what to expect after my sailor and I are married

[Whitney]

Hey everyone I have a few questions
My sailor\fiance is currently in bootcamp and will be finishing up soon. We plan to get married while he is in boot camp so I will be on his orders. My questions are:

1 . How will it be once I move with him at his new duty station? (How was it for the first month or so when you first moved with your sailor?)

2. Also I am currently in college working towards a bachelors degree in communications, but i plan on transferring schools so that I can be with my sailor. Are there any scholarships or grants offered to spouses or college courses offered on base for spouses?

3. Will it be easy to find a job? I have a few monthly expenses. I currently have 4 years customer service experience and an associates degree in business management. Are there any office jobs I can apply to on base? Will e2 pay be able to carry us until I can find a job?

4. How do things work on deployments?

Sorry for all the questions just wanted to know what to expect.... thanks in advance.

[Whitney]

@Anti M-thank you this will be very helpful especially once we know where we will be stationed.thsanks for all of the information and links...

[EmilyNicole98]

I'm currently in the process of connecting with other spouses... my first three months here I pretty much hid in the apartment, to be honest. I didn't want to make new friends because I had awesome ones back home (2500 miles away, slightly problematic lol), I was scared the other wives would all be crazy due to a few experiences, and I felt totally out of my element. It's completely terrifying to find yourself in a brand new place where you don't know a single soul apart from your husband and not even know how to get to the grocery store. I've slowly started collecting friends, through Facebook (and soon the FRG I'm hoping), our neighbors, school, and meeting the wives of my husband's ship friends. Things have been much better!

There are TONS of activities during deployments. The community comes together because everyone is lonely and in need of major support. There are FRG sponsored events but most are just wives talking over Facebook and planning something. Play dates for ones with kids, coffee and shopping dates, dates to watch things like Grey's Anatomy and Army Wives... there is always stuff to do. When the ship gets back, things get kind of disbanded but if you make the effort, it's not hard to keep the friendships going. 

Sea Pay - every rate gets it. They have to be at sea for a certain amount of time before it kicks in, I believe it's about 30 days or so. So for the majority of the deployment, he will receive it. 

[Whitney]

@Emily- Ok sounds cool. I do not have a Facebook but its still good that FRG has activities and meetings and stuff to get people informed and involved. I'm very open to meeting new people.As far as schooling are you currently doing online or on-campus schooling? how did your family feel about you transferring schools midway of receiving your degree to be with your family? How did you handle the criticism if any??? sorry for all the questions!

[EmilyNicole98]

Campus schooling! It's a small school, mostly transfer and commuter students and a lot of people who are older than 40. I have about an hour commute unfortunately, which means paying for extra things like gas.. but we were both determined to keep my life as normal as possible, so online schooling wasn't an option we really looked into. Thankfully military spouses are eligible to receive in-state tuition, it saves so much money! My parents were not at all happy at first.. they would have stopped paying for school if the price had changed much. My mother actually cried when I announced our engagement, but only because it meant moving from Michigan to Seattle indefinitely. My parents stopped paying for anything that wasn't school, which is fair but also really hard. I was already paying for most things, but I got dumped with every single bill I wasn't already paying and I wasn't expecting to. Which is part of the reason why we're living paycheck to paycheck and having to live on a strict budget. As far as criticism goes.. everyone came around eventually. For the first few months, I had people saying horrible things about how it was never going to work because of our age and because he's in the military. I cut a few friends out of my life for a while because every time I saw them I would get lectured. I bit my tongue about it for a while, but I got fed up with it and made it clear to everyone that if they didn't approve, they weren't welcome in my life. That was the only thing that really worked. Simply smiling and trying to ignore them got me nowhere. My fiancé was deployed for the entire length of our engagement, so I got every ounce of criticism since he wasn't around for people to bitch at. The criticism stopped a long time ago, but now we have to deal with my family constantly saying they miss us and trying to make us feel guilty...for that I still don't have a solution!

Oh no, ask away! I know how confusing this time is! You have a lot to learn and a lot to do in a short amount of time!

[Fur&FeathersDVM]

Once you are married and at your sailor's duty station, check out if the compass program (Compass) is offered at your location, which is a program that has more seasoned spouses mentor new spouses (or just those who want more information, one of my compass classmates had been married to the navy for 13 years!) in all aspects of military life. You'll find out information like what resources are available to you, how to set up a military move, deployments, local things to do, etc. It's a fantastic way to connect with other spouses in the area and will make your life as a new spouse much easier!

It can be difficult to find funding for college as a navy spouse. I didn't have much luck obtaining scholarships based on my spouse status. However, there are lots of other scholarship opportunities out there from  your school, private organizations, etc. You should also check with military one source, as they will have information pertaining to scholarships for spouses that may apply to your situation! I was unable to transfer to be with my spouse, but if you can, I certainly encourage you to!!  Not every college will allow you to claim in state tuition just because you are a military spouse, so be sure to check with wherever you are transferring to.

Your ability to find a job will depend on your determination, your flexibility, the area you are moving to, what field you want to be in, and luck. I have been able to find work at both duty stations my husband and I have been at together. Some areas have more job opportunities than others. In Norfolk, I was only able to find one opening to apply for (but I have a specialized field, so I know lots of other spouses here who have been able to find a lot more positions to apply for!). Our new duty station (Great Lakes) had a LOT more opportunities and I found plenty of openings and found a job much more quickly. 

Deployment experiences vary a lot. The first time my husband deployed, we had very little communication, there weren't any events for the families, etc. The second time there were a lot of FRG events and his ability to communicate was better. The third time was sort of a mix of the previous two.  Find something for yourself that you enjoy- a hobby, a job, etc. that you can use to find enjoyment and peace while he's gone. If you live with the attitude of "no news is good news" it makes it easier to deal with! 

Deployments can be planned far in advance or they can come up instantly. It's a huge variation. Same with underways (shorter periods of going out to sea). Deployment dates can also change at the last second, and they can very easily get shortened or more likely, extended. You have to be flexible and understand your spouse has no control over when he goes.  My husband has gone to sea with as little as 12 hours notice for an underway, a week's notice for a deployment, or as much as a year's notice or a deployment. You learn to just go with the flow and be ready for him to leave at any time (meaning have all your paperwork in order, have a plan for if he needs to leave, etc.).

Navy life can be a little crazy, but it's a wonderful life. You will meet all sorts of great people and have so many fantastic opportunities. Enjoy your new adventure!!