Military Wellness Collective
Military Wellness Collective is made up of four friends — two retired Marines (Joshua and Brian) turned church planters and their wives (Brittany and Kelli)— who have lived life both in uniform and on the home front. Together, we share real stories, hard-earned wisdom, and practical, biblical encouragement to help military members, and their families thrive in every season. Whether you’re navigating deployments, adjusting to life in a new town, or simply seeking hope in the middle of your military journey, our mission is to equip you with truth from God’s Word and tools for a healthy, resilient life.
Military Wellness Collective
Staying Connected When Apart Is Just the Beginning
How do military families maintain unity when one spouse constantly comes and goes? This episode of the Military Wellness Collective tackles the critical topic of family readiness – preparing for and thriving through the inevitable disruptions of military service.
Our hosts Brittany, Joshua, Brian, and Kelli draw from decades of collective experience to share hard-earned wisdom about navigating deployments, frequent separations, and the complex dynamics of military family life. They don't shy away from difficult topics: the guilt service members feel about missing family milestones, the struggle of home-front spouses to handle everything alone, and the complicated emotions children experience when a parent is absent for significant portions of their young lives.
Communication emerges as the cornerstone of family readiness. The discussion covers what to communicate before separation (expectations, responsibilities, fears), during separation (maintaining connection without creating additional stress), and after reunion (navigating changing roles without conflict). Panelists share practical strategies that worked in their own marriages – from coordinating dinner routines during unpredictable work hours to reading the same books while apart to create meaningful conversation topics.
The conversation takes a deeply spiritual turn as the panel explores how faith provides the foundation for military family resilience. They describe marriage as a triangle with Christ at the top and spouses at the two bottom corners – as each person grows closer to Christ, they naturally grow closer to each other. This perspective transforms military challenges into opportunities for spiritual growth rather than merely difficulties to endure.
Whether you're a military family preparing for your first deployment or a seasoned veteran of multiple separations, this episode offers both practical advice and spiritual encouragement. Subscribe to the Military Wellness Collective for more resources on living a God-honoring life throughout military service.
SHOW NOTES:
Shepherding a Child’s Heart – Shepherd Press
Strengthening Your Marriage: Mack, Wayne A.: 9780875523859: Amazon.com: Books
The Bible Recap | Read, Understand & Love the Bible in 365 Days
http://instagram.com/militarywellnesscollective
We are diving into the Military Wellness Collective today and we are a podcast that is committed to helping our military friends and family walk through well, through the military service with a God-honoring life. So, as we walk through this today, we're gonna specifically be talking today about family readiness. Family readiness we just talked about spiritual readiness and now we want to in the last episode and we really want to dive into family readiness today. So I'm going to be asking a couple questions of our members here and we're just going to be walking through it today, and the first question I have is to build up this family readiness.
Speaker 1:What's happened in the military is we go through very difficult times and difficult events and, quite honestly, there's some things that we can prepare for and then there's some things that we just need to be prepared for, what we don't know, which is a lot of unknowns for the future. So I'm going to ask the panel here what are some of the hardships, what are some of the difficulties we go through as a military families, and then how are some of the ways that we can hedge against some of those things or work through them well, or what are some of the experiences we've had and what are the things that we've done that have been helpful or seen done that have been helpful for our families in the military? So, yeah, who wants to go first?
Speaker 2:Everybody looks at me to go first, but anyway, I'll go first.
Speaker 1:You have this. I want to go first face.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do, and so, you know, I think the obvious one is for most of us, when we're on active duty, we are coming and going from the family environment on a regular basis, and so, especially, joshua and I were deploying Marines and so we were training, we were in the field, we were at a school, we were deployed.
Speaker 2:You know, I think you know folks in middle America, they can imagine the big deployments, especially when a war is going on, but maybe they forget about all the other separations that happen.
