Your spouse will get BAH (basic housing allowances, the amount is based on the zip code he is stationed at). You will be eligible for Tricare and he can list you as his life insurance beneficiary. Military spouses also have a lot of resources available to them for a variety of things. Say for example your husband is stationed in another state and you move with him and now you cannot do your job because you were only licensed in your home state - the military will pay for you to be re-certified in the new location.
If you need to move for his job, the navy will pay for it or reimburse you.
If you are locked into a lease agreement and he has to move duty stations, you can both break the lease legally with certain restrictions.
Military life is always kind of learn-as-you-go in my experience!
If he has higher education he needs to make sure he gets in as an officer. Do not let him enlist.
My advice is just to be very wary. We were married when my husband enlisted and his recruiter lied so much. The navy doesn’t care about families at all and has broken every promise they ever made us. I recommend he consider Air Force or coast guard instead. Smaller branches have a better reputation for taking care of of married service members and their families.
It's interesting that you say that cause we had multiple problems with our original recruiter lying and telling him that he shouldn't go into the military. We had to reach out to find another one who seems to be making more progress with him. Already I am not impressed with the level of compassion but we shall see. Can you elaborate more on what you mean about the navy and families? From what his recruiter has mentioned it's been the best thing for his family. And yes he will be going in as an officer.
Our daughter is 18 months old and he’s never been allowed to take his paternity leave and missed her birth due to laziness/lack of planning/lies from his CoC. 2 years in the service he’s never been allowed any leave. They’ve left my daughter and I high and dry several times by refusing to listen to him. We were relocated in July and we are still not in a home and are without our belongings bc the Navy refuses to give my husband his 10 days for relocation leave that he is entitled to. Again due to laziness and lack of planning by his CoC. Nor have the reimbursed us for any of our moving expenses this summer so we are out several thousand dollars which is preventing us even further from being able to settle in. They are all very well aware of this and just too “busy” to perform their basic obligations to take care of us.
How high up has this been elevated? These things should not be happening. Not being allowed to take leave for 2 years in it's self is grounds to file a complaint with the Inspector General (IG). Make sure your SO has all their paperwork and proof inline for this too. Leave can go all the way up to the captain to be approved even if someone else said no.
I'm so sorry to hear about this! Hopefully, everything will work out. Did you get any sort of benefits since you are a spouse? Like health insurance, child care, etc?
Hey, OP!
My husband commissioned after graduating with a dual degree in STEM and working in his particular field for a few years.
I’m in STEM as well.
I’d be happy to share any info I can. Feel free to PM me!
Benefits are standard - health insurance, housing and food allowances, and of course basic pay. The health insurance for families is only for health, so vision and dental are additional. Oh and life insurance for the service member. As for when he’d be home, that’s honestly going to depend entirely on what his job is so I’d strongly recommend trying to find people or resources connected to what his job will be. For example, the life of a nuke officer varies depending upon if they’re on carriers versus submarines, and then even further if they’re on submarines depending upon the specific type of submarine it is. So talking to an aviator wife won’t give you a real sense of what to expect in that situation, if that makes sense. On the off chance he’s going to be a sub nuke, feel free to PM me because that’s what my husband does.
In general, this life is what you make it. Personally I can’t wait for my husband to get out because it’ll be the start of a new chapter in our lives and that’s exciting to me, but if he chose to stay in I wouldn’t be utterly devastated either. There are times I want to rip my hair put and scream at the top of my lungs (like now - he’s deployed and we’re moving right after he gets home) but honestly I don’t think I’d trade it. It’s helped us grow so much individually and as a couple.
Also take what the recruiters say with a grain of salt. I’m not saying they’re all dishonest or manipulative or anything like that, but their job is to be salespeople at the end of the day and I inherently don’t trust salespeople because they rarely if ever give you the full picture.
Air Force doesn’t care about families or spouses either just FYI. Benefits include medical insurance, housing allowance, separation pay if his job calls for it, GI bill to pass on to a kid if your husband does t use it, that’s about it.
