7 Reasons Why Military Wives are Stressed Out All of the Time (But you may not know it)

I've haven't posted much on my Military Monday blogs over the past few weeks, not for lack of things to post about, but because I had SO MANY things I wanted to post about, and didn't know where to start. I'll admit, I hadn't planned a post for today. Today is 'Family Day' in British Columbia. A provincial holiday designed to encourage family together time. A great initiative, even when together time means posting on your blog while your teens snore happily from their beds at 9 a.m..

This weekend I read two blog posts. The first one, posted by a friend of mine who is currently on a duty station in the United Kingdom, entitled The Military Family Vaccination Problem. You can read it here on Canadian Army Wife's blog. It struck a cord with me, having dealt with this very problem a few weeks ago, so much so that I wrote a long, drawn out comment. Incidentally, the same blog was reposted this morning on the Canadian Medical Association's Blog which you can find here.

The second blog was by Dr. Psych Mom on Huffington Post's blog, entitled: 7 Reasons Your Wife is Stressed Out All The Time. It can be found here.

Both blogs highlighted real problems. One was more military-centric, the other more general. But they got me thinking. I have many, many friends who are military wives who somehow manage to hold down a job, raise healthy, happy children, and meet the 'expectations' of being a military wife with panache. I'd even like to include myself in this group. These ladies take the term Supermom to a new level.

What you don't see, though, is the exhaustion beneath the facade. Why? Because even though they might be stressed out, they have learned to put on a brave face. Their problems are minimal, because hey, their husbands job is so much more stressful than anything they could ever do.

1. Military Wives are Judged Differently Than Other Wives.

This may sound picky, but it's the truth. How many times have I heard, 'But you must be used to it by now'. Or: 'You should have known what you were getting yourself into when you married him'. The thing is, there is nothing you could do to prepare yourself for three days of barfing kids in a snowstorm a thousand miles from your family while your husband is under fire in Afghanistan. Nothing. But it happens.

2. Women Need More Sleep Than Men.

I love that Dr. Rodman included this in her blog, and I'm reposting it here, because in the military lifestyle, the sleep thing is even more complicated. There is no way a military wife would suggest her hubby gets up to deal with the crying baby when she knows he's going to be training with live ammunition the next day. Or flying a multi-million dollar aircraft. Or searching in broiling ocean waters for a lost fisherman. And when hubby is deployed, she's on her own...often for months at a time. If she doesn't get up to soothe the crying baby, no one will. And the toddler gets up at 5 a.m....

3. Help Is Often Far Away.

The closest I have lived to my mother (i.e. the go-to person for mothering matters) is 600 km away. Right now she is an entire country away. More than 3000 km away. And my bestest friend (other than my husband) is almost the same distance. Add time zone differences and busy lifestyles, and I'm lucky if I speak with either of them once a week. That's pretty typical for military wives. And if their most trusted friends are not nearby, they won't ask for help.

4. The Help That's Close is Inaccessible.

This one is tricky. The military is wonderful for providing help for military spouses. We have many, many resources available to us. Social workers, support groups, discussion panels, gym facilities, casual childcare... the list goes on. Especially in Canada, the Military Family Resource Centres (MFRCs) are a huge help in navigating the lifestyle we have chosen to lead. The problem is not lack of resources. The problem is accessing them.

Occasionally getting to the resource, i.e. basic geography, is the issue. Take Ottawa for example. The city is vast. The MFRC is wonderful. But for most wives, the actual programmes are at least a 45 min drive to access.

The biggest problem with accessing help, though, is the stigma associated with it. Military wives, like their husbands, do not want to be seen as weak. They want to be supermom. They want to look like they've got it together. So walking into an MFRC to access a support group for deployed spouses is the last thing they want to do. Nor do they want to tell hubby (who is getting shot at on a regular basis) that they need help.

It's a problem with no ready solution. The MFRCs continue to search for one, though, and for that they should be applauded.

5. Military Wives Deal With Many Life Stressors At Once.

Moving itself is a stressor. Move to a new country, new job, new doctors and new schools with a new rental agreement, an unsold previous home, two toddlers and a newborn? That's a lot of stressors. Add a husband that leaves three days later for a 1.5 month 'indoctrination course'? Yeah. And don't say that would never happen, because I've done it.

