By Amanda Huffman
Contributing Writer
My husband hasn’t deployed. Ever. There I said it. It is not something I like to disclose or talk about. There can be shame, judgement, guilt, and a whole range of emotions that come along when you disclose your spouse is in the military but has never deployed. Deployment is sometimes seen as a rite of passage, especially in the post-9/11 era when my husband’s career began.
It seemed everyone was deploying in the years after September 11, 2001. But the truth is that not everyone was, and not everyone’s mission was (or is) overseas. My husband’s career field is focused on research and development with a home station mission: Helping warfighters meet their mission with new technologies and advancements. My husband has volunteered for deployments, but he has not been selected to go.
Military Spouse Life Is Hard
Just because my husband has stayed stateside doesn’t mean military spouse life for me has been without its challenges, especially when we added children to our family. Before we had kids, my husband often worked the overnight shift. At the time, I was working full time during the day and he was working 12 hours overnight. He would be leaving for his shift, or he would already be out the door, as I was coming home — and then we would be heading opposite directions in the morning. These opposing schedules made it hard for us to connect with each other, which wasn’t easy.
Physical Separation Is Hard
Military spouse life for me has also meant spending many nights alone when my husband is doing his work somewhere else in the world. Sometimes his trips are for a few days, other times they last a few weeks, and every once in a while the time extends to months apart. Deployments are typically longer stretches of time apart, but the constant coming and going during my husband’s career has its own challenges.
During the times he has been away I have experienced car trouble, sick kids, hospital runs (multiple times over the years), loneliness, fear, anxiety, and a long list of other issues.
Long Hours at Work Is Hard
The times when my husband is physically not with me, his work with the military is demanding, requiring long work hours that, at times, require me to pick up all the things that need to be done around the house, on my own.
One particular example happened during COVID, when many people were able to work from home. My husband’s job, however, required him to be at work in person. Because our kids were home, I tried to keep it all together. Perhaps it was good that he would leave and we didn’t need to try to contain all the daily craziness so he could work from home. But that dynamic added its own stress and fear during those early days of the pandemic when so much was unknown.
Support Each Other in Military Life
Sometimes, we in the military community make a list of things someone must do to be a good military leader, spouse, member, etc. For military spouses, that one thing can be to survive a deployment or multiple deployments emotionally and functionally intact, which can lead to those of us whose spouse hasn’t deployed feeling like we haven’t done enough or aren’t good enough.
The truth is military life is hard for military spouses no matter what. We have to deal with constant change and flux in our lives — moving, being separated from a spouse no matter the reason, etc. There is no need to compare who has it the hardest. Comparison just leads to a road where you can’t feel bad about anything you experience, because there will always be someone who has had it worse. Each of us faces our own challenges and difficulties. Instead of focusing on whether or not your spouse has deployed, we MilSpouses should work together to support and encourage each other as a community, to make military life just a little bit easier — with no judgement, shame or guilt involved.
Amanda is a military Veteran who served in the Air Force for six years as a Civil Engineer who served on a combat deployment with the Army in Afghanistan. She traded in her combat boots for a diaper bag to stay home with her two boys and follow her husband’s military career in the Space Force. Amanda is the host of the Women of the Military podcast. There she shares the stories of women who have served or are serving in the military. The podcast has over 200 episodes and over 100K downloads. Amanda is also an author and has published two books. Her first book, Women of the Military tells the stories of 28 military women who served in the military. Her second book, A Girl’s Guide to Military Service, is the IBPA Benjamin Franklin Gold Winner for Teen Non Fiction. It is a guide for high school girls considering military service to help them build a strong foundation for their future career. She also works as a freelance writer and has been featured in a number of military publications including The War Horse, Military.com, Military Families Magazine, Clearance Jobs, Military Spouse Magazine, and more.
