Love in the Military

My name is Katie and my boyfriend’s name is Christopher. He is a Loadmaster in the United States Air Force. We’ve been together two and a half years. That’s honestly a pretty good length of time even for a non-military relationship. I’m writing this article today to share my experience of what it’s like being a military spouse and to hopefully give advice to help out other military spouses or even just couples in long distance relationships.

When me and Chris first started dating, we only knew each other for about a week before he shipped off to Oklahoma for two months of training for his job (I lived in Florida at the time). So for the whole first month of our relationship, our only way of seeing and communicating with each other was through FaceTime! Crazy, right? But we made it work.

That’s one thing about Chris’s job and many other common jobs in the military. Most of the time they will be required to travel frequently or stay in different places for long periods of time away from home. So sometimes it’s hard for them to communicate as much as they’d like. There are days if Chris is on a mission that I’ll get one text message saying “I’m safe and I love you” and that’s all I’ll get all day. But if there’s an opportunity for him to reach out and talk to me more, he will.

It’s hard to always “plan” with the military. So if you’re someone who likes to have a plan or schedule for everything they do, I’m sorry but that’s not going to always work. It’s more of a "take what you can get" situation and just be hopeful and grateful.

Another thing I notice that’s hard for most people I’ve met dating military is, “If you're not married, your relationship doesn’t count” which, as messed up as it sounds, is partially true. In the eye of the government your relationship with your spouse doesn’t matter if you’re not married because it doesn’t affect their benefits or pay. Sometimes I’ve seen that statement upset a lot of younger military spouses because they feel discouraged or discriminated against by the military wives. Honestly I can tell you some of those wives are just plain snobs. But don’t get me wrong, most of them are pretty nice because to be honest with you, if you can make a lot of the sacrifices that it takes to date someone in the military, then you deserve just as much respect as a military wife.

I have a lot more I can honestly go into but I don’t wanna bore y’all too much with my first article. ;) But if there is something specific you want advice for or to know more about, please feel free to let me know!

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