Military wives deal with this stuff every one to four years, Sometimes less. Moving is hugely stressful, and there are always issues. Always problems. And mom often takes the brunt of it. The vaccination issues that Canadian Army Wife illustrated are just the tip of the iceberg. Finding a new family doctor (read about it here) is one of my biggest headaches. Same with dealing with new schools and trying to explain an educational issue for the umpteenth time to a new teacher. It's hard to explain how stressful that is to hubby, because as Dr. Rodman says, women are judged differently than men. A dad who walks into the school with a child with learning difficulties is much more likely to be listened to. Especially if he's still wearing his uniform.

Add PTSD into the equation, and life gets even more complicated. Great articles on the PTSD struggle can be found here and here.

6. Tradition Is A Harsh Taskmaster.

Oh boy. Tradition. The unwritten code of etiquette that dictates the everyday life a military family. Rank, duty, honour, expectation. All difficult to manoeuvre and all without a handbook. And each post has it's own micro-culture that you have to figure out upon arrival. Talk about stress. And a lot of military wives have no previous military experience, so learning how to manoeuvre life on base is like learning a completely new culture. With no course to explain it.

7. Guilt.

Guilt is a four letter word masquerading as a five.

In most military families, the husband is the breadwinner. His job--a soldier/airman/marine/sailor--dictates where the family lives, when he works, how long he works and what he does. The military 'owns' him, so to speak.

Most military wives get it. They don't want to complain. They understand that his job is hard. They get that they have to move...again. They understand that hubby has to be deployed...again. But they have to reconcile that understanding with the complex difficulties of their life. They wouldn't dream of asking for help because they see that as weakness. They feel their problems are minuscule compared to hubby's 24-hour-a-day job in the desert. He needs to focus on staying safe. He needs to know that everything's okay at home--his wife is managing, his kids are alright, the bills are being paid and the household is just fine--so that he can concentrate on his dangerous job. So they feel guilty that they even think about being stressed, which only makes them more stressed. And then they feel guilty that they themselves are stressed when hubby's job is just so much more stressful.

And do they talk about it? No.


As I mentioned above, the good news is that there are resources available. And military leaders are aware of these stressors and are trying to help. Talking about stressors for military wives is the first step. Are you a military spouse? What stresses you out? How do you deal with stress? Do you talk about stressors with your husband or do you go elsewhere? What do you find helps?

I'd love to hear below.

Brenda

Military Monday: Careers for Military Spouses (Part 1)

Maintaining a Career

(Part one of a three part series)

After my last post, on Finding a Family Doctor, I got thinking about what other aspects of military spouse-hood are both unique and challenging. What parts of normal life-progression are different for spouses of military members?

For me, one of the top items on this list is Careers.

We move. A lot. Sometimes every three years, sometimes yearly, sometimes more than once in a year. Every once in a while, you might see more than that (I have several friends who managed to stay on the same base for more than ten years), but sooner or later the powers that be will pick your spouse for that brilliant posting and boom! Your professional life is on hold.

Pros and Cons

What makes career path maintenance difficult? What are the advantages of life in the military when it comes to employment matters? I put the subject out there on the interwebs, and got very strong and very thoughtful responses. Here's a compressed version of what spouses were saying:

Cons:

1. Most careers are not portable. It's very difficult to maintain an actual professional career path

with all of those moves. Moves tend to hit the 'reset button' for careers: putting you back at the bottom of the seniority list, resetting your vacation time to zero, and adding probationary periods. Often jobs are location specific, as well. Jennifer commented:  "I ran a very successful bar and grill taking home more money then my hubby until I moved here. Now I sadly work in a call center... I tried to open my own bar here, (but the) town council shot me down multiple times".

Along the same lines as this, some career paths (border security for instance) only work when the area you are posted to permit it, or the city is large enough to allow a market or a niche.

2. New post, new day care. Yeah. This is a whole post in itself, so I'll leave it at that. Finding a new day care = stress.

