News Flash! Military Spouses Did Not “Sign Up For This”

Alexa, play *NSYNC Christmas music. Wait, no, Alexa, play Pentatonix Christmas music. (Always an impossible choice.)

The tree is up, the responsible neighbors have their lights strung across the porch, and we’ve officially spent more on ourselves during Black Friday than on our gifts for others, but those are mostly bought, too. Holiday season is in full swing, and boy does it make us think a lot.

We think about the impending New Year, and wonder if we’ll do all the things we’ve been saying we’ll do for the last 12 years.

We think about holidays past, perhaps with loved ones who are no longer here, or that felt magical when we were younger.

We find comfort in traditions, excited to take our kids to see Santa, and feeling kind of giddy at the thought of eating Mom’s sweet potatoes.

We get nervous about interacting with relatives who don’t always bring out our best, and upset when the manufactured cheer contrasts with pain or loneliness in a manner that’s impossibly stark.

This time of year inevitably brings about a tremendous array of competing emotions for most people, yet we rarely give much thought to the hearts of those around us as we’re caught up in our own whirlwind of family, travel, presents, and introspection. This year, my military husband is home for Christmas, and I find myself feeling the need to draw attention to military spouses who don’t have their partners home this go around instead of just basking in the wholeness I’m fortunate enough to currently taste.

Sometimes the radio or nightly news kindly acknowledges this sacrificial and heart-wrenching dynamic of many military families in our country, but there’s one phrase that always resounds in my ears. People have said it to me constantly since I married Aaron, and it’s a comment my fellow military wife friends and I can rant about forever when we’re chatting.  

“You knew what you signed up for!”

I’ve even heard some military members say it, themselves. I cringe every time, so let’s just take a moment to address that fun little remark that essentially strips the right for a military spouse to feel anything negative about their partner’s absence. 

First of all, (whewww you know I’m ready to go when I start with ‘first of all’), nobody “signs up” for love. I cannot help that I fell in love with a man in the military. I guess I could’ve never engaged in a relationship with him once I found out his occupation in order to save myself from a military lifestyle, but come on. No relationship works out until one does. How was I supposed to know this would be the one to stick? Furthermore, Aaron is my person. Am I supposed to settle for anyone less than the greatest human I’ve ever met, who complements me perfectly, just because of his career? I mean, that’s asking a lot of a person to deny themselves that kind of relationship, or to look into the future and see themselves holding a baby and decorating a miniature Christmas tree alone like I did last year.

Second, even though I grew up with a father in the military, even though a large reason my parents divorced is because of the strain deployments put on their marriage, and even though I logically grasped that Aaron would be gone for months at a time, there was absolutely no possible way to know how I’d personally react to and handle the life of a military spouse. You can prepare yourself as much as humanly possible, but when push comes to shove, you’re basically thrown to the wolves to figure out your emotions, battle your perspectives, and manage the unreliable nature of this lifestyle.  

No one can possibly understand what it will be like—not even the military serviceperson you married. For anyone to say “You know what you signed up for” is so self-righteous and out of touch it’s almost laughable. In fact, it is entirely laughable, which is why military wives laugh behind your back if you say it. So don’t. Sometimes I say it first, just to avoid hearing it come out of someone else’s mouth— but don’t be fooled, it’s never the truth.

The military men and women serving away from their families face their own emotional battles against “what they signed up for,” too, which I should point out. My own husband said he had no idea how it would feel to be away from his child until he had one, even though he “knew what he signed up for.” When he was younger and single, he said he’d get annoyed when shipmates would request to skip a fun liberty port (like a Caribbean island) on the way home from a patrol in order to get home faster. Now, he says he can’t get home fast enough, completely in tune with those guys who once annoyed him.

You see, with any experience in life, knowing what to expect tactically and logically has no bearing on what to expect emotionally. When I start a new job, I know the basic role description, but can’t really determine if I’ll love it until I see how the day-to-day unfolds. Given the cancer diagnosis, I knew my mother was going to die, but had no real way of knowing how I’d handle it until it happened. I mean, life is full of signing up for or being thrust into the unknown. Either way, it’s all unknown.

So this Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza…whatever holiday that makes you want to be with the people you love most– remember the military spouses. And don’t just remember them, but recognize that they didn’t “sign up for this.” The way they feel might vary from sad to overwhelmed to resentful to lonely, and that’s pretty darn natural. Do not strip them from their right to feel whichever way, only fueling their pain with additional feelings of failure or stupidity for not being “strong” since they should “know what they signed up for.” Let’s wrap everyone—everyone—in love, hope, and encouragement in a season meant to celebrate exactly that.