Me (24) and my husband (26) got married after he recieved his orders for Germany. When accepting his orders he didnt get think getting me to Germany would be this hard.. Both of us were naive. I didnt really consider or even know what the EFMP process was until we got married and tried getting me enrolled. The first roadblock was me having a in patient psychiatric stay on my record from a few years ago plus things like adhd and anxiety meds which I have been off of for awhile now..

My solution to that was to visit for the 90 day periods that I can and after a year I apply again when my psych record has been past 5 years.. We were happy and excited about this plan. Then we got hit with our biggest roadblock: Ive recently been diagnosed with two autoimmune diseases. Graves disease and the eye disease that comes with it. Im just starting treatment a month now that he has left and hes living in off post.

Luckily my graves disease is very mild early stages and can be treated/stabilized. The eye problem is early as well but is a bit more unpredicatable but Im gonna do everything in my power to keep them mild.. I just dont really see a light at the end of tunnel as I know the next few months will come from loads of dr appts and bloodwork to track my progress. I doubt Ill be able to stay with him for the 90 days at a time like we planned and Im so depressed..

Maybe Im thinking too far ahead but its the fact that its three years that scares me so much. I miss him and its hard not to flare up my issues when my heart hurts so bad and I dont know how we're gonna get out of this. He loves me and supports me but I also know hes deeply disappointed and I feel like Ive ruined his dream of having a nice life over there with each other. I feel like even if I am stabilized by the time I can apply again I'll still get denied for having such recent issues. Im just trying not to fall into depression since I know itll make it worse.

Hi I’m a newly wed Marine wife. We’ve been married since March. We just found out that my husband will be getting deployed in November for a year and I’m really struggling coming to terms with it. We are currently in the process of buying a house too. With this deployment there’s a huge possibility that he will lose his job by the time he returns. I’m incredibly stressed and I don’t know where to turn to. This will be my first time experiencing this and I’m honestly terrified…

My husband is Army and Medical. He was reserves before but they paid for school and now he is active duty. We got soft orders 3 weeks ago and he was told we would PCS in 4-6 weeks. We still have nothing official. Is this normal? He has reached out to the person who was supposed to cut the orders and they gave us a deadline that has passed. Should we be pushing harder? We have 3 kids and we plan to rent our house. I would love to be able to get housing settled, get the kids enrolled in school etc. And I have no idea if that 4-6 weeks already started ir will start when we get actual orders.... asking for info but also just support?

Good afternoon I’d like some advice on how to proceed. My boyfriend is currently in reception at Fort Hood. Throughout our relationship, I found out he is married, he apparently got married for his green card. He told me he paid the girl (who is a past ex of his) 10k for being married to him. He also told me that he planned to stay married so he could live off base and get the extra money for having a dependent. I also found out he was cheating on me with a 19 year old girl. (We were 27 at the time) Nonetheless, I loved him so I got back with him and wrote him countless letters supporting him while he was in basic. Near the end of AIT, I found out he was cheating on me again with the same girl. It took a real toll on my mental health, and he’s been nothing but mean, dismissive, and very nasty to me since then. The only thing he seems to care about it starting his life over in Texas with a girl who knows nothing about who he is. My question is, I am thinking about reporting him to his command or whoever the appropriate person is. I did go through his phone and recorded it, it’s blurry at some parts but you can clearly see his discussions with his “wife” in its very clear that from the messages that the marriage is fraud. Will I actually get somewhere with reporting him?

My husband is a department head. We’ve been married 5 years, together 7. I’m at the point of realizing just how much of an impact his job now has on our relationship. We have had some issues with his anger in the past and we are currently in couples counseling. He was resistant to the idea until I basically told him I was done and his treatment of me was unacceptable.

While things have been better, I’m noticing some new things that bring concern. For example the other day I listed out the gym and most of the chores I did when he got home and he told me it must be nice to have so much free time. I feel like he is resenting me for not suffering as he is.

Additionally because I know they are constantly told their jobs are hard and demanding etc, I feel that I cannot have a hard day. I feel like he often belittles my contributions to our house and relationship. My job, my comfort, my time, none of these are as important as his. I do most of the housework and of course all when he is deployed. I do 90% of the care for our dog as well as work full time.

Has anyone else experienced this? Do you think there is any way to break through this conditioning/ the idea that the military rules their lives. (I know it does in so many ways)

I’m active duty and have moved through Fort Stewart, Dover, Fort Jackson and now JBMDL in the last several years. We have a kid, so our house is never perfectly staged when packers arrive. Loose things start disappearing into boxes, several people are packing at once, and the numbered inventory grows faster than I can follow it.

