October 7, 2025 • 39 mins
After 13 years as a military spouse, Heather Sweeney walked away from a marriage that had overshadowed her identity. Left to raise two young children on her own, she began a powerful journey of self-discovery, healing, and reinvention.
Heather joins us to talk about her upcoming memoir Camouflage: How I Emerged from the Shadows of a Military Marriage—a raw, honest look at divorce, single motherhood, and the quiet courage it takes to become who you really are.
In this episode, we talk about:
-- Losing—and reclaiming—your voice
-- The quiet toll of military life on women
-- Divorce, freedom, and starting over
-- Reclaiming your worth—one chapter at a time
If you've ever felt like you've disappeared inside your own life—this episode is for you.
Connect with Heather:
Instagram: @writersweeney
X/Twitter: @WriterSweeney
Threads: @writersweeney
Bluesky: heathersweeney.bsky.social
Substack: heathersweeney.substack.com
Website: heatherlsweeney.com
Heather joins us to talk about her upcoming memoir Camouflage: How I Emerged from the Shadows of a Military Marriage—a raw, honest look at divorce, single motherhood, and the quiet courage it takes to become who you really are.
In this episode, we talk about:
-- Losing—and reclaiming—your voice
-- The quiet toll of military life on women
-- Divorce, freedom, and starting over
-- Reclaiming your worth—one chapter at a time
If you've ever felt like you've disappeared inside your own life—this episode is for you.
Connect with Heather:
Instagram: @writersweeney
X/Twitter: @WriterSweeney
Threads: @writersweeney
Bluesky: heathersweeney.bsky.social
Substack: heathersweeney.substack.com
Website: heatherlsweeney.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to The Rewrite, a podcast about divorce, choice and
new beginnings. I'm your host Wendy Sloan, former TV producer,
mom of two and one sweet golden retriever. This is
a space for real talk about the moments that break us,
the choices that define us, and the power we have
to begin again. You'll hear personal stories, heartfelt insights, and
(00:22):
honest conversations about healing relationships and reclaiming your life one
choice at a time. I'll be joined by experts in divorce, finance,
mental health, wellness and more and everything you need to
support your next chapter. The most powerful chapters might be
the ones you write next. Let's begin your rewrite together.
This episode is brought to in part by the Needle
(00:44):
Kuda Law Firm guidance that Moves lives forward. Welcome back
to the Rewrite. I'm your host Wendy Sloan, and my
guest today is the author of the upcoming book Camouflage,
How I Emerged from the Shadows of a Military Marriage
and memoir about reclaiming her identity after a thirteen your
military marriage and divorce. Her work has appeared in The
New York Times, The Washington Post, Today, dot com and more,
(01:06):
focusing on divorce, military life, parenting, women's health. She's joining
me to share her story to support others navigating similar paths.
Her memory comes out this month. I'm so excited. Welcome
to my show, Heather Sweeney.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Thanks so much for having me, Wendy, I'm excited to
be here.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I'm so excited for you to share your story, which
is I know is going to be so helpful to
so many people that are listening today, and that can
help you to listen. Yes, let's start with your marriage,
your being a military wife, and that.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Journey absolutely so. I got married pretty young.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I had just turned twenty four and my husband was
only twenty three, and shortly before we got married, or
before we got married, he told me he wanted to
join the military, And of course I knew absolutely nothing
about military life or being a military spouse.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Quite frankly, I don't think he really did either.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
But we were young and we were in love, and
I thought, let's just go for it. Do your thing,
you have a career dream, I will follow you wherever
you go. And it didn't take long for me to
realize how difficult military life and being the wife of
a service member was going to be.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I kind of expected that.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
We would move around a lot, and I would have
trouble maintaining a career because of those moves. I had
to be adaptable, I had to be flexible. I was
lonely a lot. I was alone all the day. He
traveled all the time, and he was all over the world.
But I think one of the hardest things I realized
was when you have a military marriage and you're dealing
(02:46):
with all of those stressors to begin with, when you
realize that your marriage is in trouble, it is so
challenging to find a way to fix it when half
of your marriage is very rarely home. So I guess
it was after he came back from his first deployment
in Iraq and things were really rocky, and I didn't
(03:08):
realize that was actually normal. There's actually a term for that.
