That’s why Lizann, The Seasoned Spouse, advises couples to be proactive and set aside time for financial planning when they are together. Good planning includes a budget for the present, setting long-term goals for the future, and recognizing how military life may affect spending and saving needs.

“A budget is a snapshot of where you are right now, as well as a schedule for where you want to be next month, or even a year from now.”

— Lizann Lightfoot

“A budget is a snapshot of where you are right now, as well as a schedule for where you want to be next month, or even a year from now,” says Lizann. “Think of it like a puzzle to solve, or a treasure hunt where you find all the hidden drains on your bank account. You can redirect that money from the drain into savings that could reduce stress during a move or deployment.”

Moving Money

A budget should balance income, expenses, and set aside money for unexpected expenses or emergencies. For military families, it’s especially helpful to have savings to bolster the budget during a move.

“Military couples can get thrown off their budget by a PCS,” says Lizann. “There are a lot of out-of-pocket expenses associated with moving, so having some money set aside is helpful. Even if you do a military-funded move, you may still need to transport pets or a second vehicle. Big expenses can throw off your usual spending plan for months afterwards.”

Also, every move brings plenty of smaller expenses that add up. Some of those may be reimbursed, but still require money up front.

Deployed Dollars

Deployment can also disrupt a military family’s budget, even if the deployment results in additional pay rather than additional expenses.

“Deployments involve a lot of changes and stress, for both the service member and the spouse,” says Lizann. “Financial difficulties add to that stress, so it’s important to get on the same page before deployment begins.”

Decisions about how to handle pay increases are easier to make when a couple can speak face to face, she says. It reduces the chance for disagreements about spending when separation makes communication more difficult. Another part of planning for being apart during deployment is deciding who will pay bills and how to handle unexpected expenses or financial decisions that arise between departure and homecoming.

Similarly, it’s good to have a plan for how to handle any pay increase, whether from a promotion or a bonus.

Looking Ahead

Even for young couples, it’s not too early to plan for retirement, says Lizann, whether or not they plan to stay in the military. Military members are eligible for different types of retirement and savings plans depending on when they began their service and how long they serve. Couples should find out what plan or plans apply to their family and decide how much to set aside for retirement planning or for college savings.

Financial planning, says Lizann, is not a one-time event. It’s an ongoing conversation and requires regular check-ups together. New babies, deployments, career changes, and moves will all require adjustments.

So make a date, light the candles, and get out the spreadsheets. It may not sound romantic, but togetherness in financial planning is a relationship investment that will pay off—not only with money in the bank, but also with confidence in each other—for many years to come.

The post Make a Date for Togetherness in Financial Planning appeared first on Military Family Life.

“For me, the most stressful part of a PCS is all the decisions that need to be made,” says Marine spouse Lizann Lightfoot, blogger at The Seasoned Spouse and author of the upcoming book, Open When You Love Someone in the Military. “I like to take time and research the options and weigh the pros and cons before making a big decision. A PCS is usually a whole string of decisions that need to be made quickly.”

Kellie Artis, army spouse and chief operating officer for Millie, says the unknowns of moving cause her the most stress, and those unknowns complicate all the decisions to be made.

“I have a hard time with abstract or ambiguous, and what is a PCS if not both of those things?” she says. “Moving to a new city is a bit frightening. You may not know what to expect when it comes to the culture, climate, commutes, all sorts of things.”

Finding out as much as possible about a new location as soon as possible helps Kelly alleviate her stress and apprehension.

“I immerse myself in research to try and get the full picture of what our lives will look like at the next duty,” she says. “I also firmly believe in making informed decisions based on fact and reality, so having a trusted place to turn to for information is key.”

Good communication helps military families reduce stress during a move, and Lizann recognizes it’s not always easy to keep that balance, when each spouse has different ways of handling the situation.

“It’s very difficult to truly make decisions together as a couple during a PCS move,” she says. “My husband excels in that environment (of transition), and he slips into military leader mode. The more I hesitate, the more he takes charge, then I feel even more stressed. Not only am I responsible for all the details for myself and our five children—I also feel like my ideas aren’t being heard or valued.”

Kellie and Lizann offer these ten ways to check stress at every stage of a move:

1 ~ Lizann: As a couple, my husband and I reduce conflict with regular conversations and check-ins about big decisions we have to make about schedules, housing, or schools.

2 ~ Kellie: I learn as much as I possibly can about the place we’re moving to and start to embrace the base before we get there to save time once we arrive. What are the schools like? Where is Target? What is there to do on the weekends?

