Life as a Navy Wife

So I’ve been with my husband for a total of 9 years. We met during my sophomore year, his junior year, of high school and after he graduated he joined the military. Then I graduated and a year after that we were married. And here we are now still going strong married for 5years, have a 3 1/2 year old little boy, and a dog. Now that probably sounds like it’s all been rainbows and sunshine, maybe even a fairy tale right? Well I hate to burst your bubble but it hasn’t been...

Life as a military girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse is not an easy one. Don’t get me wrong I love my life I love my family but shit it’s hard sometimes. Our last full year together was 2014, since then my husband has been gone for training and deployments. We have moved 5 times and one of those times me and my son were back living with my parents and that’s a whole other story for another time. And this last move has probably been the hardest one out of all of them. We did a cross country drive from Virginia all the way to California and less then a month of being here my husband left for a deployment. Neither of us knew anyone, he didn’t really know anyone in his squadron and I didn’t know anyone here. Probably the hardest 6months of my life, mostly because I had to keep myself together while trying to keep our son as happy as he could be. I think hands down the hardest part of all of it was trying to get my 3 year old to understand that his daddy would be gone for a while. I mean it was almost every day he would ask me “Is daddy coming home for dinner mom?” Or to have him wake up in the morning and ask where his daddy is. The real heart breaker was when he would see a picture of him and say “Mom I miss daddy so much” and just have the saddest look on his face. Since my husband has been back he’s still been in and out of training for his next deployment that’s coming up and that’s been hard on our son too. Because he’s so in and out he cries when my husband leaves just for a normal work day, he wakes up and instantly wants to know where his daddy is and what time he will be back. You would think that a kid his age wouldn’t really fully understand that feeling, missing someone, but this kid you can just see it all over his face and I hold back the tears to show him that it’s all okay even though seeing him so upset and missing his daddy just breaks my heart. Second hardest thing is being so far away from my family; like they are on the other side of the country and our time difference is 3hours. It sucks, like, I wish there was a better word then sucks but it just really really really sucks. Especially because I grew up in a small town where all of my family was just right there all the time and to tell you the truth I didn’t really appreciate it before, it was kind of annoying at times. But now I appreciate every second I get to go back to my hometown and see everyone.

Now I know that some of that makes it seem like “holy sh*t she must hate her life” but I actually really truly love everything about it, even the hard stuff. Mainly because the stuff that has been hard has brought me and my husband closer and we’ve gotten to see and do so many things that a lot of people our age haven’t. We have done countless road trips including driving across the country. I mean how many 25 year olds do you know that have done that and will probably end up doing a couple more times. We go to see the Grand Canyon and that is something that I think everyone should get a chance to see at least once in their life. We have now seen and been in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Personally I think the Pacific is way colder but the scenery out here in Cali is absolutely breathtaking. We have had 4 brand new cars which was a learning experience to say the least (lmao). We’ve lived in 4 different states and have gotten to see the beauty in all of them. We've learned that we love the South and want to settle down there once his military career is over. Best part of all of it is that with the good and the bad its made us as a family stronger and closer than ever and it’s going to continue to do that as the years go on ⚓️💙💛.