It's called reintegration, and nobody told me that for some reason,
but it's very common where when you've been separated for
six months to a year or however long the deployment is,
the service member comes back and he's used to being
on his own and not having to deal with a
wife or kids or someone else's schedule and the wife
(03:31):
is at home dealing with the kids and creating their
own schedule, and you know, because you have to figure
out life on your own when he's gone. So we fought,
and things were just odd, and I just had this.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Gut feeling things just aren't right.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
We need to go to counseling, we need to do something,
but we couldn't because material Well not only that, about
four months after he got back from his first deployment,
and I'll say also when he left for his first deployment,
our son was six months old and I was in
graduate school getting a master's degree. So life was just crazy.
And so when he got back, I thought, this is perfect.
(04:07):
Our son just turned one. We have time to reconnect.
But four months after he got home, we moved to Japan.
So we're doing this huge overseas move. I'm saying goodbye
to my family. So I thought, well, we'll.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Just fix things when we get there. But when we
got there, it was a very very.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Small military community and it was a little town called Sassovo, Japan,
and we actually ended up my ex husband was an officer,
and so he interacted at his job with the people
that we would be going to counseling if we went
(04:45):
to marriage counseling, and so like, well, we can't go
to counseling. Here we go out singing karaoke with these people.
We socialize with these people. So we just were like, well,
we can figure this out. We started talking about our problems.
Let's just communicate. So we lived there for three years,
and for three years we just tried to wing it.
So we moved to Virginia, which is where I currently live,
(05:06):
and by then we had a daughter as well, and
things were just not great. And finally it was just awful,
and I said, we have to go to counseling. So
we tried counseling and things were going great with counseling,
and then the Navy sent him away for about two
months and then he came back and we were just
completely at square one. So we kind of talked back
(05:28):
and forth about divorce for literally years, and we just couldn't.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
We saw three different marriage counselors.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
We were in and out of counseling for a year,
and we just it was time to call it quits.
And I said, I'm done, I'm not happy, and we
need to move on with our lives.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
But you stuck in there for thirteen years.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Thirteen years, yes, and you know, looking back on it now,
people ask me all the time, do you wish you
had gotten out earlier?
Speaker 2 (05:59):
And in a way yes, I spit in a way no.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
And when we first started talking about divorce, I was
a stay at home mom.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
I didn't have a job. We were living in Japan.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
It was just logistically, I thought to myself, I can't
do this.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
What am I going to do?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
I don't have any money, I don't have any family nearby.
So I just pushed so hard to fix a marriage
that ultimately wasn't fixable.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So yeah, we ended up getting it.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
An uncontested divorce, and I found myself moving into a
little apartment and even custody schedules when you're divorcing, and
it's hard to be a military spouse, but it's also
difficult divorcing someone in the military. We had fifty to
fifty custody of the kids, and it was never fifty
to fifty because he was gone all the time, and
(06:48):
I couldn't fight that. There was nothing I could do
because that was just his job and his career, and
he would He ultimately got stationed in Hawaii at one point.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
And so I'm in Virginia with the kids and he's
in Hawaii.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
For three years, and the custody schedules were just constantly
all over the place.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
And so, but did you during that time, did you
have to send the kids to Hawaii?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I did. It was heartbreaking.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
He was there. Who that's so far away.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I can't even it is it was.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
I was just heartbroken because, like I said, I did
a lot of the parenting by myself during the marriage anyway.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
So I was the one used to being with the
kids and he was used to.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Being a part and so when he told me he
got orders, I know. We discussed the custody and he said,
I would like for the kids to stay with you
and stay in their school during the school year. And
at this point they were both in elementary school, so
they were young. And he said, I want to take
them to Hawaii for ten weeks every summer. And I
ended up seeing an attorney, uh, the same attorney that
(07:53):
I had spoken to when I was getting divorced. I said,
I don't want to do this. I don't want to
put my kids on a and send them to Hawaii.
