But, really, if there was any group of people who understand this foreign spouse predicament best, it’s the military spouse community.
Over time I have learned that the most valuable advice and most understanding ears belong to my fellow military spouses.
Sacrificing careers, uncertainty and homesickness are all common problems to so many of us. The women that I have met over the past year are some of the most inspiring, intelligent people I’ve met in my life and several of my friends have confided in me about the pain they feel at the sacrifices they’ve made in the name of being wed to a military man.
While it’s clear that some military spouses are more frank about this than others, I’m so grateful to be surrounded by good friends who feel comfortable knowing that we’re all in the same boat.
Also, military spouses all know what it’s like to be far from home, whether that’s 60 or 6000 miles. We’ve all sacrificed some element of our lives for our military partners. We’re all missing someone or some place, all the time. US citizen or not, this is a collective experience that we all share together, and I am so grateful to be surrounded by people who understand.
This summer, I had the luxury of being able to travel back to the UK for three weeks and got to see the friends and family that I had missed for a year and a half. So many people have said to me how lucky I am to be “living the dream” in the US, moving from coast to coast and then back again, all in the space of one short year.
These comments really struck a chord: I am lucky.
Ultimately, I am incredibly lucky, to be living in this beautiful country with the man I love, living a life that I never would have imagined for myself and that is truly better than I ever thought possible. I have hiked in almost Martian landscapes, swam in the Pacific Ocean, taken road trips down enormous highways and beautiful country lanes, been to museums and monuments, been to military balls, visited sprawling new cities, discovered national parks and tiny rural towns and met so, so many inspirational people.
As a foreign spouse, I am lucky to live in America, and so very lucky to call it “home.”
Most of all, I am so proud of my husband and I feel honored to be supporting him through his military career.
There will undoubtedly be more challenges to come over the next few years, but seeing him flourish in a career that he loves, doing service to the country that he loves, makes me profoundly happy in turn.
While the past couple of years have been turbulent and uncertain, the richest reward is being able to finally be present in his life again, holding the fort together at last.
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