When my husband and I first met, the military life didn’t make me nervous.
I know I was naïve, but we didn’t have kids or pets, it was just us. I could handle the distance; hell, I had done it for five years already.
I had family drama going on, so being able to get far away from all of that was the cherry on top of everything else. My love of travel made me salivate at the thought of moving through out the nation or overseas together. I dreamed of a little home at the Vilseck base where we could jump on a train and visit Paris, or catch a quick flight to Portugal.
Around six months before his reenlistment date, we began discussing the possibilities of him getting out. This was the first time I had heard those words come out of his mouth with any real sincerity and it terrified me. All significant others know the struggle of your SO one day being in LOVE with their unit and all about the military and the next day they are ripping their hair out and counting down the days until they can ETS. When he brought it up me, I knew he was really telling me that he was going to be getting out and nothing would change his mind.
I felt like the life we had planned for the last five years was being stripped from my fingers.
Before anyone jumps down my throat for saying that I wanted my spouse to stay in the service, let me paint a picture for you of the life I was leading.
The year and a half before he had decided to get out of the service my father was newly sober and my mom was starting to walk away from their marriage after years of hell my dad had put her through. I was in a deep depression from relocating for my first job after college and desperate to find any escape from the toxic work environment I was in. I was crying almost everyday of the work week from the stress and INSANE manager I had that made sure I knew he did not like me or my work. I had no friends in my new town and was 185 miles away from my closest family and was 730 miles away from my husband. I couldn’t handle it anymore.
I was ready to start a new life with our marriage, and was ready to leave my job and move with my husband wherever his work took him.
Now with him planning to get out, I was going to be stuck. Stuck with my shitty job and boss. Stuck in this town that was so foreign to me and I was going to be the bread winner; not that I mind being the bread winner, but it was not something that I had planned on. I was barely making ends meet on my own and now I would have to support both of us.
I was already stressed and fighting so hard to stay motivated with work and was looking for a new position, but I was a 23-year-old with only a year and a half experience in sales, I knew my options would be limited. My stress level went to an all time high and I got to the point where I could tell I was resenting my husband. I felt that he was making a selfish decision to force me to stay in such an unhappy place in almost every aspect of my life to get out of the service and he had no big plan once he got out. It wasn’t that he had a job lined up or even an idea of what he wanted to do. He was getting out a month before our wedding and we considered on postponing the wedding until we could finally stop fighting over this topic. It got to the point that almost every time we talked it would end with one of us getting upset and having to get off the phone. EVERYONE on both sides of our families were so excited that he was getting out of the service and I was getting more and more anxious the closer his ETS date got.
When his ETS date came and went, he moved in with me and let me tell you, the first three months of him moving in were anything but easy.
We were living paycheck to paycheck and fighting constantly. The frustration was lifted when he found work and was able to start helping out with the finances. He did also start working towards finishing his degree and BAH did help out with the bills and being able to start a savings. If anyone is ever planning on BAH to be the main support of the household, DON’T DO IT.
The university he first attended was AWFUL with helping veterans and ensuring the correct paperwork was sent to the VA on time and all payments are about a month or two behind. Things have definitely turned around and we have talked about everything since he got out of the service.
It was a weird moment of “everything happens for a reason” and “trust the timing of how things will work out.”
Within four months of his getting out of the service I was able to find a new job with an amazing company. We are still a decent drive away from any close family, but honestly only having each other may have been the best thing for our marriage. We weren’t able to run to our parents’ home or a close friends home after we had gotten into a disagreement, we had to figure it out. Even if that meant consuming a bottle or two of wine and some pizza to hash everything out and lay everything on the table…
Now after over a year of him being out of the service I do believe it was the best thing for our marriage and I am thankful of the decision he made for our family.