Being a military wife is not all it’s cracked up to be. I am honored and blessed to have the title of “military wife” however, a lot of emotions come with that title.
There is no introductory course for being a military wife and there is no guide book to reference. When I was a newlywed I would search military spouse pages on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter hoping to connect with a wife near me who was in the same boat. Reading through these pages and blogs made being a military wife seem awful. These pages were created as a personal venting chat room and I just couldn’t read them anymore.
I have always been a firm believer in girlfriends and girl time. I am so thankful for the best friends I have made through every stage of my life, from high school to college and in between. My life mantra from Candace Bushnell in Sex and the City is, “Maybe our girlfriends are our soul mates and guys are just people to have fun with.”
When I got married and moved 12 hours away from my home, I was thrilled to find all new soul mates. To my dismay, it didn’t happen the way I planned.
Finding other military wives to hang out with and get to know has been the hardest part of my transition from single to married to military. Through my searches, I have found that I have close to nothing in common with military wives. I don’t like/have babies, I don’t like saying at home, and I certainly don’t like talking bad about my husband (all topics of which I have experienced personally on many occasions)
During my first couple of years as a military wife I became quite the host for pity-parties. I had no friends, my husband was usually gone out to sea and my closest family members lived 3 hours away. We eventually bought a dog and he filled a teeny-tiny void in my lack-of-friends hole. The funny part is that my dog actually created some of the closest friendships I have to this day. We met some amazing couples (who are non-military) at the dog park, at local meet-ups and other places and have bonded and created lasting relationships with them. All because of my dog.
I will never meet people like my soul mates back home and I think that’s what I was trying to do when I first moved and became a military wife. The people who I’ve met and the girls I’ve built relationships with are completely different from my soul mates, but that’s okay because I am a completely different person than I was before getting married. My soul mates and I bonded over boys, booze, and bars. There’s nothing wrong with that, and we still occasionally bond over two of those three things, but where I’m at now in life I’m looking to bond over marriage, education …and still booze.
It’s not easy and it can sometimes be pretty painful. It took me about 3 years to find some amazing girls and really connect with them. THREE YEARS! It used to take me 3 minutes to find friends. The hardest part is that after you’ve put all the work into building and creating these relationships, then the military decides to take them away. The positive thing is that I now have friends all across the United States. Friends that I would have never met had it not been for me being a military wife.