Speaker 2:And so for me, separations is the big thing, and so for me, as the guy who was going and coming from the family environment is, it is difficult to stay engaged as husband and father, engaged as husband and father because and the other man, this is maybe a second hurdle involved in that is like the job is so demanding and it takes so much focus that as I focus into it, it's like, oh yeah, I have a wife and kids back home and that sounds horrible to say out loud, but it is. It's a challenge, it's a hurdle, like I'm focused, my job is to to shoot artillery, my job is to lead Marines, my job is to like, whatever it is like it takes a lot of effort and it takes a lot of focus and so, yeah, the going back and forth to family and then, when I'm gone, to not forget, oh yeah, I have responsibilities to my family but really, before God, to my family.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you mentioned going to and from being father husband in a physical presence way. In a physical presence way. What are some of the things that? And maybe, kelly, you can speak to some of the things that like get left to the spouse at home to take care of while he's away. But then also, when you get reintroduced after a deployment, how do you then come back into that role and how do you do it well, so that there's not conflict there?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean all the decisions for the family. You know what I mean. Like you said, you are, you have a job that is far away, different time zone a lot of times, and there are decisions that you know I never had to make until he was gone and then it was like all on me. So I think learning and this is when God used this in my life to just learn like I was idolizing you and just so like needing you so much that I realized like I can't rely on you because you're not always there, and this is what I'm like okay, god, you're going to have to help me do this, and so I think, yeah, just those.
Speaker 2:And I saw you grow in your ability to make those decisions and tackle those problems that when I was around, when I was present, you wouldn't do, which is fine, like I'm there, that's my job, that's what I'm going to do. But you grew in your ability to make those decisions and to handle problems that normally you would have said hey, brian, there's a spider in the bathroom.
Speaker 1:Hey.
Speaker 2:Brian, the water pump is out on the car or something's wrong with the car. What do I do? And so you grew in your ability to do those things.
Speaker 4:And thankfully I do think like our and thankfully I do think like our initial our first deployment, the unit that you were with they did help us start conversations about some of that stuff. Like, hey, you need to learn how to you know, like you need to make sure you are taking care of finances and paying bills and like stuff like that. And we made a will and talked about that stuff and started communicating, like that. And we made a will and talked about that stuff and started communicating. I mean, that's part of it is. I think the Lord used that to help us communicate more and talk about different things. But it is a challenge because it feels overwhelming. And then I think another challenge comes when they come home. Part of you wants to just be like, okay, dump it all on. You Like, okay, this is yours now. But then there's other parts.
Speaker 2:It's like well, I've been in control of this and I want to still be in control of it, because I think I did it well, or you know just like there's.
Speaker 4:I think there's all kinds of things that come with that that are challenging.
Speaker 3:I love what you said, kelly, about communication.
Speaker 3:I think, if we're talking about readiness, we need to be communicating well before times of separation come, before long hours at work happen. If we're communicating expectations clearly can be really helpful as far as family readiness goes, so that way you're both on the same page, even if your husband has. Or let's say, your wife is military and you're the guy. I don't know what that's like, but I would assume it would be similar for us, like if they work really late.
Speaker 3:I remember we went through a season with Josh on recruiting duty and the first few months I was so frustrated at dinnertime. We've always had family dinners together and he was never coming home, or he would think he was coming home, so he would let me know he's coming home. Then he says he's going to be late and I would be. I was realizing I was growing bitter about that and so we had to communicate an expectation, and what was communicated was OK, well, I'll make dinner and if you're not here, that's fine, I'm going to make you a plate, I'm going to set it aside, I'm going to joyfully eat with our children and then, when you get home, I'm going to heat up that plate for you and we're going to sit together and talk. That eliminated something so simple. I just give that as a practical example. Like it eliminates anticipation, the expectations are clear and you're happy.
Speaker 4:Well, I think it takes the focus off of like me, me, me yeah, it's not here because I want this. It's like and you were talking about your job to do when you're overseas, deployed or just even at home at work, like remembering our husbands have, or our spouses have, an important job to do and we can love them and honor them in that way of not placing these extra demands on them and not needing them so much. And that's when we need the Lord like to help us do that.
Speaker 1:Can I give the inverse of that really quick. Men or spouses out there who are in the military, don't compare your hard either. Yeah, that's good, like our wives here are talking about how their husbands have hard jobs and they're loving them well through that. Hey, people out there in the military, you're not all high and mighty. You don't have the super hard job where you can just walk home and walk in the door and just have and be like served left and right.
