Dual Military

There are tons of articles on being a military spouse, but most of us Army Mamas are dual military and need support too! You’ve come to the right place.

Finding articles giving advice on how to navigate the Army as a dual military couple is very challenging. I know quite a few dual military couples—especially in the Guard! It’s impossible to think that we do not develop some form of relationships with the people we work with day in and day out.

I met my boyfriend in a duty status and I know lots of others who have met their spouses in a duty status as well. If you’re in a dual military relationship, you know that is comes with its ebbs and flows. 

Are you even a true Soldier if you don’t have at least one divorce under your belt? Can dual military relationships stand the test of time? There are a lot more stereotypes that befall the BAH with dependents status, but I’ll just cut to the chase and talk about the most common obstacles that us dual military Mamas run into and how to combat potential issues they can cause in the long run

Work Schedules 

Although mine and my boyfriend’s work schedules aren’t too dissimilar, there can be times where it poses a problem. His work schedule is much longer than mine. This usually means that I have to pick our kids up from any after school extracurricular activities, because he leaves work later than me.

This difference in our work schedule led to a little resentment because it made me feel like I was the one responsible for picking up the kids and preparing dinner every day during the week.

In order to mitigate that, I tried adding him to the dinner cooking schedule during the week to help lighten my load—it was a disaster! He is not a planner like me, so he’d decide what to make for dinner a couple hours before coming home, meat wouldn’t be defrosted or we wouldn’t have all the ingredients, a stop at the store, we’d have to wait longer, and everyone was ravenous by the time dinner actually hit the table.

Can y’all relate to this? Or am I alone here :’-(.

Luckily, we reached a compromise! The cooking schedule is split between the household and he has sole cooking responsibility on the weekends.

Eating dinner together is a daily ritual that is important to us and was something that we had to make adjustments in order for it to work in everyone’s favor.

If your work schedules differ, some simple things that you can do to maintain important ritualistic practices within your household might look like this: 

• • • Assigning specific food dishes to certain nights (e.g. Taco Tuesday, Spaghetti Saturday, etc) 

• • • • If your spouse is deployed, try to sync your meal menus for certain days as a means to maintain a little connect. Maybe on Mondays they serve beef stroganoff in the DFAC on his/her FOB–add beef stroganoff to your menu on Mondays back in the states.

• • • Movie nights are a great way to reconnect with the whole family. Pick a day out of the week or even the month if your schedules are super hectic to plan a movie night. Make it a point hit the grocery store to buy snacks and pick out a movie before you get home (that way you’re not stuck scrolling through Netflix for an hour before you finally give up).  

• • • • If your spouse is deployed, you can still do a movie night! If you want, you can send a care package to your spouse with movie snacks. Once they get it, pick a movie y’all want to watch and try to sync your viewings as close as possible. You don’t have to be in the same room to maintain these simple sweet connections.

• • •  

TDY/Travel 

Temporary Duty (TDY) and travelling is similar to work schedules, but most of the time inconsistent.

It can be difficult on your relationship if you or your partner hold a position that requires a lot of travelling.

Trust is an important aspect in your relationship when it comes to TDY and travel. If you are in a dual military relationship, you are well aware of all the infidelity that occurs behind closed doors.

Luckily, my boyfriend and I have never hit a snag like this; however, there was lots of distrust early on in our relationship. Travelling to new places should be fun and seen as an opportunity to try the local cuisine and explore the area.

Distrust in our relationship made going TDY a nightmare for both of us. This manifested in different ways, but namely jealousy.

I’d get jealous that he was out at a restaurant with his coworkers and I was stuck at home with the kids and vice versa. Distrust can lead to some ugly arguments, which is why it is important to do the next thing on this list. 

Although juggling work and children alone comes with its challenges, it actually gives you the freedom to dictate how you want the daily routines to go. Morning, extracurricular activities, and bedtime routines can be adjusted to your liking. 

Don’t feeling like cooking four out of the seven day week? No worries! The kids will enjoy the ease of take out just as much as you. No shame in the game! And you won’t have to get your spouse’s input on where to go. Pick up a couple happy meals and call it a day.

Wanna skip bathing the kids for the evening and tuck them straight into bed? You got it! I’m telling you that sometimes it is liberating being the only decision maker for a short period of time. 

One thing that I hear often from other Army Mamas is how easy it is to stick to a diet when your spouse goes TDY. My boyfriend was gone for a month for Advanced Leader’s Course and I decided to try the 21 day fix during that time. Y’all, I’m telling you that I was so close to seeing my abs for the first time in over a decade! 

Then he came back and I’m sure that you know the rest of that story. 

Couple’s Counseling 

All too often, I see women asking for advice about their spouse and how things have changed dramatically after the baby. And all too often I see other women telling that person to throw the whole spouse away as solid advice.

I will always advocate for couples counseling—the earlier, the better!

You will learn so much about yourself and your partner. That knowledge will help you understand your behaviors in the relationship and your partner’s.

You’ll both find ways of meeting each other’s core values and be happier as a result. Therapy can help eliminate those unspoken assumptions couples have able each other.

