I have a million things that I want to say, a million expressions and critiques and questions that don't seem to have any avenue of "safe"expression in my "real" life.
I've been composing blog posts in my head, but after creating this space, I'm typing and deleting over and over. I feel like I forgot what I wanted to say. Like it's all so jumbled up from being stuffed inside my head that it may never find a release in coherent sentences.
So maybe I'll just start with some questions. Those can stand on their own for now.
What is it about the military lifestyle that causes women to define themselves by, and to alter their behavior to conform to, the nature of their spouse's job?
What drives her to accept responsibility for fulfilling the demands of the "side billet" that accompanies her spouse's "real" billet, if he is married?
Is this "self-institutionalization" a way to cope with the never ending sacrifices and bullshit that come along with a military lifestyle?
Maybe at the end of the day, the only way to justify sharing your spouse and your personal life to the degree that you must, is to fully immerse yourself in the cause of all your problems. Taking it in as part of your identity, maybe it removes the sting, and makes it all easier to bear?
These are all great questions that I have posed and reposed over and again during my 8 yrs association with this organization. I still don't understand and I cannot make myself conform. It's just not in my nature and yet, it's almost broken me to carve my own path and swim upstream against the current.
ReplyDeleteMaybe at the end of the day, the only way to justify sharing your spouse and your personal life to the degree that you must, is to fully immerse yourself in the cause of all your problems.
ReplyDeleteNice. Know your enemy and know yourself! (Hat tip to Sun Tzu, the military strategist that all our spouses will study sooner or later.)