08/04/2026
Last week I told you about my husband leaving the Marine Corps after 22 years. This week I want to tell you the part nobody asks about.
What happens to the wife?
For 10 years, I was a military wife. That wasn't just a description... it was my whole operating system. I could pack a house in days. I could solo-parent through a deployment. I could show up at a new duty station, find the school, find the doctor, find the commissary, and build a life from scratch... again... because that's what we do.
Military wives speak a language. We don't have to explain the acronyms. We don't have to explain why we're crying in the car line during homecoming week or why we flinch when the phone rings during a deployment. Somebody on base always just... got it. Instantly. That's the thing about that community. You're never starting from zero with each other, even when you just met.
And then we moved to Louisville. Civilian world. And suddenly I was starting from zero with EVERYONE.
I didn't know how to make friends out here at first.
Civilian moms would talk about living in the same town their whole lives, having their college roommate two streets over, their mom watching the kids every Friday. And I'd just stand there thinking... I've moved nine times. My best friends are scattered across the country in time zones I have to count on my fingers. My village got reassigned every two years.
And the questions. "So where are you from?" I still don't know how to answer that one. Illinois? California? North Carolina? Yuma? All of it? None of it?
Here's the part that surprised me though. The hardest part wasn't that civilians didn't understand military life. It's that I didn't know who I was without it.
For 10 years, my life was organized around his service. The moves, the deployments, the waiting, the holding it all together. I got GOOD at it. And when it ended, all those skills... the packing, the adapting, the surviving... suddenly had nowhere to go.
Who am I when I'm not the one holding down the fort? Who am I kidding? I am still holding down the fort but in a different way.
I'm still figuring that out. Eight years into civilian life and I'm STILL figuring that out. But here's what I know so far: I'm a wife. A mom. A woman of faith who's rediscovering what that means. A creative who makes bows and wreaths and dreams up new ideas in the shower. A person... not just a role.
Turns out the military wife didn't disappear. She's still in here. She's just learning that all that strength she built... the adaptability, the resilience, the showing up when it's hard... works out here too.
To the military wives transitioning out: you're not losing your identity. You're finally getting to meet the rest of it.
And to the civilian friends who've welcomed me anyway, even when I couldn't answer "where are you from"... thank you. You have no idea what that means.
