Lately, it's come to my attention that my life is in dire need of change. It started with a series of friends, all of which I've since been forced to remove off my 'friends list' (both literally--facebook--and metaphorically). It took me awhile to realize they all had one thing in common; they were army wives. Guess what? My husband is no longer in the army, and therefore, I really don't fall into that category anymore.
For those of you reading who have never been an army wife, I just have one thing to say; It's not like the TV show. Nothing like the TV show. It's not all flowers and peace signs and female bonding time. It's usually claws and trash talking and nasty gossip. My advice? Be very, very picky when it comes to friends if you become a military spouse. The online forums most of us turn to in the beginning and during deployments are also fake. It's easy to be nice and supportive when you're talking online, especially when your spouse is stateside.
That being said, if I met you at Ft. Campbell, whether I saw you with your claws out or not, you're gone. Your husband being gone, you being pregnant, etc, isn't an excuse to treat people in your life like shit. I was pregnant, twice, while my husband was gone, and I don't recall treating any other spouse like shit. I don't recall treating anyone there like shit regardless of whether or not I was pregnant or my husband was deployed or in the field.
And on top of that, don't you for a SECOND think that your husband being gone is any harder on you than it is on everyone else. Regardless of whether or not you and your spouse fight every day or never fight at all (or somewhere in the middle), for MOST people, their spouse is their best friend.
My husband is my best friend, and it absolutely killed me when he left. It killed me when he joined the army and was gone from us for 8 months; it killed me when he left for 10 days for training, especially the second time because I was in the process of miscarrying our second baby; it killed me when he left for JRTC for a month, especially because I knew he was about to leave for deployment; and it killed me when he deployed for a year. ESPECIALLY the deployment. I cried all day for days, I cried every night for months, I cried several times after my daughter was born because he wasn't there, and I'm tearing up right now thinking about it all. It. was. painful. And I never, ever thought it was harder for me than it was for anyone else. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I thought it'd be easier for us than a lot of the other spouses who didn't seem as secure in their relationships as we are in ours. I knew we would survive marriage wise (and survive we did!). Added to that, there was about 5 or 6 other pregnant spouses during our deployment. Obviously, we weren't the first set of women to ever go through a deployment pregnant. I imagine it's happened countless times. I didn't set some record. I didn't feel like I deserved a medal, or a cookie (well...maybe the cookie ;)).
It is unfortunate that so many military wives think they deserve to treat people however they want to.
I totally didn't mean to start this post off with a rant about military wives, but that's how it ended up. I have run out of time for now, so I'll post the rest of it later.
If you're reading this, I love you.
Even if I don't like you anymore.
(FYI: Not every spouse was terrible. I think I just met the wrong set. One person from Campbell is still my friend, and this isn't directed at her. There are a few that I know for a fact aren't like this. But the few that I ended up close with almost all turned out to be like this--or worse, they cheated on their spouse while he was deployed and that's just not something I want in a friend. Most of this was honestly brought on by my reaction to one person).
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