Civilian friends:
I can’t say enough about the benefit of having civilian friends not associated with the military. Military friends can end up being some of your closest friends, after all they’ll be able to directly understand what you’re going through when your spouse is gone and empathize in ways non-military friends can’t. However, military friends move and often it can get exhausting talking about all military related subjects all the time, which can sometimes be the only thing you have in common with military spouse friends. My husband and I have several civilian friends in addition to our military friends and we can’t value them enough. They’re our rocks when our military friends are always moving away or transferring like we do.
Also, just like our military friends know us on a level our civilian friends don’t, our civilian friends know us on a level our military friends don’t. They know us purely as a couple just like them and when we hang out with them our subjects don’t revolve solely around the military, work, rank, deployments, detachments or transfers which can be incredibly refreshing.