Speaker 1:You're walking into a situation where your spouse at home has had a hard job. You both have hard jobs. You can either work well with each other and defer to one another and love one another well, by respecting one another well and listening to what the difficulties are that each side has and then filling in those spaces, or you can do the wrong thing, like many young couples do, is they come home and they have expectations that they're going to be taken care of.
Speaker 4:Oh, we've done that.
Speaker 1:Instead of showing up home, whether you're gone for six months or six hours coming home. And when you walk across that threshold and you reunite for the first time, the desire should not be oh, I had a hard day, I want this from you. The desire should be you may have had a hard day, how can I also help you? And so it's this giving of yourself, and if you both do it, you both are fulfilled and you walk through that really well.
Speaker 2:So let's generalize this a little bit. I think that example that you gave Brittany was like really good, it's just a great example. Is Joshua going to be home for dinner tonight? Right, like that's just so practical and it's a good thing. But the way you guys solve that was you communicated about what the problem was from both perspectives. You like, hey, I'm preparing a meal and trying to have a family meal. And and Joshua was like, yeah, but I have to do this, this is my job, this is the mission, and I can't always predict when you know a pulley is ready to meet today, or his mom or whatever the case is. And so you articulated the problem from your two perspectives that are very different, and then you work together on what is the solution. The other thing I want to highlight that you talked about is that was not the first duty station, and what had worked in the last job did not work in this job. In the previous job, joshua was deploying. He's gone. We're figuring it out, yeah you're eating dinner without him.
Speaker 3:You're eating dinner without him, right?
Speaker 2:Well recruiting duty is confusing Like sometimes he's home for dinner. A lot of Well recruiting duty is confusing. Like sometimes he's home for dinner. A lot of times he's not home for dinner, and so what worked the last duty station may not work next duty station or this duty station, what worked five minutes ago may not work this time. And so just that adaptability. Communicate about the problems, not just like, well, my life's harder than your life. That's not helpful. Great point, Joshua, but let's talk about the problem from our two different perspectives and then let's work together on a solution. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:I think the Marine Corps has gone away with this now because it's aging us a little bit, but we used to have a saying called Semper Gumby.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I know, I say that to the younger crew and they're like what, what are you?
Speaker 1:talking about. So what's flexible nowadays that we can say Semper to?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because nobody knows what Gumby is.
Speaker 4:I know.
Speaker 1:Always be flexible.
Speaker 2:We'll just say that that's right.
Speaker 1:Semper flexible. So, yeah, that's a great example the dinner and having to figure that out from duty station to duty station. But what are some other things that you guys have worked through? A hardship, a difficulty family coming together. Sometimes it's a task, sometimes it's things that are breaking, but then there's also like relationships between husband, wife and then, also kids.
Speaker 4:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:One of my internal spiritual battles in all of this is realizing that God has expectations for me as a husband and a father, and I don't get to excuse that away.
Speaker 4:Yes.
Speaker 2:So it is so tempting to say I'm in the military, my job's really hard, I'm whatever. Military, my job's really hard, I'm whatever.
Speaker 4:I get a pass.
Speaker 2:So therefore those passages? If we're not, we haven't been explicit yet. Ephesians chapter five the second half of the chapter is the go-to marriage roles for Christians. That's kind of the chair passage for that. So I don't get a pass, I don't get to cut that out of my Bible, the instructions from God to husbands, just because I'm in the military. I don't get to do that. I don't have permission to do that. I will stand before God and answer for how I was a husband and father, even when I'm on active duty.
Speaker 3:I would just second that to the wives as well. Like you don't get a pass from Ephesians 5 because your husband's military, because I think we see that on the opposite side as well. Like well, he's gone, so I don't have to submit, I don't have to follow, and so I think both sides of that for family unity, even to the children, like they still need a unified family front that is following through, so that they know even in our situations it was dad gone. Hey, mom and dad are on the same page. We're a team, you're part of that team. This is how it's going to go.
Speaker 3:I'll just speak to that really quick. We had a son, or we have a son. He's older now and I remember he had a point in age where dad needed to be brought into the conversation more when joshua was gone, because you know he's a young man, he's like starting to get manly tendencies and like trying to tell me to eat my green beans and different things, you know. And I had to be like well, dad says like bring dad into that. So I think, being unified Anyway.