And I live in Virginia Beach. It's very, very highly
populated with military service members. We have a lot of
military bases here. There are a lot of military families.
And this attorney actually says to me, she specialized in military.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Divorces, and she said, you will lose if you take
this to court.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
The judges around here are very sympathetic to service members
who you know, your ex husband wants to spend time
with his kids, and judges want to help them spend
time with their kids when they can't be at the
you know where the kids are.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
So yes, two summers.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
We didn't have to do it the first summer he
got there because he didn't have a house yet. But
for two summers I had to send the kids for
ten weeks to Hawaii.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
It was heartbreaking.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I can't imagine, especially you know, obviously we want them
to spend time with their father as well, but to
be be the one that was the primary for thirteen years,
let's say, because he was a and then to have
to that's hard on not just you, but it's hard
on the kids, I would imagine as well.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
It is.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
It was heartbreaking because I'm sure there's plenty of people
that are listening that had this similar experience, maybe not military,
maybe that are they don't know how to get through this.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
I even had a hard time at the beginning just
sending them to his house for the weekends.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I didn't know what to do with myself. But on
the positive side.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Of that, I did learn a lot about self care
because I said, Okay, I've got to send my kids away.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I feel like I'm missing a limb while they're going.
But I have to take care of myself.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
And I am tired during the week because I'm the
one doing all of the school stuff, and you need
to do your homework, and you need to go to
bed on time.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Let's get into the bathtub.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
And on the weekends they got to go have fun,
do fun things with their father. But that was my
time to recharge. I joined a running club and I
tried to start dating, and so that was I try
to tell myself, youse, this time, don't be upset. They're
with their father. You know he wants to spend time
(10:11):
with them. Because I do realize there are some women
who aren't so lucky. The fathers aren't around. You get
divorced and they don't have the luxury of having a
co parent, and I did, even though the schedule is
very unpredictable. This was a man who wanted to spend
time with his kids.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
So the healthiest way for you and for your kids
is to be the best version of you, so to
take care of you and do self care. Gosh, we
talk about that so much on this podcast, self care,
because be the best version of you. That's the best
thing you can get for your kids. Do for your kids.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
It's so important.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
It's so important because when your tank is empty, your
patience is gone, and you just need the energy to
be there for them because they're going through the divorce too.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
It's not just you. Your kids are dealing with it too.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
And I was the one who moved out and they
came with me into an apartment. So we went for
in this big house with a fenced in backyard where
the dog couldn't run around, to this little apartment where
we could hear everybody moving around at any given time.
And of course I ended up loving my apartment, and
they loved their new school.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
They just switched schools. But yeah, it was just so
hard all the way around.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
And even when he came back from Hawaii, I was
still here I decided to stay here. I contemplated moving
back with my parents in Florida, but I decided to
stay here in Virginia. And even when my ex came
back from Hawaii, he was here for a short period
of time. Then he got deployed for a year, and
so then it was just me again, and so the
custody schedule changed all over again. At that point, my
(11:42):
son was in high school and COVID was starting, and
that was weird too. But yeah, it's not just a
military marriage that's tough. It's it's the divorce that's really unique.
It's a unique divorced situation.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
So when you when you were and when you were
in when you were in the marriage for thirty years
with the kids and he was gone a lot, how
was that? How was that life? How was it for you?
Did you eventually get used to it or did you
just adjust to it and you found, you know, a
new way. Besides it sounds like it became more turbulent
(12:18):
when he would come back.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
It was I did get used to it.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
And when I lived in Japan, I was with a
very very tight knit group of military spouses, and it
was the epitome of the phrase it takes a village.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
We watched each other's.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Kids, We played bunko, we had dinners together, and we
just we went grocery shopping for each other things like that.
And I guess I also realized the marriage was in
trouble because I started looking forward to him leaving.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
And I'll never forget. There was one.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Time he was leaving and I think our daughter was
maybe she was two or three months old, very young.
