Five Blunders I'd Like to Work on in my "Military Marriage"
I keep doing it. No matter how many anniversaries my husband and I rack up, I still keep making some of the same thinking errors in my marriage. I'm not alone. Gretchen Rubin, bestselling author of The Happiness Project, wrote this month about the blunders she continues to make. She errs more on the side of demanding gold stars and using a snappish tone.
The areas I slip up on are far more likely to be about the Military part of my life. These are the five habits I tend to repeat and what I keep doing about them.
Getting mad when the military does military things. What does the military do that makes them Military? Well, they wear uniforms. They have short-short hair. They deploy/train/do field exercises/do workups/travel/attend schools/fight wars. In other words, they leave. Granted, they come back mostly. But it is characteristic of the military that they are gone a lot. I work on this by pretending that my husband will be gone every minute of his training/deployment. Then I get over the top happy when he is home. Actually, I do pretty well at this, but sometimes a couple of extra days away make me crazy.
Comparing myself to civilians. I dated civilians. If I remember correctly, I did not want to marry any of them. When I look over the fence these days, I have a terrible habit of only seeing how the husbands of civilians attend sports meetings, mow their lawns, and take the kids to school. The civilian life is not my life. The civilian life has nothing to do with my life. I chose someone who is over the top happy about serving on a ship. I love that guy. But that doesn't stop me from sometimes wishing civilians were invisible.
Acting like a single mother. Even women who used to be single moms who are now married to a military member say that being a single mom is nothing like being married to the military. Sometimes I act like it is, making decisions for the kids as if my husband had no vested interest in them. I work on this by talking over some of the more mundane decisions (tennis or swimming lessons?) with my husband and then working him back into conversations with the kids (Dad says that you are old enough to choose for yourself, Kid). The kids like this, especially when Dad is on their side.
Worrying where my fifth grader will go to high school. We have moved 16 times. This, I believe, has permanently scarred me. I find myself worrying about where my fifth grader will go to middle school and high school. I don't know if you noticed this, but anyone who has already moved 16 times will probably move again. Just like I didn't know anything about when or where we moved before, I will not know anything about where we move again until it happens. I mostly handle this by saying out loud: DON'T BORROW TOMORROW'S TROUBLES TODAY. This scares strangers.
Forgetting we need alone time. When Brad comes home, I feel ultra-generous with his time. I want people to see him. The kids. Our parents. Our friends. The entire congregation at church. Sometimes I swear he must feel like a science fair experiment. I sometimes forget we need long stretches of time just to chill together without an audience. I work on this by blocking out a day on the calendar during his time at home. This is especially good if we can score this alone day on a weekday.
What kind of blunders or misunderstandings do you keep making in your marriage? Are there any you have stopped making? How do you do that?
Some other blunders commenters admitted to making in response to this article:
I try to never send snarky email replies late at night, but every once in a while I forget how this just never helps any situation because I'm so set on making MY point. I usually save drafts and delete them the next morning when the tired, frustrated emotions have passed and I wake up with a fresh attitude.
I forget that when he calls home grumpy he's craving the comfort and love of home. It is too easy to be grumpy back and that never ends well. It's hard to be sweet and loving to a tired, grouchy guy; but it doesn't take long to bring him around if I remember why he's calling and act accordingly.
I forget that his very brief, couple of sentence emails are because he's a guy and most of them just aren't as long-winded and flowery as we ladies often are. It is not a sign that he doesn't love me or care about me. He shows it more than he says it.
Sometimes I forget to just let him talk without giving him my two sense about everything. I need a lock on my lips.
Sometimes I forget that it is not as easy for him to think about home as it is for us to think about and miss him. He has to keep his head in the game and I think getting too emotional about missing home can be dangerous, especially if he thinks we're struggling. Despite his game face, I know his number one priority is our family.
I forget to make room in my "deployment" life for him when he returns. While I enjoy staying busy when he's gone, sometimes I forget to slow the pace when he does return. No longer can I do double and triple workouts. The dogs walk with the baby may need to be skipped if he's too tired to come along. While having a routine helps me, I have to remember to be flexible when he returns
"Single food" is not acceptable when he returns. When my hubby is gone, I slap a meal together and call it good. When he returns, he thinks I'm going to be still cooking full meals. Sometimes it takes a week or two to get back into this. He cuts me slack, and I go back to eating better foods.
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