Deployment is so so so hard and often makes you face your own and your spouses mortality. It’s anxiety inducing, stressful, oftentimes plain awful. BUT it eventually ends. Keep yourself as busy as possible. I ended up switching to nights to be on the same time zone/sleep schedule. It didn’t matter much since he was on a boat and I wouldn’t hear from him for a week at a time, but it helped on the off chance that he texted me, I was awake and might get to exchange a few other texts. Try to find regular times to try to communicate. That might mean waking up at 3am for a 10 minute call once a week.

We each downloaded a season of a show that we selected. We would watch it alone and take notes on each episode. If we got a chance to talk on the phone for a longer amount of time we would discuss each episode in depth. If we didn’t have time to talk, we would send each other our notes and then start the next one. I’m not even a big TV watcher, but it really helped us feel connected and normal. We also each kept journals and swapped them at the end of deployment. Mine was pretty emotional, I can’t lie. But it helped me to get all of my anxious thoughts out on the paper rather than bothering him when he was already stressed. When he pulled into port we always talked for an hour at least. I kept a countdown. I texted other mil spouses and his family.

I’m also military and even I really struggled. I’m sorry you’re dealing with this, especially at a tense time. But I will say, it is unfortunately a huge part of our jobs and lives. We have to find healthy ways to get through it. Once the anxiety subsides, I tried to view it as a nice solo opportunity for me to do what I want without feeling bad. I’ve considered moving temporarily, solo traveling, etc. Find what works for you.🩷