Psst, here’s a secret: I don’t miss my spouse every day he is gone. Oh, I think about him every day, and I love him everyday… but I don’t always miss him.

Deployment just feels longer when you miss your spouse or significant other. The emotions alone can drain you and leave you depressed and empty. One way to make it easier? Be realistic.

I think one difference between newer spouses and the older “seasoned spouses” is this: the younger spouses spend months pining for their love and imagining how perfect things will be when they return. More experienced spouses know that even though the days and nights of deployment are lonely, their spouse is still human, and will still have all their flaws and quirks when they come home.

Do you always miss your spouse during deployment?

Let’s be honest– a military marriage is not always romantic. There are good days and bad ones, sweet moments and awkward ones. Sometimes, when the service member is around they are fun and they are your rock and your best friend. But other times, their military schedule brings an awful lot of inconvenience and unpredictability to your life.

If you spend the whole time they are gone building up a beautiful picture of how perfect life will be after deployment, then you’re creating unrealistic expectations for your partner. And you’re setting yourself up for disappointment during the Reintegration after Homecoming.

I’m sure your service member is your best friend and you miss them tremendously… but they will still have smelly feet when they come home. They will still leave their gear in messy piles, or steal all the covers at night, or snore, or play too many video games. In short, if there were qualities about your service member that annoyed you before the deployment, those traits will not magically go away.

But for now, there is a temporary reprieve from any of the trivial things that bug me when my service member is home. During deployment, I always have to find silver linings wherever I can. So on the days when I’m feeling just a little bit down and thinking that Homecoming cannot come fast enough, I remind myself of this.

20 things I don't miss when my spouse is away! #milspouse #deployment Share on X

20 things I DON’T miss when my spouse is away during deployment:

1. I don’t miss tripping over his boots by the front door.
2. I don’t miss his snoring keeping me awake at night.
3. I don’t miss doing an extra load of stinky laundry every week.
4. I don’t miss his alarm clock going off at 5 AM.
5. I don’t miss frantically searching all over the house because a uniform piece is misplaced, again.
6. I don’t miss the phone calls of, “hey, can you do this time-consuming errand for me right now?“
7. I don’t miss elbowing him out of the way to brush my teeth over our 1 tiny sink in base housing.
8. I don’t miss keeping the kids quiet while he sleeps in on a Saturday.
9. I don’t miss revolving our entire Sunday plans around getting a haircut.
10. I don’t miss listening to him play a video game for hours.
11. I don’t miss staying up late just to put his cammies in the dryer.
12. I don’t miss having a fresh cooked dinner on the table every evening around 6 PM.
13. I don’t miss the phone calls of, “hey, eat without me, it’s gonna be a long night at the office.”
14. I don’t miss keeping the kids up late just so he can kiss them goodnight.
15. I don’t miss having his games and hobbies spread out all over the house.
16. I don’t miss having his sports teams always on the TV.
17. I don’t miss finding empty containers put back in the fridge.
18. I don’t miss running to the store to buy tobacco products or beer.
19. I don’t miss cleaning up after his newest hobby or repair project.
20. and… I don’t miss having random articles of clothing all over the floor 2 feet from the laundry basket!

Which one of these is you? Just think about that the next time you are missing your spouse, and you are guaranteed to smile a little. All their bad habits are so much more endearing when they first come back! At least, for a little while, haha. Anything else you don’t miss when your significant other is away?

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