3 ~ Lizann: Before we leave, we plan some family activities to take everyone’s mind off the move. Local activities from our “bucket list” or dinner out at a favorite restaurant.

4 ~ Kellie: If you have children, involve them at an age-appropriate level so they feel like participants and not baggage!

5 ~ Lizann: We give our kids opportunities to say goodbye to their favorite people and places.

6 ~ Kellie: Plan your route to include a few fun (and COVID-Safe) stops like National Parks and other outdoor adventures.

7 ~ Lizann: After we move, we use some of my husband’s leave days to do fun family events in the new area. This helps us begin to feel like locals in our new town.

8 ~ Kellie: We try to settle into a new place as quickly as possible, and this means meeting people as well as unpacking boxes. Don’t skip opportunities to connect with your neighbors or community because you’re buried in packing paper.

9 and 10 ~ Lizann and Kellie agree that organization and self-care are both important ways to alleviate PCS stress. They advise creating a PCS binder or file to keep track of important paperwork, checklists, receipts, and other essentials. This saves time and reduces worry, which makes more time for self-care: plenty of sleep, connection with friends, exercise, and healthy meals whenever possible.

More helpful ideas for PCS season from Military Family Life:

• Moving Kids: 5 Healthy Ways to Handle PCS
• Maria Reed’s Top Tips for Making a House a Home
• Get Organized for the Next Move

The post Ten Ways to Keep PCS Stress in Check appeared first on Military Family Life.

Karen Pavlicin, author of Surviving Deployment and Life After Deployment, says couples should give themselves an adjustment period, at least as long as they were apart, and also recognize life together will be different after deployment.

“You will both have grown while you were apart,” says Karen. “You’ll need to accept each other and the changes that have taken place, so you can begin to grow together again.”

During deployment, couples will have separate and significant experiences, says Corie Weathers, author of Sacred Spaces: My Journey to the Heart of Military Marriage.

“Deployment changed my soldier and me,” says Corie, “so reconnecting means recognizing those changes and growing from there.”

As well as writing about preparing for deployment and reintegration, Karen and Corie also speak regularly to groups of military spouses about these and other military life issues.

Army wife Bri Barholm attended a reintegration retreat at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, where Corie was a featured speaker. Bri and her husband, Ronnie, have been through four deployments. Bri said she appreciated Corie’s wisdom about setting reasonable expectations about how soon and how much returning spouses may be willing to share about deployment.

“I’ve always been extremely sensitive to my own emotions, but also the emotions of others around me,” says Bri. “Corie explained empathic and warrior personalities … that maybe he won’t come home and want to tell me all of his feelings, even though I crave that. I felt like that was so eye-opening.”

Be Prepared

Bri says spouses should definitely prepare for the stresses of homecoming just as they prepare for the stresses of departure.

“We’re always so prepared for the whirlwind of them leaving,” she says, “but we don’t get much insight or preparation for when they return and how much different life can be.”

Sharing experiences with other military spouses is one way to find encouragement and support.

“It can be incredibly isolating when they come home, although your family is finally whole again,” she says. Knowing that you’re not alone is one of the most comforting feelings. Sometimes that’s all you need.”

Bri said she is learning patience, realizing it takes time to find a new normal for life after each deployment.

Move Forward

Karen and Corie agree that reconnection requires patience and willingness to move forward, rather than expect things to go back to the way they were before deployment.

Drawing together again also takes intentionality, practical steps, and actions that reconnect the relationship and create new connections

“Express pride in one another’s accomplishments and growth,” says Karen. “Talk about your time apart and honor each other’s sacrifices and experiences. Recognize that you each had challenges to overcome and work to understand how your spouse has grown and changed as a result.”

As you talk through experiences during deployment, it’s also important to discuss your expectations as a couple for life after deployment, Corie agrees.

Talk About It

“Over-communicate rather than under-communicate,” says Corie. “Keep assumptions at bay. Don’t test your spouse by staying quiet on what you need and hoping they will be able to guess. Set each other up for a win by giving each other opportunities to win.”

As absence makes the heart grow fonder, time apart makes it easier to forget the irritations of daily life and remember the best part of marriage. Karen advises couples to hold on to the positivity while recognizing conflicts will occur too.

“Separations don’t usually solve problems; past conflicts may re-emerge after homecoming,” says Karen. “Commit together to work through them when they arise.”

Ten Tips for Reconnecting after Deployment from Karen and Corie at SurvivingDeployment.com

The post Reconnecting After Deployment Takes Time appeared first on Military Family Life.