Once you have a good foundation to your relationship, everything else usually sorts itself out.

I’m not saying that there aren’t instances of domestic abuse, but I know from my personal experience that I would’ve mistakenly thrown away a partner that actually cared about me because we hadn’t actually put forth the investment of working on our issues with a professional.

Couple’s counseling also gave me some insight on how to be a better mother, friend, and everything else in between. 

Let me be clear, there is a difference between forcing your partner to read The 5 Love Languages and thinking that’ll solve all your problems and actually attending a few therapy sessions that require you to do homework.

This homework usually involves implementing behavioral changes into your relationship’s dynamic. It’s not always easy, because if you are like me when I first started therapy, I didn’t want to do any favors for my spouse. But once we both started doing our homework, we realized what our relationship was lacking. It allowed us to build up our foundation again.

And for that, I will always recommend couple’s counseling.

Dependent Status in DEERS and BAH with Children 

Dependent status in DEERS and BAH (basic allowance for housing) can be a doozy if either of you share the mentality that you want to be the breadwinner in the relationship.

Ultimately, the Service Member with the higher rank should be the one receiving the BAH with dependents because that means more income for your household.

When registering dependents in DEERS, you will have your children listed under both of your profiles, but only receiving entitlements by the higher-ranking partner. When making the decision on who should receive these entitlements, it’s best to keep in mind who it should be the one that benefits from this decision—your child(ren).

If the two of you still can’t come to an agreement, then that may be something to discuss during couple’s counseling.  

Childcare and Family Care Plan 

This is probably one of the top issues that my boyfriend and I struggled with as a dual military couple.

During the regular work week, we had a lovely daycare right down the street from our house and it was even on the way to the armory!

However, we had a very tiny pool of options when it came to childcare during our long training periods. Since my boyfriend and I were in the same unit, we had annual training and drill weekend during the same time.

Fortunately for us, we would usually plan ahead and fly my mom out from California to watch the kiddos while we were away during annual training. There were a few times where we had cut it way too close on drill weekends. 

If you’re planning on PCSing to a new location and you have enough notice before your move, I’d recommend getting a plan and backup plan in place. And then a backup plan to your backup plan. 

CDC is often overfilled and the waitlists are outrageously long. If you’re going to live on post, it makes sense to try to get your child(ren) into that childcare center.  Try to reach out to other Army Mamas that are stationed at that base and see how they manage their childcare. 

 

Questions you and your spouse need to discuss about potential childcare:

• • Is the CDC the only option and will there be a spot available?
  • If CDC is not available, are there any childcare services offered on post? (e.g. military spouses that offer childcare)
  • If there is absolutely no childcare available on post, what is available off-post?
  • Do those locations offer subsidized childcare costs through Child Care Aware or any other military affiliated childcare discounted rates?
  • If your child becomes ill, how will you arrange care if your command is unsupportive?

These questions seem like they would be no-brainers, but raising children and having a career in the military seems almost impossible in the wake of COVID. Unfortunately, some Leadership do not see Soldiers are human beings and believe that we can just solve all real life problems within seconds. 

And even worse, most of the time the Army Mama is the one who bears the brunt of that unfair reality and ends up sacrificing her career in an attempt to take care of her family. 

I don’t want to get too much into the weeds on this topic, because I’ll talk more about squaring away your Family Care Plan and finding suitable childcare options that could work for your family in another article, so stay tuned for that.

 

TA-50/Gear

Label. All. Of. YOUR. Issued. Gear.

If you’re in a dual military relationship, you know that you need to do this. Either that, you or your spouse might just tactically acquire some new stuff leaving the other person short when it comes time to process out of the service. 

It’s not usually intentional, but items will get mixed up. Especially if y’all are in the same unit and attend field training exercises at the same time. 

With that being said, make sure you have two separate laundry baskets and that you don’t mix those loads up when dumping clothes into the washer. I’m missing a lot of green socks and I know that they didn’t just up and walk away. Which is why we do our laundry separately. 

Military Connection

Being a typical military spouse can be hard since “dependas” don’t really understand what happens inside the organization. They get to gawk at their husband/wife in uniform and thank them for their service and provide support. 

Now being a dual military spouse gives each of your a different level of understanding the daily demands the Army has on each individual and your family.

You understand what a typical day looks like at work. You can relate to having to deal with a no-nonsense style First Sergeant that likes to keep everyone past COB. You also know how quickly things can change. You are able to apply that resiliency to your relationship because you’re immersed in the military culture as well. 

With that being said. . . y’all can call each other on your BS just as easily too. 

So if something is off with you or your spouse, it will usually stick out like a sore thumb. 

But it’s amazing to have someone to talk to at the end of a hard day that actually understands what you’re going through.

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Being in a dual military relationship is not easy. There are lots of things we need to do in order to find and maintain balance so that we can actually be happy with the lives we live. 

Have you experienced any significant challenges or rewarding moments in your dual military relationship? Let me know down in the comments! I feel that all too often we don’t highlight the complexity of dual military relationships and the fact that we need support in order to continue being successful in the Army.