There may be no better time for empowerment than when faced with a looming deployment or when you are in the thick of one.
Join our Mission: Milspouse team as we share all our tips, lessons learned, best practices for coping, and our hearts in solidarity with you in all things deployment. Whether you are preparing for your first one or you navigating your 7th, we have the resources you need to thrive in one of the most challenging aspects of milspouse life.
Our resources span the gamut: From that first moment when your service member says “I’ve got news,” to establishing a battle rhythm in those first few weeks, to parenting solo, and to reintegrating after that homecoming kiss… We have resources to guide you every step of the way. We are raw, vulnerable, experienced, and ready to support you through this season!
A hug. A kiss. A hello or a goodbye. A smile across the room. A wink. A loving pat. A snuggle or a cuddle. Watching a movie together. Sleeping in on Sunday. Doing a project together. These are all things that are taken for granted on a daily basis when couples are together, but when they’re apart, they become the things that are missed the most.
We’re about to delve into the really long cycle of deployment that the Department of Defense and psychologists publish. Theirs is very technical with all sorts of stages and fancy words. We here at Army Wife Network put our spin on it to make it simpler.
Exactly two weeks ago today, I was frantically fixing my hair, worried about shaving my legs for the first time in weeks, making sure our house was perfect, cleaning the van, packing the van, and hanging signs at 10 a.m.
Less than two hours later, our service member would return home!
It’s crazy. I started to think yesterday that, if he were home on R&R, he would be heading back in just four days. Boy, am I glad he’s not on leave!
Recently, I was reading a magazine when an article about the last first kiss really resonated with me.
In the essay, the author was recounting her love story (which, if you recall, I love hearing those). At one point, she mentions that when she met the man she knew would be her husband, she then knew that their first kiss would be her last first kiss. My heart was nearly full of the romantic notion of it all—how exquisite to know, to be aware that you are in the middle of your last first kiss.
Of course, being a military wife, I have to put my own spin on it.
I don’t know about everyone else, but when people (civilians or new military spouses) ask how I get through a deployment, my answer is, “Friends.”
Deployments come faster and faster. Home, away, home again, and away again. I knew I couldn’t be the only one wondering if it’s really harder to be the one leaving or the one who is being left.
I began a mission to find out.
When I asked service members and their spouses which is harder, leaving or being left, the majority of them seem to agree—it’s easier to leave.
Mission: Milspouse is a
501(c)3 nonprofit organization.
EIN Number: 88-1604492
hello@missionmilspouse.org
P.O. Box 641341
El Paso, TX 79904