First of all, hello everyone! I am so excited to be writing a guest post on Hooah and Hiccups. I have really been thinking hard about what I wanted to write and eventually settled on going back to the roots of my own personal blog and talk about being a military wife. Or rather, being a wife of a man in the military and a challenge that I have had to overcome since starting this journey.
My husband and I have only been married for about 10 months but these 10 months have been one looooong learning experience. The biggest thing that I have had to learn is extending grace to him. We were engaged for 1 year before getting married and during that 1 year, the military was only a small option. The plan was for both of us to finish school and settle into our careers. That all changed when soon after we said “I do” my husband decided that he really did want to join the Air Force. 2 months after our wedding he enlisted and in 3 months time he was off to basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. His being gone wasn’t too terrible on me as it was only 8 weeks and I had plenty of other things to keep me busy (school, work, family etc.) Plus, I had my eye on the prize which was seeing him at graduation. I wasn’t really thinking past that point and I didn’t want to. The goal was to make it to 8 weeks, see each other, and life would just be grand once again. Not exactly… guess what comes right after basic training? Tech school and even more separation.
My husband then moved to Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi, Mississippi to begin his training as an Air Traffic Controller; this is where reality hit me. He was spending 8 hours every day in class, countless hours studying in the evenings, and weekends hanging out with friends. There were times when I felt like I wasn’t fitting into his schedule anymore and this really irritated me. I was his wife, wasn’t he supposed to be spending every spare moment he had talking to me? I know that might sound selfish but I figured with us being thousands of miles apart that is how it should be, especially since that was exactly what I was doing back home. This is where extending grace comes in. I have a tendency to make something all about me. Of course, it’s not intentional, but it does happen sometimes and I am learning to change it.
My husband’s time in Tech School is not all about me. It’s all about him. He was getting an education, he was doing something that he really enjoyed, he felt like he was providing for us as a family, and he was getting the “college experience”(something he never had) living away from home and making friends. He has been supportive of me and my dreams and aspirations from the day that I met him and now it was my turn to be supportive and understanding. After all, this was basically my life for years to come. Tech school was not the only time my husband and I were going to be separated; he was in the military now. There would be deployments, TDY, late night shifts, anything really could get in the way of us being together. I chose to take this and mold it into a learning experience on how to extend grace where grace is needed and become a supportive wife for my husband.
Since then I have really learned how to pick and choose my battles and have realized that not everything is worth fighting over. There are times of course when I do need to stand my ground and I do recognize when my husband and I need to work something out but him spending a couple of hours at the beach on a Saturday is not as big of a problem as I sometimes make it out to be. I know that it is important to my husband to know that his wife always has his back and is supporting him throughout not only his career, but his life. This is a lesson that I am proud to say I will carry over into other aspects of our marriage and not just military life.
This adventure that my husband and I are on is not always going to be easy or fun, but it is one that I intend making the most of. It has already started to shape me as a human being and I cannot wait to continue down this exciting path that we are on.
Thank you for reading everyone and a huge thank you the Samantha for allowing me the opportunity to share!
-Livia
