Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda

Life is all about choices.  Some of us are privileged to have a larger menu of options to select from but we all have decisions to make and what we decide helps to shape our past, present, and future.  Hindsight is always twenty-twenty and some of us may have a lot more "coulda, woulda, shoulda" moments than others.  I do my best not to dwell on the poor decisions I may have made in the past but rather I focus on where I am now and what decisions I can make now that will shape my future in positive ways.  Some decisions I have control over while others are really dependent upon other people, institutions, and situations.  I find the hardest decisions are the ones we may fully regret in hindsight or simply wish we had either made different decisions or our circumstances had simply been different at the time.  I call these the "coulda, woulda, shoulda" choices.  One of the "coulda, woulda, shoulda" debates I see many of my (female) peers talking about time and time again is the ongoing family-career-life balance issue.  And in particular, with my peers the conversation is most heated amongst my fellow military spouses and the choices we have made regarding our individual work-family-life balances.

One woman on a military spouse board I participate in posted a comment recently regarding her frustration with not being able to have a fulfilling career while supporting her husband's ever changing and mobile military career and keeping the the home fires burning.  While her post received a handful of supportive "I'm right there with you" comments, the vast majority of people condemned her for complaining about her situation, not making her own happiness, knowing what she had gotten into when she married her husband and therefore not being entitled to complain, and generally not being supportive of her husband and children.  Really?  When did we women become so critical of our peers and the dilemmas we all face at one time or another?  I have a hard time believing that so many of us are perfectly content with every aspect of their life but it is comments like these that stifle us into silence.

Some of us might have thought we knew what we were getting into when we married into the military or a family decision was made to join the expansive military family, but did we really understand the full scope of our future situations?  Sure we'd heard the propaganda (I love the Navy's "you'll see the world" motto) and perhaps through friends or family we even witnessed what it might be like first hand, but until we are walking in those shoes we really have no idea what it will be like. As try as we might, at the end of the day, our military member's job and commitment to service drives each and every decision we make as a family. As a military family sometimes you may be able to live in one location for an extended time while at other times you may be moving every two years.  If you are able to put down roots are you able to find a job if you want one?  Is that job in your career field or at a minimum satisfying? And what happens when your spouse gets orders to pick up and move across the country or halfway around the world? If you want to keep your family under one roof, you really don't have that option of keeping your job.  So you pack up and move to a new location and perhaps start that job search all over again.  Most likely you'll lose seniority and at a minimum start all over again with vesting into a retirement fund.  When your spouse is deployed for months at a time and you find yourself in the role of a single parent, are you still able to give your job your all?  Without anyone to share car pool duties, homework, and parent teacher conferences with, it is possible to commit to your paid job to the degree that is necessary?  This begs the question of whether it is even worth trying to work outside of home in the first place.  When does the juggling game just get to be too much?

When I met Glenn I had a fulfilling career. I worked, travelled, had plenty of friends, and essentially answered only to myself.  I recognized that moving thousands of miles away from my home and marrying him would mean giving up my upwardly mobile career.  I was OK with that, or so I told myself.  It wasn't easy essentially starting over in a new city where my education and previous professional experience was dismissed for a variety of local political reasons. Still I pushed on and slowly found my professional niche. And then in the same year I got pregnant and found out that we were moving to Albania.  Neither circumstance would allow me to continue my job but these life choices were the best ones for our growing family.  This decision was neither the first difficult one I had to make nor will it be the last one.

Personally, I love being a mom but I know that if I did not have a job to go to each day I would want to gouge my eyeballs out.  If there is one thing I've learned about myself during various transition periods when I've found myself not working is that I need significantly more intellectual stimulation than being at home all day affords me.  This isn't an insult against women (and men) who feel fulfilled with this life choice, but personally, it just isn't for me.  I know I am happier when I have that balance and a happier me makes for a happier family. Is the juggle aways easy?  Absolutely not.  There are days when I feel as though we would all be better off if I wasn't trying to do the daily juggle but in the long run I know it is this balance that actually keeps me sane. I also recognize that I am very fortunate to have the option of making the decision about what to do with my time.  If I wanted to stay home I could without it costing my family a financial sacrifice.

