Call me cynical, call me what you want but please don’t throw me into the stereotype of being a dependent or a military spouse. I love my active duty husband more than anything in this world and while I hate to generalize people, I’ve seen way to much drama over the years to want to be classified as such. As a former Marine myself, I have a unique perspective of active duty wives.
I was a Marine during peacetime in the 90s and I can honestly say infidelity has become much more prominent since the war started. Back in Jacksonville, NC, unmarried on active duty, I remember reading the newspaper each morning and sharing a laugh with other Marines as we looked at the personal section in the Jacksonville Daily Newspaper. Every day there was at least one ad that read, “Husband is deployed, let’s play! Page me at this number.” It was my first insight into the true colors of some wives right in our own area.
More angst came forward during parties thrown at fellow Marines’ houses. Insecure Marine wives are the most jealous, bitter and hateful humans I had yet encountered in my short adult life. Granted we were younger and usually thinner than the guys’ wives but contrary to popular belief we were not out to steal their husbands away from them. We were there to drink beer, talk [expletive] with the boys and have a good time like everyone else. Ironically, many of their husbands were cheating behind their backs but that was neither here nor there. Not to excuse their actions but there were obviously problems with their home life to make them want to stray. Instead of these wives taking control of the situation they looked outwards and blamed innocent bystanders.
I married my active duty husband before leaving the military. I instantly noticed a change with the other wives. I wasn’t exactly welcomed into the club but I was ignored for once. It was a pleasant sense of indifference. Not exactly safe in their eyes but not an imminent threat to their marriages either. When I left the Marines in June, 2001 spouses started confiding in me and trying to befriend me for the first time, as if they were excited to have one more sister to bond with. I found it rather trite, boring and full of hypocrisy and vowed to be picky about people I chose to befriend as to avoid needless drama and gossip. I was most annoyed at the fact that these women didn’t give me the time of day while I was on active duty and now that I was “just a spouse” I was in. I found these women to be childish and insecure more than anything.
While living in Japan, many husbands were on their first deployment to Iraq and I had met up with an active duty female Marine whom I had known while active duty back in Jacksonville. She was an MP (Military Police Officer) and she couldn’t wait to share some stories with me. She was flabbergasted at the actions of many Marine wives aboard the base. She said there was a red light phenomenon happening where wives would leave a tiny red light, about as big as a Christmas light in their front window and keep their front door unlocked. This was a sign of availability for lack of a better term. She was also shocked at how many wives come through the main gate at Marine Corps Air Station (MCAS) Futenma flashing their breasts at the gate guards and leaving phone numbers and home addresses with them. One should note that there are no married quarters on Futenma, just barracks for the single Marines and there was no real reason for spouses to be on Futenma in the first place except to retrieve mail.
Another observable fact was how horribly many of these women treated their husbands in public. One day my husband and I were rooting around the Kadena Air Force Base BX and we came across a woman having a one-sided argument with her husband. She was obviously the dominant one and at close to three-hundred pounds it was obvious she was making up for her own insecurities by micromanaging her poor husband. He was eyeballing the new PlayStations she came thundering around the corner and yelled out from the other end of the aisle, “Over my dead body mister! Don’t even think about bringing a PlayStation into our home. You don’t pay attention to me as it is!” Startled, my husband and I stood there for a moment, mouths agape, to see if she was for real. This wasn’t the first time we had encountered such a fight in public. The wife then grabbed the arm of her son and stomped off while her broken husband averted his eyes and slowly placed the game system back on the shelf. To help break the ice my husband went up to him and said, “It’s okay man. You can take the money you were going to spend on the PS2 and use it to buy a divorce!” My husband, a salty Gunny, is one to speak his mind in uncomfortable situations and thankfully the husband looked up, let out a small laugh and said with a chuckle, “You know what? I might just do that. Thanks!” I was glad my husband stuck up for him. If he hadn’t have seen this type of outburst before from spouses he might not have said anything.
Skip ahead a few years to the Laurel Bay housing area down the street from MCAS Beaufort. It was my first time as a stay at home mom as my husband was preparing to deploy to Iraq. My husband and I hadn’t been in our housing area for a week before he mentioned that some of the wives were up to their old tricks again. This time we even had a name! “We” were known as the “Laurel Bay Wives Club”. Once again wives were flashing the gate guards and leaving their address and phone number with these poor guys. My husband had also heard that the Base Commander was getting ready to put a stop to this sort of garbage. This is the reason I refuse to put Key Volunteer wives up on a pedestal like others do. These women are the giddy cheerleaders of the base and if a regular spouse can’t be trusted to be loyal and honest, who’s to say Key Volunteers don’t talk out of both sides of their mouths? My husband also agrees with me on this one. The current ones don’t seem to be in everyone’s business which is new to me.
Besides from the above-mentioned less-than-honorable acts, I also despised the amount of gossip and rumors spread by the wives. One rainy evening I moved my workout routine into the Laurel Bay gym only to find five other women feigning workouts and running their mouths instead. While they were lying on the ground pretending to get ready for one monumental sit-up I had my iPod earphones firmly in place while running on the treadmill but the women became rather loud and I soon overheard the topic changing from run of the mill gossip to something potentially serious. One of the women was going on about how there had been a wave of thefts on base. She said the MPs wanted us to call in with anything suspicious. Many of us left our front doors unlocked because of the safe nature of living on a protected base. I was slightly concerned because we did leave our doors open even when we were away from the house but realizing the chatty nature of the source I wanted to check things out for myself. When I arrived home I called the MPs and asked about what I had heard. The Sergeant laughed and said there hasn’t been a theft on-base for years except for random cases of kids taking items from other kids. He snickered when I told him my source and said I had nothing to worry about.
For some reason, married women I’ve worked with in Japan and back here in the states don’t seem to have the same insecurities and hang-ups as some of the stay at home spouses. Maybe working outside of the home gives them a certain amount of confidence or they aren’t left at home all day long with the extra time to grow paranoid at the women their men may or may not be hanging around. These working women were funny, friendlier, honest and were lovely individuals to hang around with. I’ve also become close friends with a couple of civilian women in our area and it feels refreshing. There is no jealousy or competition and I have yet to find someone who is two-faced. Women like this allow me to let my guard down because they are so approachable and real.
I don’t claim to be Ms. Negativity and I’m in no way suggesting that all military wives behave in this fashion. Despite my experiences I still women the benefit of the doubt when I meet them for the first time. People have told me I’m a good judge of character and I can see past fakeness and insecurity. I formed my original opinion from my fellow Marines back when I was on active duty. It’s an ugly truth that dependants as a whole have been given a bad reputation thanks to the women who do misbehave when their husbands are gone. While I was active duty I saw wives hooking up with random men at dance clubs, read the “husband is deployed” personals and have heard stories from other active duty members including my husband. I’ve seen my husband deal with nutty wives who went crazy and had to be hospitalized because they couldn’t handle the stress of their husbands being deployed and I felt embarrassed for those poor guys who were pulled out of Iraq to come home and deal with their mess. I’ve seen a large population of wives let themselves go and become morbidly obese and others who have Family Service Center called out because someone discovers that their house has become a health hazard since the husband left because the wives are too put out to clean up after themselves and their kids.
I applaud all of the military wives who are out there doing the right thing. There are many honest women keeping up with their kids and the work of two people and they don’t deserve to be stuck with a seemingly innocent yet condescending and insulting label. They are to be commended and this is the type of support our men overseas deserve. Deployed men shouldn’t have to worry about a lack of devotion on the home front. Hopefully the good seeds will step forward whenever they see a wayward wife cheating or otherwise acting ugly and help set her straight. Silence is acceptance.