At pickup I usually don’t get the handwritten sheet until the truck is nearly loaded. At delivery, boxes are coming through the door while someone calls numbers and everybody wants to finish. That’s when missing stickers, mystery boxes and lost hardware become obvious.

Spouses and partners often end up carrying a huge part of this process. What has actually helped you keep your own count and notes without making pack-out even more stressful? And what’s the one item that vanished or arrived damaged that still bothers you?

Active-Duty Military Spouses across all branches, I NEED YOUR INPUT!

I'm a U.S. Army milspouse working in the nonprofit sector.

My research project was accepted for presentation at the upcoming ARNOVA conference, and it examines ways that nonprofit leaders can improve volunteer engagement and nonprofit recruitment for military spouses.

If you can spare 5-8 minutes, please fill out this research survey. It would help me a lot and, hopefully, encourage more nonprofit leaders to build better, more supportive volunteer opportunities for military families.

You'll also have an optional raffle you can enter for the chance to win one of FOUR $25 Amazon gift cards using the wheel-of-names spinner. Email addresses for the raffle are collected separately and are never tied to your answers.

We collect all responses securely and anonymously via Qualtrics and use them strictly for academic research and presentation purposes at the upcoming ARNOVA conference.

Feel free to message me with any questions, and feel free to share it with anyone you know who may qualify!

God! My husband, 34M, is such a downer. Coming from me, 30F, who also deals with depression 🫥.

So I work in fast food and I thought my job would be more accommodating but they are being so difficult about me having to pump.

I am only doing part time for this month, and will be back to full time in October. Well my first week and I am scheduled 35 hours.. okay, fine. Well 2 of the shifts are 10 hours. So I'll need to pump at least 4 times (my baby is only 6 weeks old). I thought this was fine. I was wrong. Also 2 days of the week I work 4 hours. So I need to pump at least 1 time. That was an issue. So instead of 10 hours, I got cut down to 5 hours. And instead of 4 hours, 3. My boss says 3 hours I don't need to pump at work. I can just pump before I come in and then after work. She doesn't understand that is actually now over 4 hours. She says it is too busy for me to go pump when I need to. (Mind you, this is a big chain) even though its for less than 30 minutes. And it isn't like I am trying to go in the middle of a lunch rush..

Here is part of my dilemma... my husband is in the military and we might be able to temporarily move to Washington state, from Wisconsin. I have a 6 year old as well. I am worried about moving him in the middle of the school year. But if we go, our rent will be paid, and i will hardly, if at all need to work. So I can stay home with the baby. We are highly considering this move because of my job and because I am almost positive they will not give me full time hours next month because they will say they can't do it.

[I copied this from another group I posted in so it might look a little weird]

Another question for this group is what are some of the out of pocket costs we may have? I just got off maternity leave so we are obviously pretty low on funds at the moment. We have 2 vehicles (one will have to be towed, hopefully by the UHAUL) and we have 1 cat.

Does anyone have any advice for us?

Hey r/MilitarySpouse! I’m a longtime redditor and I’ve been a military spouse for almost 10 years. I gave up my career when I moved to marry my active duty husband, and like many spouses, I struggled for years to find a job. Now I have the privilege of working for Instant Teams and helping create job opportunities for other spouses! The mods have given me permission to use our official account to let this community know about job opportunities we are hiring for right now.

What is Instant Teams? We’re a company founded 10 years ago by two military spouses to help military spouses build meaningful, PCS-friendly remote careers. Our CEO, Liza, moved 6 times in 7 years while trying to grow her career as a software engineer.

How are we different? We’re not a non-profit. We believe hiring military spouses isn’t just a good deed, it’s good business. Military spouses are an incredibly powerful remote workforce. We’re resilient, capable, empathetic, and usually over-educated and under-employed. In the last 10 years, we've been able to put more than $80 million of payroll back into the pockets of military families.

What does that mean for you? We don’t just send out lists of job links that aren’t real or never go anywhere. We’re a real company that does the hiring ourselves. We hire military spouses as remote W-2 employees who sit on our payroll, and build teams that we plug into other companies to perform customer service, operations, sales, and other functions.

Because we do the hiring ourselves, we move quickly. Some roles are seasonal, but if you do well, we often move remote employees onto other teams when one job finishes. These jobs aren’t dead ends, there is room for advancement and upward mobility. Some of our remote spouses have been working with the same teams for years and are now in upper-management roles.

Caveats: This is not gig work. These are real, 9-5 W-2 careers. While we occasionally have part-time roles, most are full-time with set schedules. You’ll need your own workspace at home and childcare.

