The Military Ex

At the very least, a military wife is secure in her position. She is one of many American women deprived of her man for the sake of the nation's freedom. A military ex can make no such claims. No one will paint you in a stoic light. Should anyone ever bother to offer sympathy, it will be for your children. Though your heart will be a jumble of emotions, few people will consider you in need of support, and you will not know how to ask for it. This is something that you keep to yourself.

Secret #1: You feel guilty. There was probably a time when you would have given anything to have your ex out of your sight. You're biting your tongue now... this wasn't exactly what you had in mind. The guilt is even worse if your ex-husband/boyfriend joined the military specifically to support your children. It was his choice to join the Armed Forces, of course. Still there is a persistent voice in your head, asking, "If we hadn't gotten pregnant, if we hadn't separated/divorced, would he be in Iraq right now? Would our children actually be with their father instead of looking at pictures of a uniformed man in some dangerous faraway place?" No amount of logical reasoning is enough for you to believe that you hadn't somehow led him to enlist. You have nightmares about the worst that could happen to him, and in the dreams his blood is on your hands.

Secret #2: You feel grief. Every phone call your ex affords you during his deployment feels like a sock in the gut. He sounds exhausted, he sounds depressed, and he misses your children desperately. His voice has never sounded like this before, and it breaks your heart to hear it. You have trouble enjoying yourself from day to day. Whether you're spending time with your children, talking to your friends, or getting to know a new man, it seems that feeling happy and safe is somehow wrong. Your conscience nags at you when you find yourself growing close to a new partner. Will karma somehow bite you in the ass for having the audacity to move on with your life while your ex is endangering his?

Secret #3: You feel afraid. Likely by now, you've grown accustomed to being alone in your bed, or to sharing it with someone new. This does not mean, however, that you are accustomed to life without your ex. Regardless of whether the two of you are on good terms, having children with a man incidentally means that you'll never be without that man again. This remains true until the unthinkable happens. It's a thought that paralyzes you. Every time a soldier falls and his name is announced on the news, every time you see a casket with the American flag laid over it, your breath catches, and you know that it could have been him. You realize that the long months of bickering were in fact preferable to these months of chronic dread. Express these fears to anyone and they will assure you that it's normal for you to worry about the father of your children. You nod and agree. But in your heart, you know that you don't want him home just because he's your children's father. You want him home because it's him.

Secret #4: You love him. Whether it's been a month or ten years since the divorce or breakup, I do not know of any mother who can honestly say that she has no love for the father of her children. Nevertheless, your feelings for the deployed soldier seem somehow inappropriate. You're not entitled to feel fear, guilt or sadness for him, because other than being your kids' dad, your ex really has nothing to do with you. You're not allowed to be proud of him because that's the military wife's domain. Therefore, on top of everything else, you feel rather foolish for having these emotions. You send your love only through quiet prayers at night, making sure that no one can hear you... not your friends, not your kids, and definitely not your soldier ex.

In the end, what you care about most is that he comes home, that your children will grow up knowing their father as someone more than an abstract (and absent) American hero. As for the rest, you'll deal with it one day at a time. And though you will probably not tell anyone what having your ex deployed is doing to your heart, take comfort in this. There are hundreds of military exes out there, keeping just as silent as you are.