MARINE SPOUSE — What I learned waiting at Lejeune

I'm not a veteran. My husband is. I want to talk about the part of military life that doesn't get a DD-214. Three deployments in our first eight years. Two children born while he was gone — the older one met him at four months, the younger at six. I learned to file taxes alone, run a refinance alone, manage a medical emergency alone. I learned the language of Tricare. I learned how to tell my kids that Daddy was safe even on the days I wasn't sure. When he separated in 2019 I expected relief. What I got was his depression — six months of him not being himself, in the same house, where the kids could see it. That was harder for me than the deployments. Deployments came with a structure. His depression didn't. The Elizabeth Dole Foundation's Hidden Heroes program got me into a caregiver support group. Six other spouses, weekly, on Zoom. The thing that helped most was being told that being a spouse counts. That what I had carried was real. I'd known that in my body for a decade. I hadn't heard anyone say it out loud.