I know that working outside of the home is important to me and something I will always try my hardest to do. I also realize that it may not always be possible but like everything else in this transient military lifestyle, it is only temporary.  Eventually we will land back in the States and Glenn will someday retire from the Navy and we will be a civilian family.  We'll likely put down real roots and perhaps that is when I'll be able to settle into a lasting job.  I love what we are doing now but a part of me I truly look forward to that day. Glenn has alluded to my being able to resume my career and perhaps being the primary bread winner after he retires. As wonderful as this sounds to me, (it truly does), I need to be realistic.  With each passing month and year where I can't document meaningful employment on my resume, the possibility of my having a career oriented job fades. When I hear about the amazing careers and job promotions my college friends are experiencing, I feel a twinge of sadness knowing I will never have that.  Because it is so important to me, I know I will find meaningful work someday.  I won't be CEO but I will do something that matters to me and provides me with the intellectual stimulation I so crave.  Perhaps one day I will be the one telling Glenn that I have to work late, he needs to figure out the menu for the week, do the grocery shopping, and put dinner on the table.  (A girl can hope, right?).  Thinking about personal fulfillment and what gives me satisfaction doesn't make me less supportive of my husband and his career and it doesn't make me less of a mother.  I can dream about having it all (whatever that means), but in reality I do have it all because I'm making what I have work for me.

Coulda, woulda, shoulda? Nope, I wouldn't trade my decisions for anything.  Good, bad, or somewhere in between, all of them have help shaped me and my family into what and where we are today.

The Baring of the Knives at the Wives Club

Wives clubs, now called spouses clubs to reflect the gender integrated military, are the somewhat antiquated but in my opinion still relevant groups that bring together the spouses of active duty military personnel.  They are traditionally separated by rank with enlisted spouses meeting and socializing separately from officer spouses. In recent years some commands within the Navy have started to merge their separate groups into a single organization with varying results. As with any group, stereotypes abound on both sides.  Pearls and crab dips are the running joke for officer spouses. (I actually do own pearls and make a pretty mean crab dip but I acquired both of these long before I became a military officer spouse).   Yes, the clubs are filled with play groups, coffee get- togethers, bunko games, and dinners out but at the heart of it, they are all about supporting fellow military families.  More senior spouses mentor junior spouses going through their first deployments.  We trade tips on creating portable careers, the best home repairmen, and the most trustworthy property managers.  When a tornado destroyed a Hampton Roads neighborhood while the ship was at sea, it was the spouse group that rallied around the affected families.  When Sidney was born it was members of my spouse group that provided home cooked meals, daily telephone calls, and made visits to the NICU to make sure we were all OK.  Regardless of the composition or stereotypes, these groups serve the same purpose--to offer families support regardless of the need that arises.

Some jokingly (?) refer to these groups as "knives clubs" because of the sometimes hostile, backstabbing atmosphere that can arise whenever you bring together large groups of strong, opinionated (wo)men.  I have witnessed this first hand but the jabs were relatively minor and were quickly forgotten.  On occasion, however, larger, much more serious issues arise.  A prime example is the current controversy brewing amongst the Army Officers Spouse group at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.  In this southern army enclave, the recently married wife of an active duty Lieutenant Colonel has been denied membership into the base's spouse club.  Although they deny it and are refusing to talk about it, the denial of membership appears to stem from the fact that Lieutenant Colonel and her wife are a same sex couple.  I'm not naive enough to think that homophobia doesn't exist in America.  Unfortunately it is alive and flourishing.  With the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell, the Department of Defense made a small step towards providing more equality for all soldiers, sailors, and airmen serving their country.  Our troops and their family members deserve all of the support they can get.  It is one thing when those who are not a part of the military family turn against us, but for me it is even  more upsetting when we turn against ourselves.  How can we not support our peers?

The reality is that spouse groups provide an important support system for military families.  To this day some of my closest friends are women I have met through these groups.  Having shared experiences and feelings that only military spouses can understand brings us together regardless of our other demographics.  Until your spouse is gone for weeks or months on end in a war zone you just can't understand what the experience is like.  Regardless of whether your spouse is an officer or enlisted, senior or junior, male or female, we all need the support these groups can provide.  As a military spouse I am embarrassed by the way the Fort Bragg spouse group is treating Ashley Broadway and her wife.  This is not the behavior of the spouse groups I know.  At a time when all of our active duty spouses are willing to put their lives on the line for our country, I implore the spouses at Fort Bragg to open their arms to the Broadway-Mack family.  Because we are currently in Albania I don't have access to a spouse group. If I did, I would readily invite Ms. Broadway to come join my group.

Loose Lips Sink Ships

In the Navy they say that "loose lips sink ships."  Developed as a World War II propaganda campaign, this slogan warned Americans of the national security dangers of talking too freely.  This phrase has been repeated throughout popular culture in oft referenced humorous ways but the phrase remains a reality to families from all branches of the military.  Modern day lingo now refers to this as OPSEC (Operational Security) and military commands take these warning seriously.  As a military spouse I quickly learned to not ask questions or talk about ship and troop movements, impending port calls, and who is going to be where at what time.  This didn't mean I didn't want to know; yes I was often curious but the reality was that I didn't have a legitimate reason to know the details.  (Because my husband was involved did not create a legitimate need to know).  Information made public by a command's public affairs office was often intentionally vague and more often than not, issued after the fact.  This is all purposefully done to keep our soldiers, sailors, and our nation safe.