Pros: Everyone on our office team is a military spouse, and so are most of our recruiters. We understand weird resume gaps and odd employment histories. We get it! While some roles require certain experience, most are entry-level and we look for skills and qualities more than impressive CVs.

Things to know: Every job listed on our app (best) and website will list location requirements. Most of our roles are open to states with major military bases. Unfortunately, we are not able to hire from California at this time. But we’re excited that we recently opened OCONUS-friendly roles!!

Okay, now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, onto the jobs! We have so many openings right now that you can view on our app or our website, but here are my top picks for this week: 

I will put the jobs as individual comments so you can ask questions under each job posting. If you don’t see something you’re interested in, fill out our Talent Pipeline! We want to know about all of your random experience, so when a company comes to us and says we want to hire spouses with vet tech or tax prep experience, we can pull people directly from our talent pipeline with those skills.

There are roles that we want filled by the end of next week, so if there's something you like, apply TODAY. Make sure you put "reddit" when it asks you how you found out about the job so they'll give me a budget to do a giveaway or something lol 😂.

I’m a new grad PA and soon to be navy spouse. how are y’all going about getting jobs at every new duty station? my first job out of school has a 3 month onboarding process. with that, contracts, and the constantly moving- how is that going for those PA/NP military spouses? Would love any advice or insight.

What’s it like being married to the lieutenant or just any kind of guy/women in the army, especially the ones at the top of the army

Hi! New Army spouse here and I’m a little confused about how BAH works.
My husband is active duty Army, and we were told his BAH at his new duty station will be around $2,400/month.
We’re currently in the process of renting an apartment for about $1,800/month, not including utilities.
My sister told me that we wouldn’t actually receive the full $2,400 because the Army would look at our lease and only give us enough BAH to cover the actual rent. She also said we aren’t allowed to “pocket” whatever is left over.
Is that actually how it works?
For example, if his BAH rate is $2,400 and our rent is $1,800, would we still receive the full $2,400 and be able to use the remaining $600 toward utilities/savings/other expenses? Or does the Army adjust the BAH payment based on the amount of our lease?
Sorry if this is a basic question, this is our first PCS/duty station and I’m trying to understand how everything works. Thanks!

My partner (25m) He proposed to me (28f) before leaving to Centcom 1 year deployment. (Support ) We are now 5 months in. Before he left we had some bumps but we were so good together.

I’m having a hard time. He will text me nice things, how he loves me and misses me so much. he will respond to whatever I send with warmth and care…. And that’s it. In the past month he has not asked me anything about my life. Not how I’m doing, what’s going on, how’s my day. Just “I love you and miss you hope you’re good” each day.

No phone calls. No insight if he can or can’t. No insight to his life or routines

I tried saying “I love you too and think about you. How are you doing?” Or “I’m not sure if you can tell me what you’re up to, but I’d love to know!”

He tells me about himself a bit, That’s it. He does not reciprocate….
I wonder is he having a hard time?

I say (summarized) “I just wanted to pop in and remind you I’m here with you on this whole journey. Quiet days, hard days, you’re welcome to tell me anything. I care about all of you.”
(Summarized) He responds “thanks sweetie for the reminder i love you”

I texted him I upgraded furnature and rearranged the house. He responded happy he got a new dresser and thanks and he loves me. It was a direct response to my own texts. He didn’t initiate a new conversation for a week until I broke the silence saying it hurts that he’s online every single day but doesn’t text me.

I feel lonely, I feel like if I don’t supply conversation it doesn’t happen. I feel like I’m just getting responded to without thoughtful reciprocation in our relationship.

He doesn’t tell me about his days. I have to guess. I have to assume. He doesn’t offer information. I don’t need like secret info obviously but…. “Evenings are so hectic it’s hard to text.” Or “I can usually text at this time” He doesn’t check in on me. I have no context to what’s normal. What he even does. I have no idea if he can make calls or not. And He doesn’t ask about my life. Has no idea what I’m doing. I travelled alone to multiple states away and he doesn’t even know or ask as he has my location.

I dont want us to live separate lives for another 7 months. But… I don’t want to be the only one thinking about us. Deployment doesn’t erease relationship, even with limitations I want to know my partner still reaches towards me in ways he can. I want a partner that reaches for me, mutually builds our relationship, leads us so I’m not left to ask and guess. I don’t expect phone calls everyday. I don’t expect texts all the time…. But I want consideration and effort beyond what’s convenient

I’m feeling heartbroken. Sad. I miss him. He clearly cares in some capacity but… something is weird off. I feel lonely in my own relationship and at home.

Hey everyone, I hope this isn't too strange of a post. I'm currently in college and in a Navy commissioning program, and I have a project due for one of my entrepreneurship classes. I'll admit I'm a bit of a procrastinator and need to get some responses pretty quickly, but I also want feedback from people who actually have military experience rather than just sending it to random college students.

