Have you ever had a friendship with a military spouse end? It hurts. Sometimes it is something you have done that you feel terrible about. Other times it is something someone else has done. Sometimes the death of the friendship is just circumstances and the way things have to be.
Here are 10 situations that can kill a military spouse friendship and how to avoid them.
What do you find are the factors that may end a friendship among military spouses?
1. Being Friends with the Commanding Officer’s Wife
We always say that rank shouldn’t matter among military spouses, however, in some cases it does. Can you really be friends with the commanding officer’s wife?
When I was in Germany meeting the high-ranking officers’ wives was easy to do because of how small the post was. I made friends with them but not in the same way I could have been friends with other spouses. There is a little bit of a line there. Sometimes a friendship can die out because you just can’t take things any further because of rank.
On the other hand, if military spouses know where that line is, you can still be friends and learn a lot from one another.
2. Being Friends with Your Neighbors
Making friends with your neighbors makes sense. Doing so means you have people that live near you that you can depend on.
However, if something comes up in the neighborhood, the situation can kill a friendship.
I have seen this happen quite a few times. The best thing to do is always be a good neighbor, don’t cause drama with other military spouses and remember that everyone should be treated with respect.
3. Too Much Gossip
I know I am guilty of gossip, we all are. Nothing will kill a friendship faster than hearing that your friend is talking bad about you. Hearing that hurts your soul and makes you feel like your friendship wasn’t real to begin with. Try to stop gossiping yourself and be a better friend than that.
4. Moving
This one is hard. A friend moves away – like military spouses always do – and life isn’t the same anymore. The friendship changes and for some the friendship dies. In my experience, when a friend moves away, in order to keep the friendship alive both people have to try to keep up communicating with each other. If one of the friends doesn’t do that the friendship will die.
5. Your Children Don’t Get Along
You might have a friend who is perfect for you but things can fall apart if your kids don’t get along. Military spouses spend a lot of time hanging out together with their kids. If there is trouble there, the friendship might not be able to last. In some cases there isn’t much you can do about this other than getting together without the kids.
6. Your Spouses Don’t Get Along
Just like with the children, sometimes friendships fall apart when spouses don’t get along. Everything might be fine during a deployment but once the spouses return things can get a little tense and getting together might be more difficult. This is a hard place to be in. You would have to just hang out without your spouses around.
7. Becoming Too Busy
Sometimes two military spouses can be friends, get together often and then one or both of them become busy. This can cause the friendship to fall apart. One of the friends might be wanting to get together and the other doesn’t have time anymore. If you feel like you are too busy all of a sudden, still try to make plans with your friends. You don’t want to lose them because of how busy you are.
8. One Deploys, One Does Not
Military spouses can be friends going through military life together when one of their spouses deploys and everything changes. This doesn’t always have to be the case but sometimes jealousy can take over and the friend with the deployed spouse might try to fade away.
The best thing to do is to understand that your friend could be hurting because their spouse is gone and yours is not.
9. Leaving People Out
I have been in situations where we had a group of friends and then people split up. They decided to get together and leave others out. Try not to leave people out on purpose if it’s possible to include them in your get-togethers. Not all military spouses have to be invited everywhere but if you suddenly stop inviting people when you used to do so, they are going to notice.
10. Having a Baby
If two military spouses were friends for a while and then one has a baby, the friendship can change and even die. This happens because the one that had the baby is now in a different stage of life. In order to avoid this both friends need to understand the change and embrace it.