3. The job hunt process. Changes in employment rank high in the top 100 life stressors according to famous stress list makers Holmes and Rahe. An un-looked-for move involves an emotional and mental upheaval that can include:


*Leaving an old job (generally not by choice)
  *Searching for a new job: resume writing, searching the internet and a lot of unavailable time while dealing with all of the other time-consuming move items.
  *Walking into established social situations and trying to find your place.
  *Changing your schedule to meet your job requirements.
  *Rejection after rejection after rejection is hard to take. I have a wonderful friend who went from an Executive position to applying to more than a hundred jobs over several years before she found employment--and that at a significant downgrade in seniority and pay. It was a very difficult and very stressful time for her.

4. Licensing requirements change from province to province, state to state and country to country. As a physiotherapist, I know this issue quite well, and often have to weigh the benefits of having a license in the province/state/country against the effort and money required to obtain a license. This became painfully clear when returning from an out-of-country posting. I discovered my 'hours worked in the past five years' did not meet the provincial requirements. I had to write the national board exams to be re-licensed. One year, three thousand dollars and many, many stressful hours later I was able to work unsupervised again. Lets just say that the next time I let my physiotherapy license lapse will be when I retire...or my other career (writing) becomes self-sustaining.

5. Stereotypes. Hard to believe, but some employers are afraid to hire military spouses, knowing that they might move in the near future. What they miss.

6. ....And all of this happens while you are often dealing with your spouse away on training or deployment, mountains of boxes, finding a doctor, dentist, hair dresser, schools, cable company, grocery store, veterinarian and pharmacy...!

But enough moaning and groaning. There ARE some plusses to being a military spouse!

Pros:

1. Variety. Really, there's so many options for work, even within your own career path. One spouse commented: "I'm a RN and have never been without a job at each move. There's so much you can do. I've worked in small hospitals, large ones, on base. I've also taught." (Thanks Vanessa!) And another spouse (also in nursing) said: "Moving is an opportunity to try it all! Med/surg, community, OR, hospice...my resume is varied." (Thanks Laura!)

2. Opportunities for personal growth. I like to meet challenges head on. And what I personally have found is that each challenge I overcome becomes a huge surge forward on the personal satisfaction scale. Sure it's hard to find a new job, but that first pay-check feels GOOD.

3. Meeting new people. Making new friends every few years becomes a daunting task. And our

Me in the middle, with my two wonderful
(and pregnant) coworkers,
Jenny and Sara...so sad to have left that job!
We had such a great time there...

military spouse friends are often our first, and longest lasting friendships. But working allows a new outlet to meet people. It may be hard at first, as local non-military women and men tend to be skeptical of putting the effort into a new friendship, but these people are virtual mines of information about dentists, hair dressers and schools. And often these friends become lifelong connections.

4.  Military spouses are great employees. We have a lot of desirable attributes. We are hard working, we are resilient, we have great skill sets and we are often willing to put in the extra effort. If employers latch on to this, and recognize our value, they can become great assets in our career paths. And we have a lot of resources available to help us transition from place to place. Military Family Resource Centres in Canada have an entire section dedicated to Employment Assistance services. If you haven't already checked it out, you should. And there are many military spouses looking for others to network with,  and potentially hire. You can find one such group (The Military Family Small Business Association) here.

There are also many career counselling services and spouses-helping-spouses programs available for newly posted military spouses. Just a quick google search will give you a long list of available options. Resume writing, job searches, aptitude testing...government run and otherwise, there are many options available for you if you feel stuck.

4. And lastly, but certainly not least...That reset button can be a LIFE-SAVER. Wow, there have been times when I couldn't WAIT to move on to something new. Inter-personal conflicts, nasty work schedules, long commutes, stressful job situations...they all GO AWAY with a new move. Even without all of those things, a fresh new job and fresh new outlook can make a huge difference in your mental and emotional well being.

So what are your thoughts? Any other pros and/or cons of military spouse career-hood you'd like to share? Any suggestions for overcoming difficulties? Please click on the comment button and share your opinions!

Next week I'll be listing careers that withstand the military lifestyle. Tune in next Monday, or leave your suggestions on my Facebook Page! And while your at it...why not 'like' my page and get regular updates on Military Mondays and my new book, DEPENDENT, due out July 29th, 2014!


Brenda