“The world is complicated,” Lisa says, “Raising kids and keeping a marriage intact is about as easy as juggling wolverines. Handling the stresses and complication of family life with humor has always been my best coping strategy.”

She began laughing at life early on and was named “Class Clown” in middle school and again in high school. “Being funny was a way to fit in, to find friends, to entertain,” Lisa says. “Later it became way to ease tensions and get through tough chapters and the daily grind too.”

When Lisa became a mom and later had middle schoolers of her own, being able to take life with a dose of humor became even more important. Writing became another outlet for her, one that merged easily with her ability to find something funny in most situations.

Lisa says she was often  stressed by the details of her busy routine as a wife and mother of three. In her years of military life, that meant deployments and frequent moves. However, she says it was the minutiae of a hyperconnected world that threatened to overwhelm her.

“There’s so much to keep track of,” she says. “Coffee pods and car pools, gluten and global warming, social media and salad spinners. Humor always helped me keep perspective, to sort through the never-ending details and demands to find what really matters—and more importantly—what doesn’t.”

“Humor always helped me keep perspective, to sort through the never-ending details and demands to find what really matters—and more importantly—what doesn’t.”

   — Lisa Smith Molinari

By applying her sense of humor, Lisa says she was able to see that much of what bogged her down in life was inconsequential.

“Laughing at the trivial things in my daily life helps me face my fears and insecurities and focus on what’s most important to my family — like snuggling with the dog, the finer points of making popcorn, and never missing an episode of Survivor.”

Lisa began to pursue a career as newspaper columnist in 2010 after having an essay about marriage published in the Washington Post. Her weekly column The Meat and Potatoes of Life now appears in Stars and Stripes, reaching military communities all over the world. The column is also published in dozens of newspapers across the country. In 2018, Lisa won a first-place award for humor columns from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists.

That doesn’t mean her three kids always think she is funny, but her husband, Francis, is fond of a good joke and doesn’t mind when the laugh is on him. Still, Lisa says using humor to cope has limits. She offers this advice for laughing through challenges without laughing off what’s important:

Self-deprecatory humor is one of the best ways to put others at ease. Don’t take it too far, or it looks like fishing for compliments.

When communicating a valid complaint to a family member, approach with a bit of humor to soften the blow. My daughter once offered this well-strategized compliment to my husband with a surprised smile: “Daddy, your breath doesn’t stink today!”

Playful banter between family members can be a blast, but relentlessly busting each other’s chops can lead to hurt feelings. Pay attention to reactions, and don’t take a joke so far that it’s disrespectful.

Different people are comfortable with different kinds of humor. Know what’s appropriate for each family member. I might appreciate the risque joke my husband heard in the locker room, but if he tells it on  taco night in front of the kids, I’ll find it about as funny as a screen door on a submarine.

Be careful with sarcasm or snark.  It can come across as abrasive  when you should be shooting for playful. Remember, you love your family, so don’t put them down just for a laugh.

“Humor has been such a significant part of our family life,” says Lisa. “Our family sees it as a virtue, as laudable as courage, integrity and good character. Over the years, I’ve shown our children all the ways good humor can be a useful tool in dealing with grumpy people, mediocre grades, dust bunnies, and bad breath…. and when all else fails, impromptu dance parties in the kitchen make any day better.”

Lisa Smith Molinari is also a coauthor of Stories Around the Table: Laughter, Wisdom, and Strength in Military Life and has contributed to two editions of Chicken Soup for the Soul. Read more about Lisa’s work on her website The Meat and Potatoes of Life.

The post But Seriously: 5 Ways to Handle Family Life with Humor appeared first on Military Family Life.

Tips for Deployment Goodbye and Separation:

• As spouses, talk about how you will communicate during the deployment to keep your relationship strong – be honest and flexible. For example, writing every day may not be a promise you can keep. Find out if you will have cell phone connectivity, whether you can depend on email and if the computer is private. Agree on what kinds of things you don’t want to—or cannot—talk about via email or messaging.
• If you have children, let them participate in the preparation, saying goodbye, and throughout the deployment. They have all the same fears and anxieties about this separation.
• Talk to your children about the ways they can communicate with their absent parent. Suggest daily tangible reminders of the deployed parent: a photo or a handwritten note to keep on their nightstand.
• Set aside time for each family member to spend some time with the person deploying. Give everyone time to ask and answer questions and say individual goodbyes.
• Before departure is a good time to begin journaling about deployment. The goodbye process is part of the deployment experience, and journaling can help process emotions, for spouses and for children.
• Get the names of other spouses in the unit. They will have access to information you need, or vice versa, and will understand your situation. You may have other friends and family to support you, but they may not have the same access to information or have the same understanding of what you are going through as other spouses who walk through deployment with you. If your spouse does not deploy as part of a unit, seek out a deployed spouse’s group to find others who understand.
• Give children plenty of reassurance, amid the stress and busy-ness of deployment preparation. They need to know your family is united, even when you will be apart.