During Glenn's last deployment we developed codes of a sort for communicating with each other.  When I met the ship in Dubai for Christmas the planning both via scratchy phone calls and email were vague in detail.  We figured it out though and made it work.  It was during this last deployment that Facebook burst onto the scene for those of us who weren't twenty-something college students.  OPSEC rules seemed to fly out the window as spouses, girlfriends, parents, and even sailors themselves posted information on their unrestricted pages about ship location and movement.  I kept coming across a particularly irritating and disturbing breach of information in one navy spouse chat group where a woman had a count down clock marking the time until she "met John in Dubai for a vacation".  Combine that with postings about the name of her husband's ship (not the same one Glenn was on), her husband's job and her travel plans and this could translate into a terrorist's dream.

The loose lips concept transcends the military and into the civilian world as well.  I've long grown accustomed to not asking Glenn specific questions about his work. If he wants to share details he will.  If he can't or doesn't want to it saves him from being in the uncomfortable position of having to tell me he can't tell me.  I'm continually amazed by the number of people- experienced military officers, their spouses, and others with experience working around sensitive information- who insist on probing for answers that they really have no business knowing.   Being a spouse, child, or parent of someone does not necessitate the need to know names, dates, places, and the like.  A simple "because I said so" or "because I can't talk about it" from the person being questioned should suffice. 

I'm equally alarmed by the number of people who work in these sensitive positions who repeat work related issues to their spouses and family members.  I've lost track of the number of times where I've heard what I would deem sensitive information from other spouses who have no legitimate reason for being aware of such information.  What might be interpreted as pillow talk or playground chatter can in reality translate into so much more.  This is scary business folks.  For the sake of our own safety, those of the ones we love, and of our country I urge everyone to rethink their legitimate need to know information.   Its not being rude or dismissive; its practicing good OPSEC.

A Diplomatic Ladies Lunch

The Defense Attache Corps here in Tirana is small; whereas some countries have numerous embassies with large, multi-staffed offices, the one here in Tirana is as small as the country itself.  Throw in the fact that half of the Attaches are either single or do not have spouses who accompanied them to Tirana and we end up with a small, yet eclectic group of women.  (Yes, we are all women; I'm not sure how a high ranking female foreign military officer would be received in Albania).

Periodically we spouses will get together without our husbands.  Our get togethers inevitably involve food, lots of coffee, and even more laughing.  I am fortunate that English is the "common" language amongst the group.  That said, there are spouses who speak very little or no English at all.  Others have a solid and ever improving comprehension of the language and a few of us are truly fluent. A few of us speak some Albanian. Hence, if nothing else our get togethers are always amusing.  We represent a diversity of countries, cultures, and ages.  Some of us are raising children, others are now grandmothers, and there are spouses with no children at all.  Despite our language barriers we have a lot in common.  After all, every one of us is a military spouse who has first hand experience with the hardships, responsibilities, and long separations that are a part of being a military family.  Currently we are all foreigners living in a strange. We share a love of our individual countries (who might not always get along) but these fundamental differences don't prevent our friendships.  We are all strong and independent women.

Our most recent social event involved coffee at two separate cafes--this is Albania after all-- with a lunch at a traditional Kosovarian restaurant squeezed in between.  Whereas some of our get togethers have been more formal, think coffee sipped from china cups--this one was anything but.  We sat in a small dark restaurant with old men and the City's sanitation works eating platters of qofta, pickled cabbage, and drank Peja beer directly from the bottle.  I'm sure the sight of us with our designer handbags and bottles of hand sanitizer gave the regulars plenty to look at and talk about.  The food was surprisingly good but the best part of the meal was the company.  We shared pictures of our children and discussed the cultural differences of baptisms in our different countries. (Somehow when together, we always have at least one completely random discussion).  We compared notes on whose husband had told them what, what the Attache social schedule looked like for the next month, and because this was right after our presidential elections, President Obama. (I am continually impressed by how well versed foreigners are in both current American politics and American history). When we reached a language stumbling block miming and acting out what we were trying to say became a perfectly acceptable way to communicate.  (The word "rooster" might be different in each language but the sound the bird makes is always the same!).  Somehow it all makes sense in the end. 