Speaker 2:So you're talking about just you as mom, verbally bringing in dad's desires, even when dad's not there, to honor your father. Your father desires you eat your vegetables. It's not just mom saying this yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, also, when the dad comes home from an extended period of time, there's been some growth in the kids and there's also been different discipline things that have been happening. And then there's there's a couple of different tendencies. There's one the wife will either go well, now you got it. And then there's it's the kids get whiplash and they don't know. They're like well, wait a minute, we're doing this now and they see the disjointedness.
Speaker 1:The kids will also see that and they will try to pit the husband and wife against each other because they'll go oh well, dad came home, maybe dad. And so now there's this one side versus the other, instead of having a unified marriage to raise those kids under. So my desire for families, when they're coming together, is to communicate well through those things, be on the same page and be unified when it comes to raising the kids, especially when you're apart for a while and you come back together.
Speaker 3:The other side of that trap, which I am familiar with, sadly, admittedly, falling into, is not that you got it now, it's the mama bear protective mode. Like you haven't been here, like you don't know, this is yeah.
Speaker 3:You don't know them like I know them. I don't think I ever said that out loud Because, yeah, you don't know them like I know them. I don't think I ever said that out loud. But if I really dug to the heart of the issue, of where Joshua and I were having tension, that was it Especially. You know we homeschooled so I was with him all day. So if he's gone for seven, eight months or a few weeks like I know these kids all day long, and then you're going to come in here and try and switch it, yeah, so trying, so obviously communicating through that as well, like, hey, what if you know their expectations on the upfront and and y'all are have the same expectations and you're unified, then there shouldn't be too much of a shift. When mom or dad comes home, they should be able to reintegrate into that, even from work days. I'll just give a funny example.
Speaker 3:When Joshua retired from the Marine Corps, we always took the days he had leave. We just didn't do school. So we homeschooled year round. And so when dad had leave, the kids didn't do school. Well, we didn't prepare well for retirement. We thought we did in certain areas, but not in the school area. And when Joshua was home. Titus was like I don't have to do school Like dad's home. What do you mean? I have to do math and I'm like dad's going to be home every day.
Speaker 4:He's like you're going to be doing school while dad is here. Yeah, so you got to do school. Yeah, so you got to do school.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so just like preparing, you know well, yeah, that's good In certain areas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I know, not everybody has kids. A lot of folks in the military don't have kids, but it's interesting, everything hits kids differently. So I remember I came back from a deployment and our daughter was like five or six and she had overheard us talking to people. We were going to places for dinner and we were having people over for our house for dinner and so she just kind of overheard me talking to adults and people asking how was deployment, how's reunification going, and I had said multiple times that it's like I never left In so many ways with my wife. It's like I never left and this was our which, praise the Lord, praise God, so many ways with my wife.
Speaker 4:it's like I never left and this was our which praise the Lord.
Speaker 2:Praise God, it was our third deployment.
Speaker 4:That was not always true.
Speaker 2:But our third deployment, it was like I never left and we were falling back into some rhythms as husband and wife. But she sat next to me and she said how you doing At five or six years old, it's like you've never left. And she said you know, you were gone for a long time and I just heard that so clearly she was communicating, I think, for herself and on behalf of her younger brothers. You were gone a long time. We're not yet there. Maybe you and mom are falling back into old rhythms.
Speaker 4:We're not there yeah, and I think, real like something that the lord taught me is like every family member has a different experience and a different perspective and just like that was that was huge with our kids, just just even us. But our kids too, they don't handle it all the same. I mean, we had one son that was angry, one that was just— Never talked about it. Yeah, I don't even know, he never really acted like he cared. And then another one that was you know. I feel like she was pretty.
Speaker 4:But they're all different in the way they experience it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, just straight percentages. I mean, when you say that story, I'm just thinking, yeah, for that kid who's eight years old, you're gone for a year.
Speaker 4:I mean that's a big percentage of their life Right.
