Just over a year ago my husband Forrest shipped off for Air Force basic training. We were going to have our sixth wedding anniversary while he was away and had been together for about a decade over all. I’d done all the mental preparation I could ahead of his lengthy pipeline, but how can you really prepare to be apart from your spouse for an unknown duration? As I searched for those who had gone through something similar, I was only able to find experiences of heartache and hardship. There is so much purpose is sharing the hard parts of our stories and I am firm believer in not glossing over these elements of our lives. However, I think it’s just as important to share the positive elements of these experiences as well as the good lessons learned. Here are the lessons I learned while in the midst of the hard stuff.
Find connection and allow others to support you
We made the decision to move me back to my hometown where my parents still lived so I could have the company of family and familiarity of where I’d grown up as I was going to be without Forrest for an unknown period of time as he moved through his schools. It was everything for me to have my parents around for dinners and walks around town. Looking back on that time, I am so grateful that I got the chance to deepen my relationship with my parents, as I hadn’t spent so much time with them in many years.
Additionally, I made sure to get in touch with other significant others whose husbands were in the same career field and these women became huge parts of my support system. We did countdowns when we could and kept each other company during the sad moments. I’ll never forget the hugs of meeting these women in person for the first time and they remain some of my closest friends.
Finally, for our entire marriage Forrest and I been waiting for the right time to get time to get a dog. We wanted to find our puppy before he left but it didn’t end up working out that way. While he was about a month into training, I found our sweet rescue puppy Bailey. She’s ended up being a Belgian Malinois mix from a litter of 15. She’s a beautiful brindle and while a puppy is a lot of work on your own, she provided me such a sense of company and comfort. It was so fun to get her used to Forrest’s voice through recorded videos and eventual Facetimes. I loved looking forward to them meeting and sure enough, less than 10 seconds after meeting him she fell in love. We love our little family unit of 3.
Set goals while in the unknown
Right before Forrest left last March I bought a mountain bike and then immediately signed up for a mountain bike race that would take place in June. I knew that this would be really helpful for me. It gave me a reason to get outside and gave me a great big goal to train for as I’d never done anything like this. During my long training rides I tried to be really present and appreciate where I was in that moment. I knew that our time apart would not last forever and I took pictures and recorded videos when I hit milestone rides that I knew I could share with him later. On the day of the race I was really emotional. The ride itself was brutal: 26 miles with 2600 feet of elevation gain. The last four miles were completely downhill and for those last few miles, I found myself completely alone. I will never forget taking a moment just to breathe while admiring the beautiful sunlight mountainside. I shed a few tears as I approached the finish line, knowing that I had not only completed the ride in a shorter amount of time than I thought I would, I knew that Forrest and his friends were cheering me on from his base.
Embrace the hard parts and the lessons you learn there
During this time of Forrest being away I was going to experience one of the biggest and most long-awaited milestones of my professional career. After writing my second memoir After Trauma: Lessons on Overcoming from the First Responder Turned Crisis Counselor for a decade, I’d gotten a literary agent and secured a traditional book deal. All of the press including the book launch party would take place during publication week, which Forrest was going to miss. I was devastated, truly. It just didn’t seem to right to not have him as a part of this once-in-a-lifetime experience that I was so lucky to be able to have.
At first it made the thought of the book launch event no longer exciting, knowing that he wouldn’t be there and that I wouldn’t be able to talk to him at all. But as I picked out my outfit, ordered the flower arrangement for the stage and chose the cookies with the book cover on it, I began to re-frame the entire experience as still beautiful, even if my husband was not there to see it. The event was part book-signing part an in-conversation event where the audience both in person and on live-stream could ask me questions about the writing process and the book overall. I made sure that the event was going to be recorded and I loved knowing that Forrest and I would be able to watch it together at some point. During the event itself friends and family asked about Forrest and how he was doing, and it was really special to have my mother-in-law there as well as Forrest’s Aunt and Uncle.
You are more resilient than you think you are (really, you are.)
Being resilient does not mean just burying stress or absorbing it without processing it. Being resilient means knowing ourselves well enough to know when we are approaching the point of emotional and mental overwhelm or when we are feeling more stressed than not stressed. Being resilient means having tools in our tool box to help is feel what we are feeling and process it in healthy way. Being more resilient is a skill we can develop, just like anything else.
Being more resilient is often lumped in with self-care. While there can be so overlap, they are distinctly different. Social media tells us that self-care means frequent massages, new activewear, and frequent manicures but true self-care doesn’t cost anything. While I enjoy massages and manicures and these aspects can certainly be a part of our resilience tool kit, it isn’t about expensive skin care products or anything we have to buy. Being resilient is about training our nervous system to be better equipped to handle to rollercoaster of life. As a military spouse, our rollercoasters can have extra twists and turns as well as the unknown of what is coming around the next turn. No matter what military spouse life brings you, know that you are strong enough, resilient enough, tough enough, capable enough, and resourceful enough to make it through to the other side. You will surprise yourself with what you are capable of.
Know that it’s not possible to do this alone. You are not weak if you need help during your time as a military spouse. We can have all the support in the world from friends and family but still feel overwhelmed with the anxiety of the unknown and the danger of our spouse’s jobs. It’s okay to need additional support in the form of a therapist or counselor. That can be a huge part of our resilience tool kit.
Life is good right NOW
It ended up being 6 months that Forrest and I spent apart and when I reflect back on that time, I wish I could go back to those first few days and tell myself what I know now. I would tell past Ali that is was okay to cry over the last load of laundry that had his clothes in it and it was okay to be sad in the grocery store when walking by one of his favorite foods that I no longer had a reason to buy for a while. It’s important to let your feelings come and not to push them down or aside. They won’t disappear, but will only be magnified when they do come out. I let myself feel all the feelings of sadness but instead of wallowing of in that place and getting stuck there, I switched my perspective in those moments to thinking about the fun meals we were going to cook together when we were able to.
Being a military spouse is hard. It’s harder than I ever thought it would be, and I thought it would be hard. Learning how to live in the uncertainty, coming to terms with the inability to plan, and dealing with all the time apart isn’t something that comes easily. But if 2022 taught me one thing it’s this: we can’t wait to decide that life is good when {fill in the blank} happens. Not “life will be good when Forrest and I can live together permanently again”, not “life will be good on the other side of all the moves.” Life is good right NOW and there is SO much to grateful for exactly where we are.
6 months apart from my husband made my marriage stronger than before and it made Forrest and I more resilient as a couple. It allows us to now to cherish every moment that we get to share, even the most mundane ones. Our relationship itself in very resilient as we can reflect back on what we endured together, while being far apart. You’re not going to do it perfectly. With hindsight you’ll see all that you could have done differently. That is the point. Embrace the lessons you learn through each experience and know that you are resilient enough to endure it every step of the way.
Meet Ali
Ali W. Rothrock is an author, speaker, and educator who has delivered over 500 presentations nationwide about finding resilience after trauma. Ali is the CEO of On the Job and Off and the Executive Director of First Responders Care, two organizations that support first responder’s mental health while empowering them to take an active part in their communities’ resilience. Ali is a firefighter / EMT as well as a Behavioral Health Specialist and a Crisis Counselor. Ali is the author of Where Hope Lives (2010) and After Trauma (2022).
