Military spouses are some of the most independent, self-sufficient individuals that exist. We have to be. Life demands things of us every day, and some seasons it demands far more than we can bear. Though our spouses often want to help, they belong to the mission first. Frequent moves mean that our in-person support network is constantly changing, sometimes we leave it, and sometimes it leaves us. If we are fortunate enough to have people we trust, we are keenly aware that they are also drowning in their own chaos. We don’t want to add to their plate. It would be nice to hire help, but that requires spending money that we probably don’t have. So instead of exhausting ourselves in asking for help that isn’t coming, we splash some cold water on our faces to soothe our puffy eyes and tell ourselves “I am resilient. I am independent. I can do this. I have to. There is no one else. It’s just me.”
While the reality of military life often requires that we do impossible things without much support, we let this self-sufficient survival mode become our default operating mode. And somewhere along the way, we blurred the lines from “I have to do this one thing, there is no one else,” to, “I have to do all things, there is no one else.” We feel the weight that military life puts on our families, and in a feeble attempt to compensate for the chaos, we do everything we can to provide an illusion of normalcy. Our self-sufficiency has turned into self-sabotage. We load our plates with extra roles and responsibilities that seem like good and important things. But we’ve become so burned out by all the tasks we tell ourselves we have to do that we disregard this critical fact – we don’t actually have to do them.
If you are feeling overwhelmed, exhausted, and frustrated that you are not enough, know these two things: you are not alone, and you are right. You are overwhelmed, and exhausted, and you are not enough. None of us are. You can stop overexerting yourself trying to do more than you have the capacity to do in your current season. You are not a failure for choosing public school this year, making your kids ride the bus, relinquishing your key spouse title, or ordering DoorDash for the fourth time in two days.
When you default to doing everything yourself, you stop thinking there is any alternative. When you never ask for help, it hurts less that help doesn’t come. The truth is there is more help than we realize, maybe just not in the way we are expecting. Friend, it is uncomfortable to admit that you cannot do it all. It opens you up to the potential for so much pain when needs go unmet. Our lives are already filled with so much suffering, we shield ourselves wherever possible. But in doing so, we are sacrificing ourselves. Let go of your expectations. Let people in. You were not meant to do everything. When help does come, the relief it brings is so beautiful.