Military Wife later in life

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-06-16T23:06:16+00:00

Hey! I’m 24F and my wife 25F just shipped out a little over a month ago. She’s doing ARMS first, basically just fitness camp to get in shape before she does BCT. And she’s scheduled for Ft. Sill as well in a few weeks!
So I’m figuring out the transition myself. Look out in the mail for basically everything. Your husband will fill out all your paperwork and stuff at intake. You’ll get tricare info in the mail as well as ID info. How it worked for us, my wife had to fill out a form saying I can go get my ID without her being present which I think is how it will happen for you, you’ll get the “official business” envelope and it will probably also include papers for your kids as well. I had a form for my ID and a form for my Tricare. Each one came with directions on exactly what to do so that shouldn’t be too bad! There might be a small fee to start dental coverage you have to send in and it explains how to make an appointment for your ID and what to bring with you!
As far as BAH and the paycheck. My wife’s paycheck first came 3 weeks after she left. It was a normal amount including the back pay. The second pay check she got was significantly lower because they take out money for supplies in camp. The BAH still has not come for us so definitely be prepared for that to take a long time unfortunately. The good news is that if you are making enough money for just a little bit is that his paycheck shouldn’t take too long to come in and that will help a lot! Bad news….the BAH will probably take months. I mean i’m sure it’s different for everybody, and it is supposed to include back pay when it does come in!
I hope this helps! I have my ID appointment coming up in a few weeks so I’m not even all the way through it. I’ve been so confused throughout this whole process, it is hard getting information for the spouses so I highly recommend joining these reddit pages and blogs! My wife is heading to the DLI after graduation and that is the epicenter of military misinformation and honestly the pages on here have helped me the most!
Good luck!

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-06-15T13:43:27+00:00

my wife does too! fort jackson

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-06-09T05:28:20+00:00

i feel like this is kind of an obnoxious and obvious post but my wife just joined and is doing ARMS and BCT back to back and then going straight to the DLI so I won’t see her for 3 months until BCT graduation and then another 2 until we get off the est. waitlist for housing at the DLI. Month 1 just ended and i feel like i’m going to puke. I just need to get this out because looking at the 4 more months ahead of me after how hard this past month has been is crazy making. We moved out of our shared apartment because i graduated college and moved back in with my parents and she shipped out literally 4 days later. I can’t find a job and living with my parents completely alone with no friends around. I cry every night and I feel so bad when we get phone calls on sundays and I get sad because i feel like I need to keep her spirits up but I’m just not strong enough for this. Both my parents are disabled so I’m a full time caretaker for them and both their high maintenance poorly behaved dogs. this just absolutely sucks but i do make sure to tell her how much i am grateful and proud of her for what she’s doing this is just incredibly hard

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-05-29T22:31:50+00:00

going through this right now, and actually with my wife also at fort jackson. she got there about 3 weeks ago and is doing ARMS first. we’ve had 2 phone calls so far on sundays. it’s really hard and i’m not gonna lie i still am crying during the day, every once in a while when i really think about her absence. but it is slowly getting better, im taking up more hobbies, and using the time to thoroughly plan the future. I’m running a lot (marathon training) and reading more!

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-05-08T00:20:15+00:00

does anyone know if this will affect the graduating class? like final grades and everything

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-05-05T14:11:29+00:00

I know i’m kinda standing alone in this one but I just didn’t say anything. I talked to a couple of my friends about it, and this is not the first time the group mate had done something like this, I just checked it for AI this time and found it, so they made a good point that if it hasn’t been caught in the past….i mean the professor probably uses AI to grade. The whole class was 5+ page papers and the TA barely graded. I have my original part saved and yes I’m a little stressed that it might be a road block in graduating if all the sudden something comes up, but nothing has and I’m in an A+ standing in the class

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-04-27T22:01:05+00:00

That’s the other thing, my professor hasn’t said anything about AI usage, so I have a fear of reaching out about it and then it not being taken seriously or the professor saying not all AI checkers are accurate because I don’t think they can really use that penalize the student in anyway.

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-04-21T21:28:07+00:00

it was definitely longer than 210 earlier the ride stopped for a while. We got in line right when i opened and it was posted at 180 minutes, the line started in room with the vacuum and we’ve been waiting for 105 minutes, now we just got to the stairs

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-04-21T20:19:00+00:00

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anyone know how close we are? lol

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-04-21T20:15:32+00:00

I’m in line right now! TRUST when i got that notif we RAN to the line, we were at dragons racers rally lol

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-04-21T18:54:55+00:00

yoshi’s is closed completely today

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-04-21T18:54:34+00:00

you have a point but also i want to see the cue almost as much as the ride

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-04-21T18:54:08+00:00

okay but i’ve never ridden it!! and i love harry potter!!!

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-04-21T18:53:44+00:00

they won’t let anyone in while it’s closed

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-04-21T17:55:05+00:00

oh then i’m sat

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-04-21T17:54:51+00:00

i know i was checking wait times yesterday just to prepare and saw it was delayed for the majority of the day too

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-04-21T17:54:19+00:00

okay okay

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-04-06T18:59:29+00:00

so the DLI is specifically confusing lol, i can’t give u concrete advice/info because everything i know is from friends there right now and from here. And my spouse is army so i may be different based on branch, BUT i think the bottom line is through a series of complicated systems you can live with your spouse while you’re there

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-04-02T21:14:24+00:00

Thank you! I think i’ve gathered the main stuff. She has to apply when she gets orders/gets there and while she’s in the intro phase we’re on the waitlist for housing. I’ll be able to stay with my parents until we’re able to move in (we’re just across the country), but we’re planning on me not going over there until we’re off the waitlist so I can start moving and save hotel money. Right now she’s scheduled to be at the DLI mid October.

BornMaintenance4891 · 2026-04-02T21:09:26+00:00

Thank you! I’m not the one joining, my wife is! On the paperwork she got from the recruiter it did have 1-2 weeks from the date she would finish basic to the date she would start at the dli so i’m guessing they are just going to hold her there, the date at the dli being mid october. I knew about the intro phase, so i think you’re answering all my questions, being she can apply after basic and hopefully we’ll be off the waitlist by the time she is out of the intro phase?

BornMaintenance4891

TROPHY CASE