You Know You're A Military Spouse When..
1. You've moved at least once every three years.
2. You have enough Motrin in your house to supply a small nation. (Hahahaha…. Motrin is the medicinal equivalent of duct tape! Just ask any Military doctor!)
3. You know a lot of people from all over the world….literally!
4. You’ve lived all over the world.
5. Sad but true, you're used to losing touch with friends.
6. You refer to your friendships as “short-term relationships,” but we all know that they last a lifetime!
7. You don't flinch when going over tire shredders with your car on a daily basis.
8. You had to have a ration card to buy gas, coffee or alcohol.
9. You have been referred to on many occasions as “just the wife.” You’ve also perfected the “just the wife glare” that causes anyone who uses that term to backpedal rapidly.
10. You know the difference between an “airport” and a “terminal” and a “hospital” and a “clinic.”
11. You’ve engaged in at least one instance of all out warfare with Tricare.
12. You get mad when AAFES advertise their stuff like there's another place to buy it from.
13. You know that goodbye never gets easier.
14. You have moved your entire household…kids, pets, households goods…on your own while your husband is deployed/TDY/training.
15. You are fluent in acronyms….DFAS, TDY, MP, SF, DEROS, PCS, ETS, CC, VOQ, PQP, AEF, OPSEC, DSN, DENIF,OPR, EPR, SOS, ACSC, NCOIC, ATEC, AMC, IFE, FUBAR, CinC, ADP....and on and on…
16. You talk about your weekend trip to Tokyo or Paris the way other people talk about their weekend trip to the beach.
17. You know what your DEROS is.
18. You know what it feels like to put your tears last and the needs of your spouse and family first.
19. You have at least one room full of boxes that you just got too damn lazy to unpack.
20. You can say “hello,” “goodbye,” “thank you,” “please,” and “where is the bathroom” in five different languages.
21. You’ve referred to a TLF as “home”
22. You know the difference between BDUs and ACUs.
23. The Sandbox is not what your kids play in out back.
24. You can live…and function…in a house with no air conditioner.
25. You simultaneously love and hate AAFES…..not that you have much of a choice. The hate generally emerges when you wait in line 20+ minutes to pay an extra 16.5 cents per gallon for gas.
26. You have your husband’s social security number memorized, but have to look up your own.
27. You freeze when someone asks for your social security number. Once you recover from the shock, you ask them at least four times if they are REALLY SURE that they want YOUR social!
28. You know to stop and stand at attention when hearing the national anthem/Taps/Retreat even though you're standing in the middle of the commissary parking lot with ice cream and it is 95 degrees out.
29. You know to carry a coin with you at all times…..heck, you know what it means to get “coined!”
30. You have forgotten what a “normal” commercial looks like and can’t remember the last time you’ve seen a movie preview!
31. All your furniture has multiple colors of moving stickers on it. (Ha Ha and you get emotional thinking of which move correlates to which sticker.)
32. Some of your boxes of stuff get shipped twice because you didn't unpack it before you moved again.
33. You're ecstatic when you go somewhere off base and can park super close to the building because there are no reserved parking lots other than handicap.
34. Lifestyles only come in two options: military or civilian.
35. You can't sleep as well if you don't hear airplanes.
36. When you here explosions go off, you just ignore them.
37. You've lived in the middle of nowhere.
38. You walk into the BX or Commissary and see at least 10 people you know from school, work, etc. and at least 20 others you know by sight.
39. You have ever stayed up until 5 a.m. the night before your husband home, frantically cleaning the house so it looks like you’ve been maintaining it the entire time they were gone…despite knowing that within 10 seconds of him walking in the door, the house will look even worse than before!
40. You can tell the difference between and F-15, F-16, A-10, F-18, F-22, etc. as well as the difference between a KC-10, KC-135, C-17, C-5, C-130 etc. Sometimes you can even identify them by sound, which is just scary.
41. You have ever moved to a new base and had your husband deploy a week later.
42. You are able to start over, anywhere at any time in a place where you don’t know anyone.
43. You have ever had to stifle the urge to roll your eyes and snicker aloud when you hear a military leader talk about “family first.”
44. You have ever had to explain to your non-military friends what it means to live on the economy
45. You have a Home of Record that may be thousands of miles away from your current home.
46. You don’t think anything of it when driving by 4+ men holding machine guns.
47. You know people by their last names first…..and maybe eventually learn their first names!
48. You say things like “back in the States” and “State-side”
49. You’ve been called “ma’am” by people twice your age.
50. Your spouse has been gone for more than half your marriage.
51. The thought of not having an ID card sends you into a full-fledged panic attack!
52. You live on your own and by yourself more after you're married than before you were married.
53. You know that a 2 month separation IS short, no matter what your civilian friends say.
54. You don't bat an eyelash at 22:45 and 0300 duty times.
55. You have been asked to stop talking in acronyms and translate it all to English.
56. You've done more oil changes than your spouse, and even when your husband is home the mechanic asks to speak with you.
57. Someone with a machine gun asks to see your ID before you enter the grocery store (or as the case is over here, the hospital)!
58. You would rather sell your soul than go to the commissary on paydays!
59. If the thought of another deployment makes you cringe….but you know you will have to suck it up and that you will be okay because you always are.
60. If you've spent almost all the holidays in any given year without your spouse.
61. You remember milestones by duty stations
62. You pay $35 to have a baby
63. You tell people that ask that he's 'only' been gone a month.
64. You want to roll your eyes (and sometimes you do!) when you hear someone complain that they "haven't seen my boyfriend/girlfriend or hubby/wife in a couple days!" (AMEN!!!)
65. Your neighbors and sometimes co-workers know you well but have never seen your spouse.
66. The radiator blows up on the car, the toilet overflows somebody gets sick, and the washing machine dies within 12 hours of your spouse leaving for yet another TDY/deployment
67. You aren’t surprised when you get four days’ notice for a four-month deployment and 24 hours for a three week TDY.
68. You have spent consecutive wedding anniversaries apart.
69. You tell the mover the correct way to pack moving boxes.
70. You know what “Last four?” means.
71. You know that the military breeds two things: alcoholism and children.
72. You know that only other military spouses will understand this.
73. You laughed hysterically and nodded the entire time you were reading this.
74. You know that “dependent” means anything but!!!