Our son was about four, and he left and I
got the stomach flu, and.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
I thought to myself, I had the stomach flu.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
I've got these two young kids, one of whom is
still nursing, and life is easier when my husband is gone,
because it just we fought, and I would try not
to fight in front of the kids, and he just
it was just so turbulent and so chaotic, and then
we would have the silent treatment, and there was a
(13:29):
sense of relief when I knew he was leaving. It
was just a sense of relief for me because life
is just easier when he was gone. And that was
a huge red flag, obviously.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
And also I think from hearing what you're saying that
you were in your routine, you know you had the
other military wives to bond with than to do things with,
and then when he came home it was I don't
want to say it, I take these words, but it
was like almost a disruption because it was different. We're
going to take a really quick break for one of
(13:59):
our sponsors, and we're going to be right back, and
I'm going to ask you, thirteen years of navigating a
military life, what do you want wish that more people
understood about the realization of being a military spouse. We'll
ask you that question. I'm talking to Heather Sweeney. She's
the author of the upcoming Camouflage How I Emerge From
the Shadows of a Military Marriage, a memoir about reclaiming
(14:20):
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(15:50):
years navigating a military life, what do you wish more people?
Understood about that about being a military spouse.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
You know, there's a thing that military spouses to talk about,
and it's the military civilian divide. And there's just so
much that I think the civilian community doesn't know about
military families.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
And I think people see.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Movies and they see TV shows, and they see the
romantic homecomings and the big hugs, and I think that
the behind the scenes reality of military life is that
spouses go through these huge stressors.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
And there's very little support.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
And one thing I always had a problem with the
first time my then husband deployed, I remember I wrote
down in my journal and I used a lot of
my journals to write my book. I wrote down in
my journal, while you know, I'm supporting his career and
he's going off to Iraq, and I'm worried about him.
I'm worried for his safety, and he's stressed, and he's
(16:57):
you know, maybe in danger.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
But as on supporting him, who's going to support me?
Speaker 3 (17:03):
And we lived in Pensacola, Florida the first time he deployed,
and I was not very close with the other military spouses,
and he deployed by himself. It was something called an
individual augmentee, and so he didn't deploy with the commands. Again,
not the romantic scene that you see in movies. I
(17:23):
took him to the airport and he flew to Texas
and from there to Kuwait and from there to.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Iraq, and I was all on my own.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
My parents weren't nearby, and my other military spouse friends
that I knew their husbands weren't deployed. They were still there,
and so nobody could really commiserate with what I was
going through, and so it was very, very lonely. But
another thing that a lot of people probably don't know
is that we're not We're lonely and we're dealing with
these challenges, but we're expected to not complain about it
(17:56):
because a lot what a lot of people will say, well,
you knew what you were getting into when you signed
up for this, you knew who you were marrying, and
I always equated to, well, when you become a mother
for the first time, you have no idea what being
a mother is like until you're actually in it. People
can give you advice and tell you what to expect
until they're blue in the face, but you don't know
(18:17):
what it's like to be a mother or a military.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Spouse until you're in the thick of it.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
And I think another thing that military spouses can't stand
when people say is, oh, my.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Husband went away for two days. I miss them so much.
I don't know what to do. And we're all like, oh, gosh,
my husband's been gone for six months. And you know,
we are very strong and very resilient. And I one
thing I say in my.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Book is I think that the skills that I learned
as a military spouse, being resilient, being adaptable, being flexible,
all of those skills actually trained me for life after divorce,
because those are all of the things I needed. I
need to be adaptable, flexible, resilient, and I was very
(19:04):
lonely after divorce. I did get a happy ending, but
the dating was was difficult, and I I just needed
to find myself and I think part of that was
using the skills as a military spouse and just saying,
you know what, I'm going to figure out who I
(19:25):
am on the other side of divorce, who I am
without this man, who I am? And I really do
attribute the skills that I learned as a military spouse
to being the person I am and being the partner
that I am to my boyfriend today.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
So what was it like rebuilding your life and your identity,
because it had to be huge after your divorce.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
It was. It really was, because when you become a
military spouse, that really is your full time job there there,
you know, I didn't.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
It was a stay at home mom for many years.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
And part of that, especially when I lived in Japan,
was going to spouse events, showing up as you know,
his spouse, and going to officer spouse events and just
being a face in the community. And so when I
got divorced, I'm like, well, I don't have any idea
who Heather is anymore. She's just completely gone. She was,
(20:21):
you know, his wife and the kid's mom. And I
did do a lot of hard work in therapy that
I always highly recommend therapy to everybody getting divorced, not
just because it's a hard time that you're going through,
but I learned a lot about myself and the role
(20:43):
I played in the divorce and what I needed to
I don't want to say fixed, because it wasn't broken,
but what I had to improve upon if I wanted
to be successful in another relationship, and for me, that
thing I was very bad.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
At communicating my needs.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
So all of these times that we would get in
these arguments, and I'm trying to put on this the
poise of a military spouse, I wasn't communicating with him, well,
you're not meeting my needs and I'm very lonely, and
I feel like you don't respect me. And I did
not verbalize any of those things until it was too late.
