How to Cope as a Military Family Member

I am a proud daughter and wife of two men serving in the United States Navy. Because of my background I feel I am great at getting on with my life when someone is missing. Growing up, my dad missed out on quite a few experiences but it comes along with a Navy life and you learn to cope. Thanks to my childhood I am an expert at keeping everything together when my husband is gone.

It can get very frustrating having to take care of the kids, the house and all the bills while your other half is missing. I find that keeping things as organized as possible help relieve some of that tension. I have a folder with all the information for the bills contained in it. Everything I will need to look up and pay the bills is kept in that folder. I also keep a dry erase board on the refrigerator with all the due dates of the bills on it.

As far as the kids, the biggest frustration in my life is cooking. I enjoy fresh healthy food and love to cook for my family myself instead of cooking premade meals. To help keep this up, as I feel it is very important, I try to cook large meals when my husband is home and freeze them into small portions. When my husband is gone I can just grab a few frozen homemade meals out of the freezer and my family gets a healthy meal.

When it comes to boredom and passing the time I try to have a few projects piled up to keep my busy. My husband was recently gone for two weeks so I took the time I would normally spend with him to plant some flowers in the garden, make curtains for my living room and organize my photo album. It's great for getting all those small things you have been putting off done.

When my husband leaves for large chunks of time, like a six month deployment, I always have someone come stay with me for the first few weeks. Thanks to the Navy, all of my friends and family live across the country. It gives my family member or friend a great excuse to come visit me and spending time with someone I haven't seen in a while makes it pass quickly.

Thankfully, communication today is so easy between the deployed family member and the ones back at home. My husband and I e-mail each other daily except for the few times when their e-mail system is shut down. We also have a digital camera so I take tons of pictures of everything at home and send them in e-mails regularly to him. He feels like he's not missing too much between the daily updates and the pictures.

Being the at home half of a Navy couple is a tough job. I hope some of these suggestions help. Try to find what works for you and they'll be home before you know it!