The Helper

Hello, My name is Justine and my enneagram is number 2, which makes me the helper.

According to Air Force reservist and yoga and meditation teacher Christina Mattison’s guide in Caring for your Enneagram 101 my core desires are: “to be worthy of love, wanted, and thought of by others as irreplaceable.” My core fears are, “being unloved, replaceable, and undesired.” I also struggle with saying, “no”, setting boundaries, and knowing my needs and wants. However, I’m a great listener, empathetic, and have a strong sense of what others need before I tend to my own.

Would you like to be my friend?

Is it just me or does meeting new military spouse friends feel like a personal job interview? (This is the same for me, when “dating” new mom friends.) Having been supporting my husband in his active-duty Army service for more than 16 years, I’ve made many amazing friends within each duty station we’ve visited. Often, I wish that each of the important relationships that have shaped my husband and my life thus far could all move to our little cul-de-sac here in Clarksville, Tennessee. That way, we can all live happily ever after, starting right where we left off and never needing to start over, ever again.

Wouldn’t that be nice!

No, but seriously, I have a love-hate relationship with personality tests, because they show me both my strengths and my weaknesses. Let’s face it: when we’re trying to survive, we need all the strength we can get! Nonetheless, as a psychology major and a yoga teacher, I’m learning more and more about myself, and I’m learning that being more aware of my weakness is making me stronger. That’s something my personal story has been lacking.

As a “helper” personality or the “Campaigner (ENFP-T),” if you prefer the 16 personality test, finding friends in the Army has never been hard for me, because I’ve always been friendly. In fact, if you ask my mom, I could talk to a tree and convince it to talk back to me. All joking aside, I’m learning that my desire and borderline obsession with quickly developing deep and meaningful friendships has been my coping mechanism to navigating my life within the many uncontrollable uncertainties the military lifestyle has to offer.

For most of my husband’s career, we’ve lived between Fort Knox, Kentucky, and Middle Tennessee. When we started this journey, we went to the last frontier adventure, also known as Fairbanks, Alaska. That’s where our oldest boy spent his first three years and where our second son was born. Since 2012, we’ve spent our years exploring the south and visiting family and friends up in Michigan, our home state.

My husband and I met each other in 2005, when we were 18- and 19-year-olds, both about to start something new. My new sexy boyfriend was leaving to join the Army in two weeks, and I was about to go away to college. But God had other plans. And as you probably know, one cannot just leave the Army when one falls madly in love. So, I dropped out of college and tabled my dreams of becoming a traveling nurse and became a traveling spouse instead.

This was the best and most important decision I’ve ever made, and I would choose this life again and again. It was the way that God showed us love. And for us, this was the way love was meant to be found. Now, after recently celebrating our 14th wedding anniversary, together with our two boys, two dogs, a cat, and many house plants, we are hoping to call Clarksville, Tennessee, our new home state. Here we hope to continue to plant our roots, after my husband retires his ACUs for our newest adventure. Whatever that chapter will bring.

Together, knowing about our personality traits, mine as well as my husband’s, (he’s a 9) has helped our marriage and our friendship blossom into something new. It has also helped me learn to set healthy boundaries within unhealthy friendships and has helped me discover my passions that are outside of the military’s footprint. My hope is that in joining this network of phenomenal military spouses, maybe I can bring encouragement to someone struggling to find their purpose in the shadow of the uniform of achievements and honors.

Within this lifestyle, we hold many titles that require so much intention as to which part of our personality is okay to share. I’m excited to share my experiences in what has and has not worked for me as a military spouse. I’ve learned that there is my way of doing things, the military’s way of changing my way of doing things, and then there’s the beauty in how God makes it all come together in His ultimate plan for the greater good that is often only seen through hindsight.

Thank you for having me and, truly it’s my honor to meet you.

—Justine