Asking for help is never easy and for some reason we military spouses have trouble with doing so. Especially when we really need the help. We try to do everything ourselves and don’t think we should stop and ask anyone for anything.
Why do you think that military spouses are reluctant to ask for help or seek counseling?
Here are 10 reasons why military spouses might not ask for help (even when they need it):
- We don’t want to bother anyone. As military spouses, we don’t want to have to bother anyone with our troubles. We might assume that we don’t have a right to do so. We might think that if we do the person we ask for help will think less of us.
- We think we got this. Military spouses try to stay strong. We think we can do everything ourselves. We don’t want to have to admit that we need extra help.
- We don’t know where to go for help. We might want help but we are unsure of where to go to get the help that we need. We are not sure who to call or who to contact in order to find that help.
- We think we have to pay for help. If you are not sure about what your options are, some military spouses might assume that you have to pay to go see a counselor. If you have Tricare, they will pay for some if not all of your counseling. You should check and see what is available and what you have access to. There are other free programs out there as well.
- We think our need is temporary so we just want to get through it. When military spouses are going through a difficult situation, it can be easy to think that the situation will go away soon. That they really don’t need to ask for help. The problem with this is that sometimes the issues don’t just go away and we really should be looking for someone to help us through them.
- We worry about others finding out. Military spouses worry that others will find out if they had to get help for what they are going through. They might fear that others will make fun of them or look down on them.
- We don’t want to come across as weak. We don’t want to come across as weak to our spouses as well as others in our community. We worry that if they find out we needed help, they would no longer think we are strong. We have this idea in our heads about how military spouses are supposed to act and we feel like seeking help would mean we have failed to live up to that.
- We don’t think we have time. Life is busy and scheduling a counseling appointment might not be easy to do. Some military spouses might want to go and get help but feel like they just have too much going on to add that appointment to their schedules.
- We are not sure it will help. Deep down we might be worried that asking for help won’t even do what we need it to do. That we will be wasting our time.
- We think we will look bad to our spouse’s command. This is a fear that some military spouses might have. That they will look bad to their spouse’s command. That they will be known as that wife or that husband and that seeking help will cause harm to their service member’s career.
The truth is, there are a lot of ways for military spouses to find the help that they need. Programs like FOCUS which stands for Families OverComing Under Stress can help spouses find the help that they need to get through their difficult situations. FOCUS offers resiliency training to help children and adults process and grow from their stressful situations.
There are also options to meet with a chaplin, Military & Family Life Counseling (MFLC) Program or be seen by a professional counselor through Tricare or MilitaryOneSource.
During my last deployment, I ended up seeing a counselor because I couldn’t handle what I was having to deal with. Taking the steps to make this happen was difficult but I was able to get the help I needed and learn more about how to handle my feelings as I got through the deployment. I was very glad that I did seek the help even though it was hard to do so.
If you feel like you need extra help, don’t be afraid to ask for what you need. You will be glad that you did as you will be able to learn and grow as well as figuring out the tools you need to get through military life challenges.
As a retiree my concern is we are always left behind we don’t have anybody to talk to no place to go nobody has resources for those of us that are in our 50s or 60s I would like some information on help for a husband 20 years active who now has dementia diabetes seizures there seems to be nobody out there that can give us a hand with these issues I don’t If it’s the VA or The Army Hospital we are assigned to if you can help I would appreciate it, this article is so true even as an active military wife I didn’t ask for help because I thought I could do it all
I know that when it comes to the Marine Corps there is still (though officially denied) prohibition against getting help because that is an admission of weakness. Marines are always told that Marines are expected to adapt and overcome in all circumstances. Like it or not, that attitude filters down to the family members. Wives are always comparing themselves to each other, especially against those wives who seem to have it all together. We forget that we each wear a social mask and that wife who outwardly seems together probably cries in the shower like the rest of us. Perhaps that person is lucky enough to have family nearby who visit often while we haven’t been able to afford to see our families on the other side of the country in years. Maybe they live in one of those rare, tight knit housing areas where they help each other out and support one another. But instead of considering any of those variables, we just see ourselves as not having it together so therefore the problem must be us. We even compare ourselves to the sisters of prior generations and how our hardships are a cakewalk compared to what they went. I mean husbands being gone for years with only snail mail, no real time media coverage, no skype, giving birth alone and even having to move out of housing when your husband deployed make our time seem like (key word SEEM LIKE) we have it sooo much better so why are we having trouble. So we conclude that it must be our weakness and don’t consider that they surely had the same feelings we do.
I know I was absolutely guilty about this until finally talking to other wives that I met through church groups like MCCW, Y Catholic, Bible studies, as well as my kids events like scouts and youth sports, but at that point I was a salty, 15 yr+ wife who suffered in silence for years. I thought I’d lose my mind during OIF1 & 2! The fear, anxiety, depression, lack of support as well as the perception that asking for help meant that you weren’t a “real ” Marine Corps wife was crushing but I had to project outward calm, competence and no fear to keep life normal for my two small kids and so as not to cause my husband to worry. We get warned to not give him all the crappy so that we won’t cause them to worry about what’s going on at home potentially causing distraction and therefore making him dangerous.
For quite a few that I knew of, it was the idea that by seeing military provided services, that it would go into our unsecure medical records and therefore aquireing a label forever. That has changed a lot since they implemented other channels of help but to my understanding, your mtr is still the property of the government and can be viewed by police for a case so that your record is never really safe. Hopefully this has changed.
We also don’t want to aquire the status of “problem wife” and therefore potentially impacting his career. This is especially true with the Marine Corps where I have personally seen and have been told about instances in which the husband is told to get his wife under control if he knows what is good for him. We don’t want to do anything to potentially derail them.
So these are some of my thoughts and experiences on this topic
All of the above points are truly valid reasons why military spouses will not ask for help; but number 10 hit the nail on the head!
We are so afraid of ruining our significant others career that we will suffer for the sake of not appearing to be weak or cause trouble.
Thank goodness it’s getting easier today to seek and receive the help that’s needed without being stigmatized for doing so.
We live in very stressful and troubling times, and it’s just not logical to think that one can do it all.
Kudos to all who recognize and utilize this option..