When I met my husband all those years ago, I really had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had simply met ‘the one’ and was living happily in my little idyllic world, planning a wedding and a future together.
All of a sudden I became a ‘defence wife’, or a ‘military partner’ and at the time I truly didn’t appreciated the complexity behind these labels. In the years that followed, I soon realised that being in a relationship with someone in the military does have a profound effect on your life and everything in it.
Our first posting was to a small town in country Victoria. I had never heard of it. I had to leave a job I adored and move to a town where I knew not one person to re-establish myself and find work. This was my first taste of what my life would be like. I’m a social person by nature but even I found this task daunting. I could only imagine the anxiety each and every posting order brings for someone less outgoing. Partner employment is one of the biggest challenges for defence families with 14% of civilian partners unemployed compared to the national unemployment rate of 6%.
Once we started a family, the situation became even more complex. My eldest daughter is now 12 years old and is attending her fourth school. She has lived in six different houses on six different interstate postings. She’s a quiet, reserved ‘tween’ and finds making new friends challenging. Moving children from school to school is not always ideal and many families often elect to become MWDU or Members with Dependents Unaccompanied which means the Defence member moves to one location while the family stays in another for various reasons. You can only imagine the strain on relationships this can cause.
Then there are the deployments. In the weeks leading up to the deployment I find my husband ‘checks out’ of our life as he prepares to go. There’s often limited contact and a constant worry from my end as I avoid watching the news for anything relating to the warzone he is deployed to.
Somehow though, we have managed to survive almost 20 years together. I’ve done things I never thought possible and made the most amazing friends in this crazy life we are leading.
There are thousands of military family blogs. There are not a lot of Australian ones. Through my writing I hope to share my unique insight into the good, the bad and even the ugly of being ‘married’ to the military and how we have managed to make it work.
A Sentimental Journey 