By the end of lunch my stomach hurt from not only eating too much but laughing too hard.  As is the case whenever I get together with any of my female friends- regardless of their nationality, political affiliation, or familial status, I am always grateful for their friendship.  I have come to count on this small group of friends for laughter and support.  It reiterates to me that through the thick and thin, good times and bad, it is friends that get us through.  So thank you, TMAA ladies.


TMAA ladies lunching



A Tragic Affair

CIA Director (Retired) General David Petraeus was just the most recent high profile man whose name has been besmirched by the revelation that he had conducted an extra-marital affair. He follows in some equally high profile footsteps:   Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, Prince Edward VIII, John Edwards, Gary Hart, John F. Kennedy.  Sadly enough, the list just goes on.  Heck, Thomas Jefferson, a man hailed as a founding father, entered into his own affair with Sally Hemmings.  Perhaps he was only setting an unfortunate precedent on which future men of power were to stand.

Each and every man, upon the public revelation of his indiscretion(s), has issued a public statement along the lines of being ashamed and regretful for their actions, feeling sorry for the hurt he had caused his family, and being remorseful for letting his country and/or supporters down.  Sometimes these sorrowful pleas are made with their wives standing by their sides.  Sometimes they go it alone.  So my question is this:  why is this pattern of indiscretions repeated over and over from one generation to the next?  Was the risk of losing it all---their family, position, status, and reputation worth the sex?  Or was it more than sex?  In the big scheme of things is ego so closely connected to that all so important male organ?

Caught up in the news coverage of this latest scandal, I stumbled upon a picture of General Petraeus and his wife at his retirement ceremony.  She is exactly what I can see myself being in a few years:  a woman who isn't as fit and attractive as she once was; who looks perpetually tired, who has dedicated herself to supporting her husband's career and raising their children at the expense of her own self care. She is obviously someone who has performed the unpaid responsibilities that were expected of her due to her husband's position thus silently making it possible for him to achieve the success that he has. News accounts have discussed her ongoing dedication to military families of all ranks through numerous long deployments.  (One could argue it was her decision to do these things but the unspoken military rules dictate that providing this support and leadership is the responsibility of command spouses and thus does impact their husband's careers).  And then you see a picture of the "other" woman.  Cute, perky, and fit, she appears to be everything that Mrs. Petraeus isn't.  One look at her and you know she isn't dealing with midnight feedings, debating over whose turn it was to take out the trash, and wondering how to make financial ends meet at the end of the month.  Sometimes I wonder whether this is just the lot in life for so many of us who have sacrificed our own dreams and desires in order to support those of our husbands. 

Is the sacrifice worth it? While educated, cultured, and supportive, these supporting women aren't necessarily using their education when they drive car pool, manage the military wives club (yes, these organizations do still exist), and keep the household running.  As someone who falls into this group, it often makes me wonder whether someone who is well versed in politics and world affairs and has the opportunities to use this knowledge is more intellectually, and perhaps physically attractive that someone whose day revolves around meeting the school bus, baking dozens of cookies for the PTA bake sale, paying the mortgage, and planning family vacations to visit the in-laws.  I know wives who have stressed over this while stuck at home while their spouses work long hours, travel or are deployed as part of their job.  Does sheer proximity create opportunities?


Every time I hear of yet another extra-marital affair—whether high profile or one between ordinary people—my own insecurities bubble up to the surface. For some reason, news of affairs strikes a chord with me; despite the sense of commitment that I feel is prevalent in my own marriage, in my more insure moments I wonder if I too could fall victim to being the naive spouse.  I wonder whether infidelity is an unfortunate fate that will touch most couples.  (After all, 50% of first American marriages and 67% of second marriages end in divorce with 60% of these divorces being attributed to infidelity on the part of one or both of the spouses).  Sometimes I worry that I don't show enough interest in my husband's job and career.  Should I be asking more questions?  Should I ask less?  Should I muffle my complaints about the mundane household issues-- car maintenance, paying bills, or remembering to follow through on one of a hundred other less than glamorous tasks that make up our lives? Should I make more of an effort to be domestic (a real struggle for me)--a cleaner house, be more dedicated mother, tend to his needs instead of telling him to do it himself?  Should I fawn over him more and play up his importance instead of being what I see as the grounding force in our relationship (what he is doing now is only temporary but our family unit is forever).  Despite being tired at the end of the day, week, etc should I be more sexual?

The underlying question is what causes one to stray from their marriage vows? Power, money, influence, boredom, proximity, the quest for excitement and something new?  Whatever the causes, the results are ugly and no one wins.  Unfortunately I this is the ugly underbelly of human nature.  If we can't look to our elected officials and other prominent leaders as role models for ethical behavior, who can we look to?