Tracie (Navy Spouse) asked a very interesting question in the comments section of a different post, and I didn't want it to get lost in the shuffle. I think it's a perfect question for its own blog post. She asks:
Here's a question after reading this post that came to mind with the thought of milspouses and civilians as worlds apart when it comes to different ways of life, etc.: do any of you find yourselves tending to identify yourselves primarily as military spouses? For me, being a military spouse is a second thought in who I am. I identify myself more by my career or as my husband's spouse, but I don't necessarily go through my day with thoughts of the fact that I'm married to someone in the Navy. That's his career but not mine. And even though we've been married for 7 years now and I'm more in tune with being a military spouse (especially since he is now deployed to Iraq), it's more of an after thought that it is part of who I am. That may have come out really muddled and I hope it didn't come out offensive because that wasn't my intention. I'm just curious to hear everyone's thoughts on how you identify yourself.
There were already a few answers to her question, which you can read here. For me personally, I understand what commenter Jewel said, because even though my husband has only been in the Army for five years, we've already lived in five different places. I've already had nine different part-time jobs! My life has been extremely tied up in our moves, and there's no way I could divorce myself from the fact that we live and breathe Army. I just moved off-post for the first time, so maybe my life will begin to morph a bit, but for now I have a hard time identifying with being anything but a milspouse.
What do you think?
