Tips for Military Wives and Wives-to-Be

Being “married to the military” is something that takes some getting used to. Below are some tips to help make the adjustment a little smoother.

1)  Be able to plan everything from a cross-country trip to your own wedding within a 48-hour period — if you’re lucky.

2)  Keep a guest room available. Or prepare to have your couch occupied Thursday through Sunday.

3)  Be ready to automatically assume all responsibility for your husband’s single guys. You can prepare for this by herding tigers — large, hungry, angry, drunk tigers.

4)  Prepare for the stench that is the “field uniform.” This is more of a warning than a tip as there’s really no preparation for this.

5)  Start to budget for protein powder and pre-workout now or you’ll be in the red within two months of marriage.

6)  Start cooking platoon size meals, especially for holidays.

7)  Prepare yourself for phone calls from at least one crying or frantic spouse for any number of reasons. but more than likely, ranging from believing their spouse is cheating, hasn’t heard from a spouse in x days while deployed or has run out of money due to protein powder and Coach™ purses.

8)  Get used to being asked by said spouse to watch their children, which you’ve only met once, and don’t really like, at mandatory family fun day.

9)  Go ahead and be ok with being woken up nearly every weekend by phone calls for your husband to come get his guys out of some kind of trouble. That is assuming he’s not the one in need of bailing out.

10)  Which reminds me, start saving for bail money.

Good luck, ladies!

_________________________
This first appeared in The Havok Journal on February 5, 2015.