Stress levels are high as deployment approaches, so be prepared for family and marital conflict. An approaching departure guarantees feelings of sadness, and anger is a common mask for sadness. Address conflicts in the family with honesty and compassion. Let the little things slide. They will not seem so important after all the goodbyes are said.

Everyone in a military family is affected by saying goodbye and being apart in different ways. Even those who have been through deployment before will find each experience is different, because each is surrounded by different circumstances. Talking through the circumstances and emotions ahead of time can ease some of the fears and concerns that are a part of every deployment.

These tips are adapted from Surviving Deployment: A Guide for Military Families by Karen Pavlicin.

The post Deployment Goodbye: Preparation Eases Departure Sorrow appeared first on Military Family Life.

“In helping professions … there’s a lot of pouring out,” says military spouse Corie Weathers, author of Sacred Spaces: My Journey to the Heart of Military Marriage. “In both military and first-responder marriages, I see people sacrificing themselves to take care of others.”

Corie is a licensed professional counselor. Her husband, Matt, is an army chaplain. The two often work side-by-side, leading marriage retreats and other events focused on healthy military marriage.

No one can pour out all the time without pouring in as well to sustain their own relationships, so Corie and Matt give priority to their marriage and their two sons.

“Matt and I ask each other often, ‘Where are we giving our best?’ We know we need to save some of that for each other. If I’m giving everything during the day at work, I have nothing left. That’s not fair to my family. Our job and our calling is to invest in people, but to keep doing that sometimes we have to do the exact opposite, to circle the wagons around our own relationship.”

Corie also feels a responsibility to live out the advice she gives as a counselor, speaker, and author. One piece of advice she offers is to “Pursue your spouse.” She explains that pursuing means being proactive in the relationship, to take actions to avoid problems, or to make the first step toward reconciliation when issues arise.

Corie offers some of her own best practices for pursuing a healthy marriage:

• Put phones away: Dinner time is not screen time for anybody. We have a charging station, and we try to put our phones there after 5 p.m., so they don’t follow us to the couch or the dinner table. We don’t always follow this perfectly. Sometimes a call or email is necessary, but we put our phones away otherwise.
• Evenings together: After 8 p.m. is my time with Matt. Kids have bed time, or reading time, so Matt and I can pay attention to each other. This varies by the needs of your children, but it’s important to make time together a priority.
• Date night: We try to go out together as a couple at least once a week. Sometimes this just means getting outside together to take a walk without the kids.
• Exhaustion only as necessary: Sometimes a particular work situation requires our undivided attention and all our energy, but we make this the exception rather than the rule. The rest of the time, we save our best for one another.
• Regular check ins: We say to one another, “You’ve been giving a lot lately. What do you need?” This means that we also have to pay attention to what the other is doing and giving, as well as to ourselves.

Corie Weathers is an army chaplain’s wife and the author of Sacred Spaces: My Journey to the Heart of Military Marriage. She is also the host of the Lifegiver Podcast, supporting healthy marriages for military and first-responder couples.

The post Unplug and Tune in to Maintain a Healthy Marriage appeared first on Military Family Life.

Karen Pavlicin, author of Surviving Deployment and Life After Deployment, offers these reminders for a smoother family reintegration after deployment:

• Roles and people have changed.
• Expect some fatigue from added responsibilities at home, from the deployment, and from heightened emotions.
• Parenting and decision-making relationships may be strained—children will test your limits.
• You’ll need private time with your spouse to reestablish intimacy.
• Give yourself and your family time. Readjusting will require patience.

For families with new babies or young children, Karen cautions that infants and toddlers may need extra time to get to know the returning parent. Her suggestions for returning service members reintegrating into family life with young children:

• For babies, speak softly and often to let the infant get used to your voice. To talk to toddlers, get down at their level.
• Play. If you can get your child to laugh at you, you’ll make a friend sooner.
• Stay nearby while your spouse feeds, dresses, or plays with the baby. The baby will get used to having you there and will eventually be comfortable with you.
• Spend time with your spouse. Children of any age are more comfortable with a parent when they know their parents’ relationship is strong.

Ten Tips for Reconnecting after Deployment from SurvivingDeployment.com

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