Military Wives Survival Guide to Staying Married Part 1

Hello fellow Military Wives. I’m going to guess how your journey began. You married young! You were in love,maybe or maybe not ready for marriage but your significant other joined the military. STOP RIGHT THERE. HOW DO YOU KNOW THIS? Been there done that. You thought if we want to live together, get paid more and have awesome health benefits we need to get married. No brainer. So now your hitched and your husband and you keep watching military couples drop like flies. It is hard to not get nervous. Your relationship could be fine to great but being surrounded by divorce can turn you into a “what if” lunatic. Every time you have a fight you see the statistics and start to count the percentages calculating your risk. Stop that! I have a survival guide for you, think of it as stay married boot camp for Military wives

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When my husband was thinking about joining the military the recruiter looked me dead in the eye and said 80% of all Navy marriages end in divorce. Make no mistake its true!

In Part One of the Stay Married Survival Guide for Military Wives I will cover ten survival tips. In the next chapter I will supply ten additional survival tips along with important keys to keeping your marriage military proof aka happy.

Survival Guide Tips For Military Wives.

#1: He has security clearance you don’t. Loose lips sink ships.
If I had a dime every time I had a military wife come to me complaining that her husband is keeping secrets. “That is his job” I always respond. It’s kind of funny because they only ever come to me once on this topic. He is protecting his country and he is protecting you because that is his duty and his first priority. It does not mean he doesn’t trust you or that he doesn’t love you. Him not giving away secrets of the state to you does not determine how strong or weak your relationship is. Him keeping his lips shut determines life or death. So ladies let your husband do his job! He is trained not to give these secrets away to terrorists, do you really think you are going to get information out of him? Hear me clearly if you do get any information out of him than shame on you and shame on him. It is your job as a Military wife to help your husband do his job and your duty as a Military wife not to ask questions he can’t give the answers to.

#2: Support don’t carry.
Being a Military wife is the most important job in the Military. When the recruiter told me that I thought “What a sales gimmick”. Two years later and I say that with pride. However if you don’t want the weight of your duties to crush your marriage under the standards of military life support one another. Don’t let one person carry the weight. Sounds corny but its true. If you aren’t a team then your enemies.

#3: Grow up not apart.
That is easy to say. I am growing up, he is the manchild! He is going to be a teenager forever! I thought that the military would change him but it didn’t. Here is a hard-hitting fact. Women mature faster than men. He will grow up eventually but he will most likely take time to catch up. You fell in love with him for some reason focus on that. Also remember you are stressed because he isn’t changing and he is freaked out that you are. Word of wisdom the turtle won the race against the hare.

#4: Don’t talk negatively about your spouse. Period.
It doesn’t matter if your friends are his co-workers or not this will destroy a marriage. However if your friends are his co-workers this is a double don’t. Whatever you say in confidence to his co-workers will affect his position at work. Remember that all his ship buddies are his shipmates and you want them to have respect for him/her. Once his/her co-workers have lost respect for your spouse than you have sunk his/her career.

#5: Love is not a feeling its a choice.
Really? You’re going to bust out that tired tip. Let me ask you are you fantasizing about how your relationship was when you were first dating? Are you waiting to feel that spark again? If that is the case your thinking about love as if it is a feeling or like something that happens to you. Love is choosing to show love through your actions to a person in their imperfect state. To put is bluntly love is hard work.

#6: Don’t start drama with your spouses co-workers.
If you don’t like someone keep it to yourself. If you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say it. What ever drama you create will follow him to work. Remember the cliques in high school they are in the military so If you upset one person you will have more than one person angry with you and your spouse. When you damage relationships you damage opportunities for your spouse so tread lightly.

#7: Know your rank and friend in it.
If you upset a higher ranking military wife you just sold your husband to her because her husband owns your husband. Sad but true. Aside from the fraternization policy in the military that prohibits these relationships you put your marriage at risk. How do I figure? If you create this type of problem for him at work it will make him stressed and angry. When he becomes stressed and angry you two will fight. When you two fight your marriage gets strained. So remember ladies play nice.

#8: Stop Focusing on the Negative.
No not you. You couldn’t come up higher in this area you only say sweet things about and to your man. It can be so easy to focus on weaknesses in your partner or the problems in your marriage. “Where the mind goes the man follows.”- Joyce Meyer
If you think about your problems all the time you will “talk” (nag and or complain) about your problems. Do that will cause you to keep your old problems and even create new ones. When I want to nag I choose to tell my husband something I’m grateful he does for me.

#9: How you dress and how you act represents the Military and your husband.
Dressing provocatively while at Military functions will do three things. First your spouses superiors will have no respect for you and will tell your spouse to get control of the situation. Second it will gain unwanted attention from their co-workers. Unfortunately there is a trend of cheating in the Military which causes a majority of the divorces. When you dress provocatively you are sending a message that you are ready to receive this type of attention. And last but not least you are hurting your marriage by not keeping what should be for your husbands eyes only covered from other eyes. Your husband of course wants other people to tell him how attractive you are but it could be embarrassing for his co-workers to talk about you inappropriately. As far as how you act that one explains itself. Keep in mind there are people of all different religions, ideas, and beliefs in the military so act like you don’t want to offend anyone.