At SpouseBUZZ LIVE, I was fascinated by the conversation which centered around keeping homefront stress away from the deployed spouse. There was a strong desire on the part of the attendees to make sure this was done at all costs. Desire may not be the most appropriate word. I think that once a milspouse comes face-to-face with a deployment, she/he knows how high the stakes are. Milspouses automatically understand that distractions can be fatal, and most of them work hard to shield their spouses from bad news and to mask any inner turmoil they may be experiencing.
For precisely that reason, SpouseBUZZ LIVE was so powerful. What seemed like months and months of bottled-up stress began flowing out of the mouths of the attendees. Milspouses recognized SpouseBUZZ LIVE for what it was, a forum where they could vent and cry and talk about the frustrations, stress and hardships that they wouldn't dare burden their spouses with.
One of my girlfriends compared the milspouse experience to living a double life. She was referring to the deployment phase, where she claims to have told more lies to her husband than she ever thought she was capable of. Although my girlfriend knew she was doing the right thing for the right reasons, she began to question how she could lie so often and with such ease, but her lies were necessary lies. There were certain things my friend's husband didn't need to know and there were certain things he needed to believe were going better than they actually were. I agreed with my girlfriend. Why worry our spouse over something they can't do anything about?
It's a two-way street. We're being lied to as well. Our spouses are thinking the same thing, "why worry our spouse over something they can't do anything about?" As they say, "war is hell" and our spouses want us as far away from that hell as possible. Remember ArmyWifeToddlerMom's post about the two-way lies?
I think my girlfriend was on to something with her "double life" analogy. Sometimes, being a milspouse feels like you're living a double life. However, in our case, it's justified. In our "line of business," we can't afford to have our spouses distracted. Milspouses do what they have to do to ensure that their spouses remain focused on the battlefield. Distractions can mean the difference between injury and health, or life and death.