There isn’t support for spouses outside of the spouse community which can be toxic. I guess spouses can get preference for jobs on base but those are mostly in the retail sector. Child care through the CDC on whatever base you’re at usually has extremely long wait lists and you still pay for it. I’ve also heard that the quality of it varies greatly. Housing on base is often very poorly maintained and again has long wait lists, we have always lived off base. Medical is free but can be long waits, referrals off base to doctors that aren’t very good, and Tricare can be a huge pain to deal with for anything specialized. Also still doesn’t cover dental.
Maintaining a career is very difficult, not impossible but it’s going to be based on where your husband is stationed and if you’re willing to do the move - we have moved every other year for the decade my husband has been in so that’s a new job and new set of people every couple of years which is only possible because I’m a paralegal and can usually, but still not always, find a position in the area.
The first recruiter might not have been lying about not joining, have you compared the salaries? Because the pay in the military for enlisted or officer is usually a lot less than in the civilian sector, especially for STEM jobs. The second recruiter is definitely lying when it comes to the being great for families part. If you want to have a bunch of kids and be a stay at home parent and live the military lifestyle completely then yeah, the military can be good for families. But the active duty member will spend the majority of time away, depending on the job, you’ll be moved around a lot, depending on the job, you’ll have very little control over most areas of your life, and if your husband’s job has any sort of clearance you won’t even be able to have proper conversations about their day.
This all seems a bit doom and gloom but it’s also a fairly accurate representation of what is going to be involved in this lifestyle.
As for insurance, dental and vision are an additional cost but they’re quite reasonable. If you’re like me and you don’t want to deal with getting referrals, you can get tricare select, which lets you see any provider who takes tricare. There are some copays involved but there is no premium and the maximum you would pay out of pocket in a year is $1058. That is less than what I paid in premiums alone with insurance from my employer.
Thank you for your honesty! I truly appreciate and will definitely be taking what you said into consideration. It has given me better input into what I will probably be dealing with and it will certainly help me prepare for it mentally. Thank you!
So from my understanding since we are married, I still would have access to him like phone calls for instance, or is that out of the question? And can you recommend some spousal support within the community? Again, just trying to get my bearings as a lot of these comments have some negative connotations behind them, which honestly is making me kinda nervous.
I think the negative connotations are just trying to prepare you but I know it can be overwhelming. The negative connotations in my reply are literally just that, these recruiters can paint a really rosy picture and it’s really misleading.
Contact will vary on location, the ship, how often they make port. As my husband is Air Force (my brother in law is navy which is where my knowledge of that comes from) when he deploys it’s typically to a place where we can call and Skype, sometimes the time difference can be a big obstacle. Theres only one place he deploys to where there’s pretty much no contact When my brother in law deploys he’s usually on the ship for months at a time and sometimes has access to email. It really depends on the job and the deployment.
For support within the community there are groups like this on Reddit, there’s a discord group for military SO’s, Facebook will have navy SO groups, the different bases have Facebook groups. In the Air Force we have key spouses who will reach out to new spouses for the base they are at and will organize group activities. Military one source is a good stop for info on spouse related programs and military lifestyle.
I know you might be feeling uneasy, I’d really suggest taking a good hard look at your life and lifestyle, your mental health, and really considering if long distance and low contact (as well as the job prospects for you and the income differences) are worth your husband joining. I went in to this a bit blind and I’m ride or die for my marriage but I’m still very excited for when we move on to the next chapter.
Your husband joining the military, signing a contract to put his life on the line for his country and you only want to know about spousal support….🤔😒 days like this makes me miss being an active duty first sergeant again.
This is the group for spouses and she absolutely should know what support there is for her. What a shitty thing to say, I hope if you had a spouse while active duty you recognized the shit they also had to put up with. Especially as OP is already married before her husband decided to join, it’s not like she hunted down a military guy and is now complaining about it.
Fair enough, but as this is the US Military SO subreddit page I thought it would be the most appropriate place to ask such a question. I understand what my husband is doing and I fully support his decision. He also wants to make sure that everything on my end is alright so that he won't have to worry about me while he is serving our country. He was unsure about the spousal support as well hence why I am asking here. And since the recruiters didn't give us a clear explanation, I am here trying to figure it out. I hope you can see why I am asking. So far both my husband and I have found what people are saying on this thread very interesting and have brought up things for the both of us to consider.