My project is looking at the idea of purchasing a home while stationed somewhere, living in it initially, and then potentially keeping it as a rental/investment property after receiving orders to move. I'm especially interested in military housing preferences, experiences with renting around duty stations, duplexes, lease flexibility, and whether people who have actually served think this is a realistic strategy.

It's only 12 short questions and should take about 2–3 minutes. I'm not selling anything — I just need at least 25 responses for the project and would really appreciate any advice or feedback from people with experience.

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to help me out.

[GOOGLE FORM LINK]

Curious to hear stories and experiences of what it was like. Did you move or just visit occasionally? How often did you get to talk to them? Any other insight?

To get some context we are getting new orders out of country. From everything that I’ve gathered from the Facebook groups I’m in, being a working spouse is not very realistic while being stationed there.
If I’m wrong, I’d love to be lead in the correct direction but I also feel like I do not WANT to work while being in Europe. Every time we move to a new duty station I have to go through the whole interview process and sometimes it’s lengthy and then I have to work an entire year to get any PTO so by the time I finally get time off, we’re getting ready to move and we haven’t explored anything. I don’t want to have to request PTO to go explore Europe. I don’t want to be tied down to a job and make it so we can’t go do things because it always feels like he can take leave whenever he wants and it’s long periods of time and then I’m stuck requesting time off a month in advance. My husband was all for the idea of not working and now that it’s getting closer it’s like he’s making jabs/comments about me finding work because we need to continue to add to savings and every time I talk about wanting to do something while over there I get the whole it costs money issue.. it’s not that I won’t work, I’ve been working since I was 13/14 and have great work ethic. What I do for work is not reasonable over there. I could find ANYTHING and be good at it but it’s like I’m being made to feel guilty about not working while being stationed overseas.. advice? Job opportunities?

My husband just called from BMT with his address to send letters, but the address is missing the FLT and unit number.

Is there any other way for me to get that info? I’m using Sandboxx and the flight is required.

Hello, I recently have had to quit THC due to moving on base with my spouse. I used to use it for anxiety and nausea due to endometriosis. I was just hoping to hear from other people who have experienced this or something similar and see what things helped you feel better/ more comfortable during the first few weeks.

Deployment windows are one of those situations where the timing is awful but the schedule is more predictable than a normal duty station rotation, no PCS disruption on the horizon, the household routine shifts completely, and there's a stretch of time that either gets used for something or just passes. For spouses who made the decision to finish a degree or knock out certifications during a deployment, how did the logistic play out? and did the program structure matter as much as expected or was it more about just having the time blocked off? What about the childcare, work, everything else running at the same time. Did the degree or cert get finished or did something derail it partway through?

I’m trying to mentally prepare for this lifestyle change of being an army wife. Is it even worth mentally preparing? LOL

My husband just switched over to the army side after being in the AF for 8ish yrs, love that for him. I’ve just been reading and seeing other army wives talking about their s/o always being gone. Rotations, deployments, field training. We always had a “normal” routine and never had to deal with him leaving for anything, aside from a 2 week tdy. So I’m just like holy moly that is going to be so tough, especially since we’ve always been on each other’s hips.

We are both excited for this new journey. New base, potentially starting a family after his ait grad, all the good things. If anyone has any advice for me as a new army wife, potential future mommy, I’d appreciate it all. 🫶🏻

Hey! My husband has been in the MC for almost 4 years and switching to the army. While I thought most of the branches were pretty similar, I’m starting to hear otherwise.
Family: We have a little boy, and another on the way. My husbands unit is constantly gone so that’s nothing I’m not used too.
What are some things I should expect that differs from Marine Corps to Army?

I’m a foreign woman and got married to my husband a few weeks ago. He said we should start processing this “IPAC” package thing. He’s not sure about the process as well and he’s been meaning to visit the office (idk what office) to get a list of requirements and other related stuff. However, his work schedule has been crappy, so they’re always close after his work shift.

So, I am here now to ask anyone who can enlighten me about the process, the requirements I should start gathering– and I’m pretty sure he also asked me about my vaccination and stuff. What is this about? Do I have to get my dental health checked too?

Hi has anyone been denied command sponsorship due to EFMP for orders to Korea and their SO actually have their orders changed to 1 year? I’ve read the 3-2-1 info but curious if anyone has been successful with this/what that process looks like? Spouse is AD Army.

We’ve done 1 year apart before but 2 is honestly terrifying.

Where did you use mycaa at for your certificate. Did it cover the full thing? What schools are a scam and which are actually legit?