Speaker 1:As far back as they can, probably only remember four years. Think about how long 25% of their life has. As far back as they can, they probably only remember four years. Think about how long it takes 25% of their life has been gone Exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, six months to a 25-year-old and six months to a three-year-old is a drastically different thing in their life.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of milestones that happen when kids are younger, but then it gets a little more difficult because they can they can communicate in those emotions a little bit better when they're older. So there's always that as well.
Speaker 4:One more thing I want to say, just because this is like pre-kids, and it does have to do with communication. I think One amazing thing that the military speeds up is having hard conversations Now.
Speaker 4:I still think you can easily like avoid those and just not face them. But one thing that has grown our marriage, grown parenting is just facing the hard conversations and being honest with one another about where we were conversations and being honest with one another about where we were. I think early on I went through the motions and felt like I just need to be a good wife and just take everything and not complain when I was having these really deep feelings about some hard things and I realized that was not good for our marriage. Sometimes I would even, you know, just give Brian the silent treatment if he didn't. You know, just things like that. But like I think, learning to sit down and just have an honest conversation of where we are and tackling hard things to wives.
Speaker 2:They bring a conversation to you about a difficulty they're having personally and or in their marriage and you will ask them have you talked to your husband about that or have you brought that to the Lord? Those are the top two questions and I think we need to ask those questions. Have you talked to the Lord about this and have you talked to your spouse about this? That's very important Because it's hard.
Speaker 4:I mean, we are sitting here and we've been married for over 20 years, so it's easier for us. But I can remember early on where I was afraid to show you some of my true feelings because I still was, you know, worried that you were going to leave. You were scared by who I really was, or something you know worried that you were going to leave. You were scared by who I really was, or something you know so like. But the more I learned to just open up and be honest about my struggles and maybe I wasn't happy about something that was going on in the military, we could at least talk about it together and work through it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you talked about and to include talk about your fears you talked about in our last episode your two driving fears that you can now remember all these years later is Brian's going to have an affair or Brian's going to die? Like those were your top two fears you articulating.
Speaker 2:That is really helpful to me as a spouse, and if I would have been better about articulating my fears in those moments, I think it would have deepened our relationship. And the fear is no, this is going to break the relationship, but it actually deepens the relationship, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think communication, like y'all are saying, is the key, like having conversations before, like when we talk about being prepared and ready as a family, we have to have the communication up front.
Speaker 3:You don't have it in the moment and you want that depth of that relationship, that trust and, like you said, kelly, I mean we've been us here together collectively represent like 40, some years of marriage, not really, but yeah, um, and so just the communication, like they should be your best friend, like you need to prepare before that sets up for when you do have kids, a solid foundation, because I think oftentimes in military life the spouse that's home with the kids.
Speaker 4:There can be this, two different sides you know, almost and like oh well, mom or dad or whoever the active duty spouse is, like yeah, they're, they're gone and we're yeah we're sad or we're bitter or whatever, and so it just like. To be on the same page with your spouse and have that strong connection sets the tone for the children.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I got. So one more topic here I need to cover before we roll on, and that is we've talked a lot about communicating on the upfront, making sure you guys are on the same page through things, especially deployments and being a part, whether it be for a day or a year.
Speaker 1:Here's the part that a lot of people don't talk about, and I want to hear everybody's thoughts on this. What are the things that you communicate to one another that you are not going to communicate about during, like, a deployment? So we're in a scenario where my first deployment I think we exchanged just a couple letters um like a sat phone call that got ended prematurely through some AK fire and stuff like that. Like it was a weird time. Right Nowadays, husbands and wives are communicating a lot more.
Speaker 1:Almost too much in some scenarios. I hate to say that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's because we have the perspective of that Some are communicating too much.
Speaker 1:Some are communicating too much, some are communicating too much and because there's certain things that the husband can't take care of when he's away and the wife can't take care of what the issues he's having while she's at home. So, like there's some things that maybe we just take care of and communicate after we get back, but we know we're doing that with each other and we communicate those up front. What are some of those things that you guys have just said? Hey, I'm not going to talk about this with my husband or my wife, but when I get back we'll hash out, I'll kind of lay out some of the things that have gone on.
