My Milspouse Fear

I wanted to share with you a little secret and a fear I have as a military spouse.

Here it is.

I’m completely scared out of my mind that I won’t be able to continue my career at my husband’s next post, and more importantly, keep my current position as a public relations coordinator.

I like to think that I started my career at 7 years old, when I launched the Bisbee Court Buzz, a newsletter all about the happenings on my cul-de-sac. I’ve always loved to write and share things with people, and I worked hard to pursue a career in communications.

It’s crazy to think that at 7 years old, I already knew what kind of job I wanted, but I did.

I wrote in a journal religiously, and when I got to high school, I took creative writing classes and applied for a special internship program with a local newspaper, where I wrote my own biweekly column for a semester. It was my dream to live and work in New York City, so I only applied to colleges in the area and attended one that gave me the best scholarship.

In college, I wrote for the college newspaper and then interned at national magazines including CosmoGIRL! and Marie Claire, as well as a local magazine Austin Monthly. After exploring magazine journalism, I started interning in public relations and fell in love with it. There was never a moment that I wasn’t working on my career.

Well, 20 years after the launch of the Bisbee Court Buzz, here I am, a communications professional in New York City and married to a service member.

When I met my soldier more than two years ago, I knew the his career would ultimately conflict with mine. That still didn’t stop me from falling in love with him. I still pursued our relationship after knowing that my life would drastically change if we continued.

It’s pretty safe to say that the military makes a lot of decisions for us in our relationships, and not all of them are exactly welcomed.

I don’t like that my career is now challenged in order for my husband to maintain his, but that is the sacrifice I made when I said yes to being his wife. I love him that much. My soldier broke through my hard, career-driven shell. We’ve reached month seven of his 12-month tour, and I’m now forced to think about my game plan in my own career. I can’t help but be scared.

During my evaluation I had with my boss, I told her that the Army would inevitably dictate where I’d live when my husband returns, and it will most likely not be NYC.

To be honest, I was terrified to bring it up, especially because my husband doesn’t have orders yet. But, I thought it would be a disservice to not be upfront with my boss of more than four years. Before my evaluation, I thought about my future and came up with the idea to work remotely.

So, I immediately opened up the idea of telecommuting. I continued to tell her that most of my current job responsibilities could be done from a home office. In addition, I am very confident that I can maintain my current productivity from a remote location and can work around the schedule that I’m already so accustomed to working. Then, I told her how important the job was to me and how much I wanted to continue public relations wherever my husband’s job would take me.

After all that, she didn’t shoot the idea down.

In fact, she’s exploring the option of me telecommuting. We discussed that once I receive my husband’s orders we’ll revisit the conversation. Orders will come any day now. I’m really eager to receive orders not just to plan for our life together, but to start paving out a new career path for myself.