An Army Wive's Perspective on Getting Out of the Army

Almost eight years ago I never expected to be leading the life of an army wife, but I am. Now, after two deployments, three more children, and a million tears both sad and joyful my husband has decided that he wants to get out of the Army.

My time as an Army wife has at times been what I thought of as the worst time of my life and some of it has been the greatest times of my life. I have not had some of the traumatic accounts that many Army wives have to go though, but we have had our hard times never the less. When my husband is deployed I hate this life and want to be a civilian more than anything in the world, when he is home it is better because he is here with me, but I know that it is taking a toll on him in many ways.

So, why is it hard for me to be happy about getting out? Well because this has been my life for eight years, because the Army has put us under an umbrella and made it hard to go back to a normal life of paying medical bills and putting in overtime. The Army has made me a wife and mother who does not know anything besides being the wife of a soldier and a mother.

In all honesty I am scared of life on the outside of our metaphorical army walls. For each individual the reasons may vary, for me they are simple. The first would be the economy. Gas prices continue to soar and groceries are also going up while wages are not. Finding a job that will give us a life equal to what we have had will not be easy. With four children, only two of which are in school we will still be a one income family, and we all know that it is hard for any family to get by with one income paying the bills.

Another reason would certainly be medical coverage. In the army, we are covered for pretty much everything. As civilians, there is state coverage as well as a variety of different insurances which usually have co-pay and only pay a portion of the cost. Being that we have so many children, medical coverage is definitely something that we need to be concerned about.

I am writing this article so that the many people out there can understand where an Army wife comes from. Many Army wives are stay at home mothers. It is very hard to find a decent job when you have to move every two-three years. Once you have more than two children these days it is really not worth it to try to work outside the home anyway. So many of us watch children in the home or do a variety of home based businesses.

After so many years of living one sort of life then changing to another very different sort can be terrifying. I have also noticed that many Army wives are afraid to say that they wish their husband would stay in the Army. Why? Because by saying this people take it as you saying that you want your husband to go to war, they think that you don't care about him, and as a devoted wife you would never want people to think you wanted your husband away. So we keep quiet. Being silent can result in almost resentment toward a variety of different things. Personally I resent the fact that I cannot work to help make an income on the outside (which would make me feel better about getting out), I resent that if I tell people I want to stay Army that they will think I want my husband to be unhappy, and I resent that the Army has made my husband want out so bad when he once wanted to make a career out of it.

As an Army wife I am proud of what I do. I am proud of my husband and his service to our country. I only want him to be happy and I know he has made the largest sacrifices for our family, but should it be so bad to say "what about me"? No it shouldn't be that bad, however, when you stay home and your only priorities are your family it becomes a norm to put everyone else above yourself.

Those are some of the reasons that getting out of the Army is hard for me. I hope that this can shed some light for those who judge military wives when they want their husband to stay in. The reasons they have may not always be what they appear to be on the outside, sometimes it is as simple as fear. Furthermore, sometimes that fear is very hard to explain because even we don't recognize it.