So I learned how to do that, and I just
(21:22):
kind of slowly figured out. I started dating.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I went on a lot of really really.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Bad first dates, but those dates were great lessons and
learning what I wanted in a relationship and what I
didn't want in a relationship, and I ultimately learned.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Like I said, Virginia Beach has a very high population of.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Military people, and a lot of the dates I went
on were service members, and I just realized, I can't
do this again, and some people can and some people
love the lifestyle. And I just thought to myself, I
just I can't deal with the day employments anymore. And
also I thought about my kids and thinking, well, their
(22:05):
father's still in the military. He's still he's retired now,
their father, but he continued ten more years in his
military career, and I thought, well, if I have a
partner who's also in the military, then my kids will
have two father figures who are deploying and moving and
having to figure out custody schedules.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
It would just it was just I couldn't do it.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
So my partner now is not in the military, and
I'm very happy with that.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Oh okay, well I can understand why you say that.
So was there a specific moment after you got divorced
that you felt yourself When did you start re emerging
as the person that you are now or did it
take time or was it the dating, Was it when
you started writing? And when was the moment you started writing?
Was my next question?
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Well, that's another story.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
So part of one of the issues that we had
in the marriage was I did I'd start writing while
we were still married, and I started a blog that
was about military spouse life and the blog got pretty popular,
and after a couple of years of blogging, I landed
myself a job at a website working writing about military issues,
(23:21):
and I started getting bigger gigs. I was offered to
write for the New York Times, which is a very
big deal, and my ex husband at the time did
not want me to write under my married name for
whatever reason, and I guess he just wanted to protect
(23:41):
our privacy. But it kind of snowballed from there where
I was writing anonymously for a very long time, and
I felt like he wasn't supporting something that I was
very passionate about.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
And so when we started the process of divorce.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
In the state of Regina, if you have children, you
have to be separated for an entire year.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
And so I promised him, I said, I will not write.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
About the divorce until the divorce is finalized, so we
have a whole year. I didn't even want to write
about it. Everything was too raw. I just didn't want
anything to come off angry or bitter, anything that my
children could see. Somewhere along the line, you know, I
just wanted to kind of journal And I think where
(24:28):
when I really realized that I had found myself and
my own voice was when the day of the divorce.
I had planned this with the New York Times editor
that I had worked with twice before that I announced
my divorce in the New York Times. Most people want
(24:49):
to announce their weddings. I announced that the New York Times,
I had written this post and my court date kept
getting pushed back, and the New York Times editor said,
I I got your essay. Let's I'll sit on it
until you give me the go ahead. And as I
was walking out of the courtroom as a divorced woman
with my maiden name restored, I emailed the editor and said,
(25:14):
let's go for it.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
And within a couple hours the post was live.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
And I think that for me, and I wrote, I started,
I had been writing under my maiden name, and I
legally changed back to my maiden name the day of
the divorce, and so for me, it was really me
writing as me instead of me writing as someone Oh
definitely maiden name, but I go by my marry name.