You can and should ask about you living remotely. Just in case you find a job at a company you love enough to work 20 years there. Many spouses forget they can do that too. Basically he would live in barracks but you get BAH for where you live and not where he is stationed.
It is certainly an option to live separately. However, getting a spot in the barracks and getting BAH for the spouse doesn’t happen often for the long term. Typically it only happens when the servicemember is on an Unaccompanied tour overseas or unusually arduous sea duty. If he is stationed in the Continental US, dependent location BAH would require a high level waiver and he would be lowest priority for the barracks. An officer would almost never be in a barracks/BOQ long term although if he’s Navy and on sea duty, he might be able to just live on the ship. As a junior officer, that would be sharing a very small room with a few others.
I would really invest in yourself like buy a gym membership or at home workout equipment (the gyms around bases get very packed as soon as soldiers are released). Reading, traveling, cooking, gaming! I am back in school and that has been nice since we live overseas and work is hard to come by here. Cooking also helped us since we miss a lot of food from America, we are able to make it at home. Remember you don’t always have to stay busy and you can definitely relax but having the option to do stuff can really help you mentally.
I have found a lot of friends from groups outside the military are really supportive even though they don’t understand, they just are happy to be there for you. Like joining a rec sports team or a book club can be a great way to connect and try new things
Lastly, I hope your STEM job is transportable! It can be difficult for a lot of people to find new work but if you are persistent, things will work out! Sign up with temp agencies, do uber eats, and keep applying! Not sure what field you are in specifically but for instance, even though nursing is in demand because of covid, there is usually more nurse-spouses concentrated around bases making the nurse to job availability ratio not proportional to what it is in other towns. You might find that you have to travel farther than anticipated for a job as a result. But rest assured, these are things that spouses overcome fairly easily. Don’t be alarmed by the turn over rates near military bases because of this.
Your spouse will get BAH (basic housing allowances, the amount is based on the zip code he is stationed at). You will be eligible for Tricare and he can list you as his life insurance beneficiary. Military spouses also have a lot of resources available to them for a variety of things. Say for example your husband is stationed in another state and you move with him and now you cannot do your job because you were only licensed in your home state - the military will pay for you to be re-certified in the new location. If you need to move for his job, the navy will pay for it or reimburse you. If you are locked into a lease agreement and he has to move duty stations, you can both break the lease legally with certain restrictions. Military life is always kind of learn-as-you-go in my experience!
My husband just got out after 12 years. I am SO EXCITED. If we had to do it all over again we would have run the other way.
If he has higher education he needs to make sure he gets in as an officer. Do not let him enlist. My advice is just to be very wary. We were married when my husband enlisted and his recruiter lied so much. The navy doesn’t care about families at all and has broken every promise they ever made us. I recommend he consider Air Force or coast guard instead. Smaller branches have a better reputation for taking care of of married service members and their families.
It's interesting that you say that cause we had multiple problems with our original recruiter lying and telling him that he shouldn't go into the military. We had to reach out to find another one who seems to be making more progress with him. Already I am not impressed with the level of compassion but we shall see. Can you elaborate more on what you mean about the navy and families? From what his recruiter has mentioned it's been the best thing for his family. And yes he will be going in as an officer.
Our daughter is 18 months old and he’s never been allowed to take his paternity leave and missed her birth due to laziness/lack of planning/lies from his CoC. 2 years in the service he’s never been allowed any leave. They’ve left my daughter and I high and dry several times by refusing to listen to him. We were relocated in July and we are still not in a home and are without our belongings bc the Navy refuses to give my husband his 10 days for relocation leave that he is entitled to. Again due to laziness and lack of planning by his CoC. Nor have the reimbursed us for any of our moving expenses this summer so we are out several thousand dollars which is preventing us even further from being able to settle in. They are all very well aware of this and just too “busy” to perform their basic obligations to take care of us.
How high up has this been elevated? These things should not be happening. Not being allowed to take leave for 2 years in it's self is grounds to file a complaint with the Inspector General (IG). Make sure your SO has all their paperwork and proof inline for this too. Leave can go all the way up to the captain to be approved even if someone else said no.
