A Letter on The Burden You Didn’t Ask For
My Dearest Friend,
People love to toss out the phrase, “you knew what you signed up for.” But you and I both know — that isn’t true. There was no fine print in our vows outlining deployments, distance, or the slow erosion of plans we once thought were ours to create. We didn’t sign a contract of sacrifice. We said yes to a person, not to the unspoken terms that came bundled with their service. What followed has often felt less like a choice and more like learning to juggle far too many things at once — each with its own weight and consequence.
Some of those pieces are light and forgiving, bouncing harmlessly when dropped. Others are plastic — noisy when they hit the floor but easy enough to retrieve. And some, the most fragile, are glass. Those we cradle carefully, praying they won’t shatter when life tosses us another task we didn’t ask to catch.
The Burden
I knew there would be distance, but no one truly prepared me for the ache of it — or for how relentless the responsibility would feel when I was the one keeping our family steady while my spouse was gone. What caught me most off guard wasn’t just the deployments, but the constant coming and going. The rhythm of home two weeks, gone one week, home one week, gone three — it chipped away at our stability far more than any long, predictable deployment ever did. There was no time to settle before the tempo shifted again, and suddenly I was juggling all over, trying to keep each fragile piece in the air.
I remember sitting in a briefing years ago, being told the deployment-to-dwell ratio would be twelve months home, then four to six months gone. And then came the caveat: “in those twelve months home, let’s try to make sure they’re home every single month, even if the TDY tempo is high.” The man at the front explained that if my spouse was gone from June 2nd to July 30th, it still counted as being home both months — because he was technically present on June 1st and July 31st. On paper, it looked tidy and manageable. In reality, I had spent eight weeks holding everything together alone, praying none of the glass pieces would fall and break.
I didn’t sign up for that. And yet it was placed in my hands as though it were mine to bear without question.
How It Shapes Us
The truth is, it isn’t only the institution that adds to the load, though its failures are real. Too often, programs meant to support families — sponsorship, spouse networks, key support programs — are left to wither. Leadership shrugs and says, “it’s too much effort to maintain, let’s hope our families don’t need it”, leaving us juggling with fewer and fewer hands ready to step in.
But it’s also the culture, the quiet expectations that add more weight to the air: that we will pause our careers, raise our children largely alone, and be ever-ready to bend around the mission. And when the word “dependa” is thrown like an insult, it suggests we’re holding nothing at all — when in truth, we are the ones keeping the fragile pieces from shattering.
The burden doesn’t come just once; it returns in waves. Early on, I was more likely to drop everything in tears and hope someone else would catch the pieces. Over time, I’ve learned when to press forward, when to set something down gently, and when to reach for another pair of hands.
Even now, I find myself assessing what needs my care most. I’ve learned to recognize the shifting weight of what I hold — what is fragile and must be handled with care, what can rest for a while, and what will bounce back on its own. My son, for example, has always been resilient through our moves, bouncing back again and again. But as we prepare for another one, I see that it weighs on him differently now — that what once was rubber has become glass. So I hold that more carefully, because he matters more than any checklist.
This life has taught me not only how to juggle, but how to see the beauty in the act itself — the grace in motion, the rhythm in resilience, and the quiet wisdom of knowing when to let something fall.
The Lesson
This life will hand you more than you ever asked to carry. The gift is not in holding it all, but in granting yourself grace to choose. The wisdom lies in knowing which pieces are glass, which are plastic, and which will bounce back — and in remembering that it is not failure to set something down or ask for extra hands to help juggle the load.
To the Spouse Who Carries Burdens They Never Chose
If you are reading this with a lump in your throat because you recognize yourself here — know this: you are not weak for struggling. You are not selfish for wishing someone would take the load for a while. And you are not invisible, even when it feels that way. What you carry may be unseen, but it is real. And you don’t have to juggle it all, all the time.
Lean when you can. Rest when you must. Remember that service does not mean self-erasure. And when the rhythm feels unrelenting, may you remember that not every ball needs to stay in the air — and that knowing which ones matter most is its own kind of strength.
