“You must be ready for your husband to deploy again, right?”
I’m honestly shocked every time I hear somebody ask me this. Also surprising is the fact that I’ve been asked this more than once.
Once upon a time last year, a seasoned Army wife was hired at one of the plants at work. She married at the tender age of 19 (now 28), and her husband was a major leaving for his fourth or fifth deployment. Since that plant was preparing for an audit, we spent a fair amount of time chatting over work. Mac was almost eight months into his deployment and was returning for leave at the end of said audit (left December 6, came home for leave on July 22).
I wasn’t involved in the FRG during his deployment, so it was nice to have someone at work who had been through that. We discussed what I was doing before he got home (buying his favorite foods, cleaning obsessively, etc). She first suggested that I needed highlights and a few sessions in the tanning booth. Not really my style. She went on to state that she looked forward to the freedom allowed by her husband’s deployments: she could go out, party, and carry on with his money without him. They were also legally separated, meaning she could maintain male companionship without a stain on her conscience (she bragged to me about dating two men at once and keeping both in the dark about the other).
I was on a phone interview last week, and the company CEO asked if my husband was in the Army. Living in Fayetteville attracts questions about the military. I said yes and said that he had been home since December. His reply was that I must be ready for him to deploy again. I laughed off the question with an “of course not.”
But I do wonder why people ask this. In non-military marriages, the spouses are always together. Long-term separations aren’t normal. But in the military, these separations are. Why would I look forward to Mac leaving for a year? Why would I want him to return to an active war zone?
For you fellow military wives, have you been asked this? How do you respond? If you aren’t military, would you want your husband to leave for a year?
What?!?! People are just so… dense sometimes. I’ve never been asked this. Don’t know how I would have responded. Probably not well. LOL.
I can’t believe you’ve been asked that multiple times! How insensitive! I can’t imagine having to be without my husband for months on end – that’s why I married him, to be with him all the time! Don’t let them get to you!
OMG! That woman! Holy cow. I’ve had some experience where I was shocked by what people said. A friend saying a year wasn’t that long after complaining her husband had to work nightshifts. lol My boss telling me I was insensitive and the world didn’t revolve around me for taking time off before my husband came home. This was someone with a PhD. Apparently, 8 extra years of grad school didn’t make him any more emotionally intelligent. haha I would like my husband to NEVER deploy again. What is wrong with people?
One of my friends has mentioned that while she doesn’t like her husband being deployed, she doesn’t mind it that much either. Personally I cannot understand that idea at all. 8 months of long-distance has pretty much driven me crazy- and my boyfriend isn’t in a war zone (although he is in Detroit which is pretty scary). I can’t way til were done with it and I can say for certain I never want to go through this again.