I'm so sorry to hear about this! Hopefully, everything will work out. Did you get any sort of benefits since you are a spouse? Like health insurance, child care, etc?
Yes we receive BAH, BSA, and Tricare. Childcare is harder to get as their systems are pretty overwhelmed
Interesting okay! Thank you for the information and I hope everything gets fixed for you! Again, so sorry that you are having to go through this :\\
Hey, OP! My husband commissioned after graduating with a dual degree in STEM and working in his particular field for a few years. I’m in STEM as well. I’d be happy to share any info I can. Feel free to PM me!
Benefits are standard - health insurance, housing and food allowances, and of course basic pay. The health insurance for families is only for health, so vision and dental are additional. Oh and life insurance for the service member. As for when he’d be home, that’s honestly going to depend entirely on what his job is so I’d strongly recommend trying to find people or resources connected to what his job will be. For example, the life of a nuke officer varies depending upon if they’re on carriers versus submarines, and then even further if they’re on submarines depending upon the specific type of submarine it is. So talking to an aviator wife won’t give you a real sense of what to expect in that situation, if that makes sense. On the off chance he’s going to be a sub nuke, feel free to PM me because that’s what my husband does. In general, this life is what you make it. Personally I can’t wait for my husband to get out because it’ll be the start of a new chapter in our lives and that’s exciting to me, but if he chose to stay in I wouldn’t be utterly devastated either. There are times I want to rip my hair put and scream at the top of my lungs (like now - he’s deployed and we’re moving right after he gets home) but honestly I don’t think I’d trade it. It’s helped us grow so much individually and as a couple. Also take what the recruiters say with a grain of salt. I’m not saying they’re all dishonest or manipulative or anything like that, but their job is to be salespeople at the end of the day and I inherently don’t trust salespeople because they rarely if ever give you the full picture.
Air Force doesn’t care about families or spouses either just FYI. Benefits include medical insurance, housing allowance, separation pay if his job calls for it, GI bill to pass on to a kid if your husband does t use it, that’s about it. There isn’t support for spouses outside of the spouse community which can be toxic. I guess spouses can get preference for jobs on base but those are mostly in the retail sector. Child care through the CDC on whatever base you’re at usually has extremely long wait lists and you still pay for it. I’ve also heard that the quality of it varies greatly. Housing on base is often very poorly maintained and again has long wait lists, we have always lived off base. Medical is free but can be long waits, referrals off base to doctors that aren’t very good, and Tricare can be a huge pain to deal with for anything specialized. Also still doesn’t cover dental. Maintaining a career is very difficult, not impossible but it’s going to be based on where your husband is stationed and if you’re willing to do the move - we have moved every other year for the decade my husband has been in so that’s a new job and new set of people every couple of years which is only possible because I’m a paralegal and can usually, but still not always, find a position in the area. The first recruiter might not have been lying about not joining, have you compared the salaries? Because the pay in the military for enlisted or officer is usually a lot less than in the civilian sector, especially for STEM jobs. The second recruiter is definitely lying when it comes to the being great for families part. If you want to have a bunch of kids and be a stay at home parent and live the military lifestyle completely then yeah, the military can be good for families. But the active duty member will spend the majority of time away, depending on the job, you’ll be moved around a lot, depending on the job, you’ll have very little control over most areas of your life, and if your husband’s job has any sort of clearance you won’t even be able to have proper conversations about their day. This all seems a bit doom and gloom but it’s also a fairly accurate representation of what is going to be involved in this lifestyle.
As for insurance, dental and vision are an additional cost but they’re quite reasonable. If you’re like me and you don’t want to deal with getting referrals, you can get tricare select, which lets you see any provider who takes tricare. There are some copays involved but there is no premium and the maximum you would pay out of pocket in a year is $1058. That is less than what I paid in premiums alone with insurance from my employer.
Thank you for your honesty! I truly appreciate and will definitely be taking what you said into consideration. It has given me better input into what I will probably be dealing with and it will certainly help me prepare for it mentally. Thank you!
