I am not one who likes to acknowledge the differences between civilian and military life. I have always looked at the Navy as my husbands job and tried to keep it at that, not allowing it to work it's way into our family identity. But try as I may to pretend it is no different being a military wife than a civilian wife, finally after over five and half years of marriage I am coming to terms with some of the effects it has had on our relationship.
In some ways it is easier (yep, I said easier) to be a military wife than a civilian wife. When my husband was on sea tour he was gone roughly 75% of the time. While that absence brought it's own difficulties, mainly missing him, it also gave both of us a break from being full-time spouses. We could each choose to focus entirely on our careers (or whatever else we wanted/needed to do). Free from wifely duties, I was able to accomplish significantly more career-wise than I could have hoped to with him around.
For the record, my husband isn't a slave driver, expecting me to do all the housework. But because I love him, I want to be able to make him a warm, healthy meal each night and make sure he has clean clothes to wear and a clean toilet to sit on. And planning, shopping for, and preparing delicious and healthy meals takes time. Cleaning and doing laundry and ironing take time. Investing in our relationship by doing things together takes time. And even though I take pleasure in doing those things for and with my husband, sometimes it's nice to a have a break from being a "full-time wife" in addition to the many other roles I have.
During my husband's last deployment I was pregnant, teaching full time, and a full time graduate student. I was so tired when I got home from work that I would collapse on the couch, eat cereal for dinner, and go to bed. I was so grateful during the exhausting months of pregnancy that I did not have the pressure of continuing to cook and clean the way I tried to when my husband was actually home. I think I did laundry maybe four times the entire six months he was gone, and I didn't iron once! And I could bask in the joy of not feeling guilty about any of it!
Then my husband came home from deployment, we moved to shore tour (which is the closest thing to civilian life that we will know), and we had a baby. At first I was still finishing my graduate degree and I started two new full time jobs; full-time mommy and full-time wife. And I thought I was busy before- ha! Unfortunately, my role as full-time mommy often conflicts with my role as full-time wife. Some days (okay... a lot of days...) a fresh, healthy dinner doesn't get made and come meal time we are scrounging around in the freezer looking for a Stouffer's lasagna or a pizza. And some days when my husband gets home from work the house is even more of a mess than it was when he left and based on all appearances I haven't accomplished anything other than barely managing to keep alive a screaming baby.
This inability to be the "perfect wife" is really tough for me. Right now, taking care of our 1 year old and keeping my sanity are top priority. My husband is so understanding and supportive of that. But I am not use to failing, and it feels like failing when I can't accomplish things like making dinner and keeping the house clean. I'm getting better at figuring out how to "do it all," but it is hard!
All this to say, I am sure that if we were a civilian couple, and I didn't have these extended "breaks" from my role as a wife, I would have gotten over the need to be the perfect wife long ago. But because in the past I have only had to have enough energy to do all those "good wife" duties for relatively short periods of time (and I didn't have a baby vying for my attention), it has taken me a little longer to "fail" my mission.
I think this "failure" is a good thing though. I am learning to trust that our marriage will be okay (better than okay) even if I am not perfect. And I am learning humility in realizing that I can't do it all, all the time. This current period of shore tour is the closest thing we will ever have to civilian life. And I'm grateful for this uninterrupted time together so our relationship can grow in ways it didn't have the opportunity to with all the little "breaks" sea tour provided.
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