Speaker 2:That's good. Yeah, I think it's good to maybe keep a journal or list somewhere of that. I want to talk about the problem. So like it was really hard to interact with my boss. I had a really hard boss during this deployment and here's what that looked like. After the fact, after the deployment, that can be a really helpful communication. Conversation In the moment of my boss was mean to me. Today. Once we hear information, we feel like we have to do something with it, and so for your wife to hear the difficult dynamics in your workspace most of those you don't need to talk about, most of those you could leave it general. It's been hard. It's hard interpersonally, but like getting into the details of that is unhelpful because she feels like she has to do something with it and she doesn't. She's got a hard job at home and she's dealing with stuff at home, she's got her own problems, and so to me that's definitely an area that is rarely helpful, detailed in the moment type stuff.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'll go. I didn't know if any ladies were going to jump in with. I'm sure you guys have one, but I think for the, for whoever's home, when things break because they will, because they will they will definitely think washers and dryers go out, ovens break, cars break all this stuff happens. Right, it is. There's two ways that can be communicated. One, it can be hey, this has been fixed. By the way, the dryer broke, it's been fixed and everything's fine. And all that happened last week. And then whoever's hearing that is going oh okay, so there was an issue, you took care of it. Good job, honey, that's awesome. Or what we've seen is someone calling you this is broken. I don't know what to do. I wish you were home and I wanted this.
Speaker 3:You're horrible.
Speaker 4:You should be here.
Speaker 1:The military took you and you should be here. Yeah, and it's like wait a minute.
Speaker 4:This is when God uses this to like really prick at our hearts and show like what are we trusting in Are? We trusting in our husband or our spouse being there to do it Right, just not helpful.
Speaker 2:I know Brittany's trying to talk, but Ephesians 6, we talked about this last episode. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, it's a spiritual battle. Your spouse is not your enemy. The military is not your enemy, your your wife is not your savior your spouse is not your savior right. So we're in a spiritual battle, and so we need to keep that in mind yeah, what'd you have, britney?
Speaker 3:nothing. No, no, I could have something, but I know we have to wrap it up, so I'm just going to withhold. I am going to say if we can add a few books into the show notes, that would be helpful. One by Paul Tripp, shepherding a Child's Heart. Maybe if you and your spouse read that together. That way, when you know times of separation, aren't you just on the same page in parenting? If you don't have kids, there's a great book. Well, even if you have kids and you're married, you and Me Forever, by Francis Chan and his wife. Or this Momentary Marriage by John Piper, understanding what your marriage is a picture of, is really helpful when you're talking about being unified on a unified front and moving forward. Whether you're military or not, these books are helpful. But is that okay, joshua, if we add?
Speaker 3:those into these show notes.
Speaker 2:My most recommended marriage book these days is Wayne Mack Strengthening your Marriage.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'm going to read it.
Speaker 2:And you skimmed over a really key nugget is okay, we told you what not to talk about. Okay maybe you read like, hey, what have you been reading in your Bible recently? Hey, what was the sermon about on Sunday? Ask these types of questions when you have the opportunity to talk. And or, hey, let's read a book together and discuss it. Hey, I thought it was interesting what he said in chapter three about this, or what do you think about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, recently I've been advising all of our military couples, if they're having a time away, to get on the same Bible reading program and even have the same Bible like wrap-up person, whether it be an app or a book that they're going through. So that way when they do talk because the husbands or the service member when they're deployed they typically can't talk about much about what they're doing, and whoever's back home doesn't want to complain about all the bad stuff that's going on, nor can they say a whole lot about what's going on. So really having those mutual things they can discuss is huge and helpful to grow together in the Lord while they're apart physically.
Speaker 3:I know we have to wrap it up. Can I say one more thing Will? I'll just share this graphic that we've drawn a triangle for years. We didn't make it up, we've seen it. But when we're talking about family readiness, if you draw a triangle and you have Christ at the top and then you have your spouse, so your wife, and then the husband at the corners, if you guys want to grow close to each other, you need to first be growing close to the Lord. So you need to each have your individual relationship with the Lord and then relationship together in the Lord. So if you want to be prepared to do this life well, you need to both be going towards Christ and in that way you will be growing towards one another yeah, Well said, Well said Well everybody.