So, you’ve reached the acceptance stage of deployment. You’re over your initial funk of living through the day to day without your spouse there to walk through life together. You’re almost actually enjoying yourself when you have more time to spend doing what you want to do or more time to share with your friends.
Or, you’ve found that you can still have fun at family activities or holiday gatherings or even just lazy Saturday mornings without your spouse by your side.
And…here comes the guilt.
So many military spouses with deployed service members feel this way. It’s hard to decide whether it’s all right to allow yourself to have a good time when your spouse is deployed. It’s easy for military spouses to feel lonely in a crowd or melancholy on occasions that should be joyous if the service member is deployed.
But what about being happy? What about enjoying life in spite of the fact that they’re gone? Is that okay? Is it all right for us to settle into routine and have a great time with our “temporary single” status when they’re deployed?
Short answer – YES!
It’s possible to both miss your service member but also enjoy the phase of life you’re in right now. It’s acceptable to live in the moment and find joy in both the mundane things as well as the big occasions.
Making yourself feel guilty is just creating problems when they don’t need to be there. It’s 100% okay for me to truly enjoy myself even if my husband isn’t able to be there with us. I can have friends and make social plans and do everything possible to enjoy myself when he’s gone. Without that, I would lock myself (and my poor children) in our house and we wouldn’t ever get out of our pajamas or see anyone or eat anything other than cereal and chicken nuggets. You need to do what is necessary to guard your sanity while they’re gone. I’m not saying party every night like you’re in college again, but don’t feel guilty for enjoying Christmas or kids’ birthdays either!
