Even a hearty bunch needs love and support

We military spouses, we are a hearty bunch. We marry those who have one of the toughest jobs in the Country. We marry for love,regardless of what job our spouses do. Sometimes their jobs takes us to distant lands and far away places, which means we are often moving away from our families and friends. A lot of time we are placed in areas the are completely forgien to us. Language and culture are something we have to adapt to. So with us always on the move, its hard for us to connect to people and form a close bond with people. And if you are not a social person it is even harder.

So what do you do when you are left on your own when your spouse deploys? Who can you rely on when you have reached your limit? Or when you just want another adult to talk to...

A lot of us try and establish ourselves in our neighbourhood. Try and introduce ourselves. If you live on base, you are lucky that everyone is kinda rowing in the same boat. We all have our individual stories but we all have a common denominator. Military. I find though that even if you do not live on base, you tend to gravitate to other military without knowing it. It's like the Special Needs card. Without knowing most times I will meet people along the way that have some way or another have special needs in their lives. The same theory applies to military.

I have always found luck in online groups. Sometimes with those you end up meeting a great group of people. Ongoing conversations that can be both entertaining and infromative. I think blogging and Facebook pages are a great way to meet like minded people. From personal experience I can say that both of these venues have been great meeting great people.

With times being the way they are, Military Spouses need to stick together. Power in numbers. We need to keep up the good fight with Tricare. And especially now with a Government shutdown, we need to be there for each other. There is so much uncertainty that there needs to be a constant.

My thoughts are that always know who you can count on. There are going to be people that comes and go. Some will be genuine and some will not. You need to weed out the good. You will have some on your life that separation will mean nothing. You still talk, through lines of emails,phone calls and of course social media. I credit a woman at my first duty station where I married  my husband as being one of my dearest friends. She is a fellow navy wife. Another is a civilian who just gets me. I can call on both of these women and they will know exactly what I am talking about. I think every Military Spouse needs that. I think we all need that support when we are having a tough go at things. People who will understand that, yeah deployments suck or that yeah the military screwing up your spouse's pay is annoying.Or that your fight with Tricare to get services for your autistic child is indeed frustrating.

As I said at the beginning,we are hearty bunch. But even the strong need support. Thanks to pages,forums and programs out there through the different Commands, the strong can have place to feel connected. 

I started my page for support. As we are spread all over the country and even the world, it's nice to know that you are never alone. That in the sea of social media, there is always some like minded person out there who will lend an ear. I consider myself one of those people who will listen to those who need or want it.