Organization aims to help military spouses left behind | KOMO News - Breaking News, Sports, Traffic and Weather - Seattle, Washington | Local & Regional
KOMO News - Seattle, Washington
Organization aims to help military spouses left behind
SEATTLE -- The idea is to keep these families together, but it can be so much harder when one partner is a couple of oceans away.
Melissa's husband is in the military, and when it was just a few years into their marriage, she was ready to give-up.
"I told him I wanted a divorce," she told KOMO News.
While divorce seems fairly common everywhere these days, there are very high rates of marriage failure when one or both spouses are members of the military. Experts say the reasons are a combination of living apart for long stretches at a time, and not communicating well doing those lengthy deployments.
"I think anyone in the military who says they haven't wanted to quit (their marriage) is probably not telling the truth," Melissa says. She and her husband worked things out, and they've been together 7 years. But they had to learn to communicate better, as well as to rely on others.
"One of the problems as a military spouse is you are incredibly proud," she continues. "You are going to prove on a daily basis that you can do this and that you are proud of your husband. So in those moments when you do feel weak, I think it becomes very hard for us to reach out and say that we do need help."
Anyone who's lost a loved one can relate to "those moments."
"I'll be going along just fine during my day, when I find one of his socks left on the floor," Melissa confesses. "And it's really hard when I catch a whiff of his cologne."
While there are many groups that cater to the needs of military members serving overseas, there aren't a lot of resources for military spouses left behind, which is where Operation Military Family comes in. The group works to counsel military couples, helping them to capitalize on what little time they have for the basic need of any relationship: Good, clear communication.
"These spouses, they live in our communities," says Operation Military Family founder Mike Schindler. "A good number of the population doesn't live on installations anymore."
Spouses like "Michelle."
"Five times," she recalls. "Five different times, we were at the brink of calling this thing (marriage) off."
Besides counseling, Operation Military Family also tries to do "special" things to reach out to spouses left behind. This week, they're promoting something called "petal power" --- as in flower petal. To commemorate Military Appreciation Month, the group wants to specifically remember military spouses left behind. Just go to their website www.operationmilitaryfamily.org , color a picture of a flower, and they'll get it to a spouse trying to hold things together here on the homefront.
"If we would have just had something close to this," says Michelle, "it would have made such a difference."Julia Here.....
This is one of the comments left on this site.
· 9 hours ago
I love these comments left by people who have never been married to someone in the military and have no idea what we as spouses go through. The person who spoke in the article about marriage and how the lack of closeness and communication can kill a marriage is right on. My husband was a recruiter post 9/11 for four years. The stress this job put on him and our family was incredibly huge. He left this assignment for a one year tour over seas. We had in a sense NOT had a family life in 5 years. We never were together while he was on recruiting. He would come home eat and go to bed. The pressure they were put under was wrecking havoc on his mental well being as well as the family. He would have one day off a week that he would spend getting ready for the next week and worrying about making mission. When he deployed for a year right after I was devastated that we had no time to regroup and reconnect before he left. Our marriage is solid and strong, BUT that is not like we had no issues or problems due to lack of physical closeness or communication.
This is not an easy life for any family so to dismiss this as just deal with it or you should not have married someone in the military is really condescending. I love my husband with all my heart and soul, but to live a married life virtually alone plain SUCKS.
My husband and I have been married for 21 years. We did not get married after these current wars started. We have weathered many a storm in our lives.
I did not get married and have a child to be a single parent. No one can tell me that I knew what I was getting into so get used to it. My father was in Vietnam 4 times in 7 years so I know that many a military family has endured lengthy wars.
Julia
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