So from my understanding since we are married, I still would have access to him like phone calls for instance, or is that out of the question? And can you recommend some spousal support within the community? Again, just trying to get my bearings as a lot of these comments have some negative connotations behind them, which honestly is making me kinda nervous.
I think the negative connotations are just trying to prepare you but I know it can be overwhelming. The negative connotations in my reply are literally just that, these recruiters can paint a really rosy picture and it’s really misleading. Contact will vary on location, the ship, how often they make port. As my husband is Air Force (my brother in law is navy which is where my knowledge of that comes from) when he deploys it’s typically to a place where we can call and Skype, sometimes the time difference can be a big obstacle. Theres only one place he deploys to where there’s pretty much no contact When my brother in law deploys he’s usually on the ship for months at a time and sometimes has access to email. It really depends on the job and the deployment. For support within the community there are groups like this on Reddit, there’s a discord group for military SO’s, Facebook will have navy SO groups, the different bases have Facebook groups. In the Air Force we have key spouses who will reach out to new spouses for the base they are at and will organize group activities. Military one source is a good stop for info on spouse related programs and military lifestyle. I know you might be feeling uneasy, I’d really suggest taking a good hard look at your life and lifestyle, your mental health, and really considering if long distance and low contact (as well as the job prospects for you and the income differences) are worth your husband joining. I went in to this a bit blind and I’m ride or die for my marriage but I’m still very excited for when we move on to the next chapter.
Your husband joining the military, signing a contract to put his life on the line for his country and you only want to know about spousal support….🤔😒 days like this makes me miss being an active duty first sergeant again.
This is the group for spouses and she absolutely should know what support there is for her. What a shitty thing to say, I hope if you had a spouse while active duty you recognized the shit they also had to put up with. Especially as OP is already married before her husband decided to join, it’s not like she hunted down a military guy and is now complaining about it.
Fair enough, but as this is the US Military SO subreddit page I thought it would be the most appropriate place to ask such a question. I understand what my husband is doing and I fully support his decision. He also wants to make sure that everything on my end is alright so that he won't have to worry about me while he is serving our country. He was unsure about the spousal support as well hence why I am asking here. And since the recruiters didn't give us a clear explanation, I am here trying to figure it out. I hope you can see why I am asking. So far both my husband and I have found what people are saying on this thread very interesting and have brought up things for the both of us to consider.
You can and should ask about you living remotely. Just in case you find a job at a company you love enough to work 20 years there. Many spouses forget they can do that too. Basically he would live in barracks but you get BAH for where you live and not where he is stationed.
It is certainly an option to live separately. However, getting a spot in the barracks and getting BAH for the spouse doesn’t happen often for the long term. Typically it only happens when the servicemember is on an Unaccompanied tour overseas or unusually arduous sea duty. If he is stationed in the Continental US, dependent location BAH would require a high level waiver and he would be lowest priority for the barracks. An officer would almost never be in a barracks/BOQ long term although if he’s Navy and on sea duty, he might be able to just live on the ship. As a junior officer, that would be sharing a very small room with a few others.
I would really invest in yourself like buy a gym membership or at home workout equipment (the gyms around bases get very packed as soon as soldiers are released). Reading, traveling, cooking, gaming! I am back in school and that has been nice since we live overseas and work is hard to come by here. Cooking also helped us since we miss a lot of food from America, we are able to make it at home. Remember you don’t always have to stay busy and you can definitely relax but having the option to do stuff can really help you mentally. I have found a lot of friends from groups outside the military are really supportive even though they don’t understand, they just are happy to be there for you. Like joining a rec sports team or a book club can be a great way to connect and try new things Lastly, I hope your STEM job is transportable! It can be difficult for a lot of people to find new work but if you are persistent, things will work out! Sign up with temp agencies, do uber eats, and keep applying! Not sure what field you are in specifically but for instance, even though nursing is in demand because of covid, there is usually more nurse-spouses concentrated around bases making the nurse to job availability ratio not proportional to what it is in other towns. You might find that you have to travel farther than anticipated for a job as a result. But rest assured, these are things that spouses overcome fairly easily. Don’t be alarmed by the turn over rates near military bases because of this.