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When I married my husband I knew that I hit the jackpot. I am one of those ridiculously type A people. In fact, I would say I am too type A for my own good. It’s like a sickness really.
My husband, on the other hand, is a total type B personality. He’s authoritative, yet completely laid back and relaxed even with the most stressful problems. Meanwhile, I’m over in the corner working myself into a tizzy over nothing.
That’s how I knew my husband was for me. I could go on one of my ridiculous rants about stay-at-home mom schedules and organization, and he would patiently listen before quietly telling me that everything would be okay if we didn’t follow the schedule or let the house fall a mess for a few days.
So marriage is awesome, but it’s also really tough some days. Despite our good relationship, my husband and I have experienced our fair share of stressful challenges and obstacles, especially when it comes to military life. Military PCS moves, military deployments, having kids while stationed far from family, changing jobs, and learning to make peace with becoming a stay-at-home mom are just a few challenges that come to mind.
Over the past several years, I’ve watched military marriages both flourish and crumble in the face of difficult circumstances. I’ve watched the strong military marriages carefully, studying and learning, hoping to grow and keep my own military marriage strong.
If there is one thing I’ve noticed, it’s that the military spouses in strong military marriages all seem to do these 5 smart and savvy things that will save a military marriage.
They try to see things through the service members’ perspective.
Spouses of strong military marriages keep a level head. They look at life through the eyes of their service member before jumping to conclusions. They ask question and listen. When they are done listening, they often listen some more until they really understand their service members’ perspective.
They put their spouse before other people, even when it’s inconvenient.
Marriage is a lot of work, requiring regular nurturing and attention. Spouses of strong military marriages seek out time to re-connect with their husbands and wives despite the busyness and stress of everyday military life.
They willingly embrace the ups and downs of military life.
It’s not always easy to roll with the punches, but these military spouses do. Deployment on short notice? Unexpected PCS? A change in resources available to military families? These military spouses handle life changes with grace, poise, and good will.
They don’t create (or escalate) drama.
Oh the drama. Military spouses of strong marriages keep far away from unnecessary drama within the community. They offer help to others and erase snide and mean comments from their vocabulary. Overall, they are just friendly and nice spouses to be around.
They don’t project anger felt towards the military onto service members.
There are some aspects of military life that are amazing. There are, of course, many times when the military has control over your life and that can feel very difficult and even make a spouse feel angry at the military. Military spouses of strong marriages, however, know the difference between being angry at the military and being angry at their service member. They get their anger out and address it but they don’t blame their service member for a PCS move, deployment, or other challenging circumstances.
Wrapping it up.
I’ve learned so much from watching other strong military marriages grow and flourish in the community. People love being around them. They make friends easily and adapt to new duty stations like nobody’s business. It’s such a treat to watch, and I can only hope to make my own military marriage even stronger with these 5 things that I believe will save your military marriage.
Want more on military life?
- 43 Awesome Tips Every New Military Wife Needs to Know
- When Parenting Alone Feels Lonely in Military Life
- What Military Marriage Really Looks Like
- 9 Reasons Why It’s Okay When He Deploys (Coping With Deployment Separations)
What’s your best tip to save your military marriage and keep it strong? Let’s chat in the comments!
This is such good advice. The underlying principles apply to all marriages, really. I definitely recognize these traits in the strong marriages I’m close to.
I agree that these things can easily be applied to marriages outside of the military as well 🙂
Awesome advice! The big one in my marriage and making time for each other. This past fall my husband and I both had very challenging work schedules which barely allowed us time together. When Veteran’s Day rolled around, he had the day off, but my job just didn’t consider it an “off day”. So I was still scheduled to work. My husband isn’t the type to need or ask for attention, so when I saw how hurt he was that I didn’t have the day off with him, I knew I couldn’t go to work that day. I took the day off and almost got fired for it! I don’t regret it one bit. Our marriage needed that time together and I felt so much closer to him after that. I’d rather save my marriage than save my job.
It’s a really difficult balance, isn’t it? And now that I work from home and create my own hours, it’s been really great for our family and our marriage. Wouldn’t change it for the world! Thanks for sharing a part of your story.
Lauren
Yes, to all of these! My husband is an Army doctor, so sometimes it feels like a double-whammy in terms of external factors dictating our schedules. I am a writer and fortunate to be able to work from home to care for our 6 month baby girl, and I think of all the points you outline, the best one for me to stay mindful of is seeing things from my husband’s perspective. It’s not like he WANTS to be away, missing some of our daughter’s milestones. He doesn’t WANT to have to cancel our date night because some hospital emergency. He doesn’t WANT to not be able to tell me where we are moving with less than a few months’ notice.
I keep in mind that he is as subject to the military whims as I am. We are a Team, and sometimes the best way I can contribute to our family’s overall happiness and productivity is by being a team player by being flexible, adaptable, and supportive. Plus, I know he’d do the same for me if our roles were reversed.
Yes, I totally agree with you. It’s not always easy to see things from the service member’s perspective but I do think it’s a huge aspect to a successful military marriage. I too am very familiar with my husband leaving on a whim without much notice. I know he is so grateful that I am able to stay home and work from home to help hold down the fort while he is gone on and off again.