A Three Step Plan for Coping

Three essentials I found for coping with stressors in on base life are: all weather exercise gear, a third party to listen and the ability to keep your mouth shut with neighbors.

First, I must stress the all weather exercise gear. In Louisiana, I needed to walk whether it was gloomy and raining or 110 degrees with 100% humidity. I recommend rain gear. A stroller with a rain cover is helpful. Being able to swallow my pride and expose stretch marks and cellulite was an advantage, too. I had to strip Elaina down to just her diaper and make sure her stroller was well shaded at least once.

Second, a third party for listening. I regret that I may have passed on my bad mood to some of my friends on base. That sort of thing just spreads and before you know it everyone in the neighborhood is either fighting with their husbands, too, or talking about how you're on your way to a divorce. On the flip side, there are also the people who I trusted and confided in who were less than trustworthy. My mother was my best sounding board. For others it may be a sister, a childhood friend, or someone they met off base and cultivated a friendship with. I value my friendships with other military wives, but we tend to face similar obstacles and sometimes they seem insurmountable as none of us find viable solutions.

This brings me to my third point. I am not good at keeping my mouth shut. I had to learn and I still have improvements to make. Your neighbors will talk about any little thing you say to them as if it's a monumental problem. I told one neighbor that I couldn't watch her daughter that evening because I had had an argument with my husband that needed to be straightened out. She held this against me and when she felt the time was right she told me that I was unreliable and that my marriage needed work. I thought I was putting my marriage first and acting as responsibly as I could. Evidentially it would have been more responsible to watch her daughter, so that she could go to a movie with her husband, and straighten out my misunderstanding later.

Not Just White Trash

In reading a couple of books targeted at military wives, I noticed a stark contrast in perceptions. One author, my favorite, made it clear that all types of women are military wives. Some are young brides and others are average, while still others are older, re-married, or widowed. Many of the wives around the military have education levels as high as post-graduate work, while others may not have even finished high school. There are military families that were started by teenagers and others who began having children after a decade or more of adult marriage.

Isn't this how people are in the wider world? Diverse people is just how the Earth continues a balance. We need custodians and computer technicians, cooks and chemists. Mothers and wives also need to come from diverse backgrounds. If I didn't read about scientific research and listen to women who learned from experience, I would only get part of the whole story.

I don't always recognize this when I feel down and alone. My advice for each person attached to the military is to remember how many people are around and chose to surround yourself with ones that can bring peace to your life. We cannot always avoid our gossipy neighbor (nor do we always want to) or maintain a gossip proof life. The impact of the negative can be kept to a minimum.

More About Gossip

I think some of you may be interested to hear of my experiences with on base living.
I'm going to tell you all exactly why my family moved off base after James got orders last year, even knowing that we'd only live there for six months.
Barksdale was in the process of transitioning to privatized housing and we were hearing a lot of promises and rumors. I was already feeling bad for agreeing to move into the house we lived in for a year and a half. I asked if we would be allowed to move to newer housing in the near future and the community liaison told me that new houses would be more than a year away. We were being asked to sign a year long lease on a house that was driving me up the wall already.
After my conversation with the housing man, I spoke with other women who I assumed were my friends as well as neighbors. One is always supportive of me. One is sort of cagey. The third, who I thought was a friend, tore me down emotionally to a point where I can barely think of her without tearing up. It was this, feeling like I didn't have the friend I thought I had, that made me decide I couldn't stay in the hostile atmosphere of base housing.
I already dealt with a neighbor who told vicious lies about myself and my relationship with my husband. My husband negotiated working with someone hostile because of lies told by an unfriendly neighbor. I was not going to live right there with someone who, under the guise of friendship, could not understand my good intentions and positive attitude for it's face value.

Gossip on Base

I could speak to the obvious, but I'll just say that I probably won't live on base ever again. That said, I'm not talking about malicious personal gossip.
Often, when working, living and socializing with the same people, rumors start. They are not all bad. Some are filled with hope, like "the new base housing will be ready in six months," or "they're going to let all children, even those on Tricare Prime, see off base pediatricians." There are the bad ones, such as "the base is closing and our airmen will have to retrain or separate." All of these rumors have bad consequences. They make people scramble or set up unreasonable expectations.
Unfortunately, I've had to learn that I'll believe things when I see them. There is information that the military just isn't going to disclose with the civilians attached. The reasons for the closed mouths are reasonable and I've accepted that. More people are going to need to for tranquility on base to take hold. Do you think we can have peace on one little corner of the military world like base housing?