with. Lesson #5: Dating yourself allows you to build a stronger relationship with you. 

I participated in a lot of USMC wives’ activities and met some beautiful people, but also came across some kind of snobby characters – women who thought they wore their husbands’ rank. I like to refer to them as 40-year old characters from Mean Girls. I felt a bit like I was the new kid on the block in grade school getting picked on by these women, and it bothered me at first. I didn’t understand why anyone would act bitchy just because I was younger than them and newer to the squadron, or because my husband hadn’t been in the military as long as theirs. But at some point, I realized that if someone acts nasty for no reason, it has everything to do with them and nothing to do with me. I stopped caring if a wife wanted to be anything less than nice, and focused on the ladies I had become great friends with and just being myself. I think this change of attitude also had to do with lesson #5 – I had become more comfortable in my own skin, liked who I was, and didn’t mind if not everyone else did. Lesson #6: Accept that you can’t control and won’t always understand how others treat you, and lesson #7: No one can make you feel inferior without your permission. 

Adam and I have spent a lot of time apart during these years, and it has helped me to see more clearly what’s important in life. I hear people complaining about trivial things with their significant other and think, Would they realize how silly these things are if they had to spend 7 months apart from their spouse? I’d take my hubby being home with me and messy any day over living in a nice clean apartment alone! And if something does bother me enough, we talk about it and figure out how to move forward in a positive way. Life is short, and there’s no time to waste being angry over unimportant things.  What matters most is that we’re together, and I never take that for granted. Lesson #8: Don’t let petty things annoy you enough to ruin your day, or even part of it, and lesson #9: Always, always cherish the one you love and the time you have together. 

Being a military wife has forever changed me. I feel like it has opened up my world and given me new perspectives. Over these years, I’ve gotten a lot of sympathetic looks and comments, and I know that people sometimes pitied me -for having my spouse gone often, for living on my own, for being so far away from my family. Though they probably meant well, I never needed their sympathy. Why? Because I’m part of a proud group of people who have lived and breathed what it’s like to be a USMC spouse. I won’t deny that sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes you just want to know what the hell is going on, but you have no choice but to be patient. A lot of times plans quickly change. But when your spouse comes home, or you get to meet him during a deployment, or even when you get an unexpected phone call during a deployment, the feeling is like no other. There a lot of highs and lows being a military spouse, and I developed a sort of mental toughness through it all. I have girlfriends whose spouses just came home from long stints in Afghanistan, one new mom whose man just deployed with a week’s notice, and one whose waiting to hear where they’ll move to next. As Marine Corps wives, everyone rolls with the punches as best they can, which brings me to lesson #10: USMC wives are TOUGH women!

My time as a Marine Corps spouse is something I’ll take with me for the rest of my life. I would never trade this experience, and think that my relationship with Adam has been tremendously strengthened because of our time in the military world. For the rest of my life, I’m going to live each day like he deploys tomorrow!