I’ve always considered myself an Army wife convert, meaning I came into the army wife lifestyle by way of transitioning from active duty soldier to army wife. It just so happened that the man I married was a soldier also; so deployments, training exercises, TDY assignments were nothing new to me. Did they interrupt our marriage and family life? Absolutely!

The day after I came home from the hospital, from giving birth to our daughter, my husband was off to a long term training exercise. As a former soldier, I was used to long term training and field exercises, however as a new army wife, being left behind was no day at the beach, here I was with a brand new baby, no family around for support. Who was going to teach me how to care for this newborne? What was I going do?

I learned very quickly that life goes on and that the Army was not going to change it’s way of doing business, so I took on my former soldier mindset: adapt and persevere and it has carried me through 20 years.

Separations, especially the six to 12 month assignments do impact a military marriage. As with any marriage, each spouse carries a certain level of responsibility and when your soldier has to leave for an extended period of time, all responsibilities shift to you, the spouse left behind. My husband left for an unaccompanied overseas tour back in the 90′s for two years, everything that functioned so well when he was home, miraculously fell a part: the car tires went ball, the shocks needed replacing, i lost my ID card and forgot to get a power of attorney from him before he left, my daughter cried continuously because she missed and wanted her daddy and while trying to console her in McDonald‘s, I myself broke down in tears because I simply needed a calgon-take-me-away moment!

Sometimes, waiting for your soldier to leave can be just as stressful. I can remember getting up early with my husband at 3am, taking him to work, waiting around; finally traveling back home with my daughter only to receive a call moments later to pick him back up because they’ve changed the departure time to later in the day.

There were times as a young army wife where I would miss my husband until it hurt, I couldn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I just felt blah. One day I came up with this really cool theraputic idea to dedicate one day a week as my “cry day” where I would cry until I felt like stopping, it worked so well, my daughter joined in with me. It helped me to make it through each week.

When my husband and I both served in the Army, long term separations did not have the same impact, we both understood the significance of our jobs and that the Army was our career of choice.

The first episode of Army Wives dealt with establishing friendships, if there was a time to surround your self with other supportive military spouse friends, times of long-term separation and deployment is one of them.

Deployments and long-term separations are a part of the military lifestyle, it is the career choice of your soldier, as a military spouse, you have to learn to adapt and persevere if you’re going to be a part of this lifestyle.

Written by: Victoria M. Parham, Blogger for Season 1 of Lifetime Television Series ArmyWives – Retired Army spouse and Producer and Host for Military Spouse Talk Radio, an upbeat 30 minute, information packed talk show segment for an about the lives of military spouses – www.militaryspousetalkradio.com, You can also connect with Victoria via her personal blog at www.victoriaparham.com.

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