(25:39):
And it was extremely empowering.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
I was going to say that empowering.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Wow it was.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
And I pushed him the link and said, I just
want to give you a heads up that this went live,
and he said it's a great essay.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Congratulations, and yeah, so you.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Know I'm sure that writing that when did when? Okay,
we had to back up. Congratulations and all that and wow,
just wow, Heather, that's all I got to say. You
starting to write about you know, your life as a
military wife, and was so probably so helpful because some
people don't know how to express themselves like that or
(26:23):
talk about it or can't talk about it. So there
you were making a big difference. And had you not
been the military wife, you wouldn't be who you are
today and this book wouldn't be coming out right. I
totally when did they? Okay, what inspired you to write Camouflage?
Obviously what you went through? And the name, the title?
What does that title mean to you?
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Oh? The title, it's funny, that's not the original title.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Uh. The original title was Permanent change of Station, which means, uh,
that's what the military calls a move. It's just they
love their it's a peace, they love their acronyms. But
I went, I wanted to have a title that had
kind of a double meaning, that was a phrase that
was military related but also kind of related to what
(27:13):
was going on in my life. And I ended up
getting a developmental editor and she said, no, nobody knows
what that means. You know, if you're not military, nobody
knows what a you know, what a PCs is. So
she said, let's brainstorm. Just think of all sorts of
military terms. That we can possibly use, no matter how
off the wall. So I made this huge list. I
(27:35):
must have listed, you know, twenty thirty terms. And so
she went down to listen to emails. She said, camouflage.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
That's it. That is the title.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
It's so perfect.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Thank you and I you know, so she helped me
brainstorm that.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
But really the inspiration behind writing the book, I really
never thought I was going to write a memoir. I
was writing a novel about something completely different, and at work,
I wrote this article. It was this little you know,
I think it was like five marriage tips from a
divorced military spouse. And it went up and I started
(28:13):
getting floods of messages from women because military divorce isn't
really talked about.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Nobody really wants to talk about that.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
I don't know if because there's shame to it that
that you know, in the military, there's there's even a
stigma going to therapy because you know, military is kind
of synonymous with strength and you know, success, and you
don't want to think of anything as a failure. And
you know, while I don't think of my divorce as
(28:41):
a failure, it could be construed that way. But also,
I think military spouses are just so used to their
titles being wrapped up in their husband's career that they
get divorced, and there is some shame, and you know,
it's hard starting over, no matter who you're married you
(29:02):
were married to. And so I started getting all of
these emails from people asking me logistical questions about you know,
what kind of lawyer did you see and things like that,
and everyone of the emails said, could you please write
more about this?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
We want to know more about this. Nobody talks about this.
I feel so alone.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
And I thought, okay, maybe I've got something here. I'm
not quite sure I have enough material for a book.
I'll go back to all of my journals and just see.
So I started writing the book, and I think it
was about twenty eighteen, and it took me a long
time to write the first draft, a couple of years
because I was going through all my journals and reading
(29:43):
and it was I went through about twenty years worth
of journals.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Wow, And sure.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Enough I had a really long, long first draft that
I had to revise and cut a lot, and I.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Thought, okay, I can do this. And there it is there.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
It was there, it is there, It's born. So Heather's Finish.
She's the author of the upcoming book of memoir I'm
Sorry Camouflage, How I emerged from the shadows of a
military marriage and memoir about reclaiming her identity after thirteen
year military marriage and divorce. It's pretty amazing. It's going
to be so helpful to so many people out there,
even if they weren't married to someone that was in
(30:22):
the military, because you can feel alone in your marriage
even when your husband's with you. So many people feel
like that as well. So I'm sure writing this played
a huge part in your healing.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
It did it did? What? Did you get it out
of my system? Right?
Speaker 1 (30:42):
And your kids? Were your kids fine through all this?
I mean, we're the finest could be.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Were they with the book or with the whole divorce?
It's the whole divorce with everything, They were okay. My
daughter was five and my son was nine, and they
seemed pretty okay. You know, we didn't fight a lot
after the divorce, and we kind of talked through everything.
We sat down together with the kids to tell them
(31:08):
about the divorce. We tried to do things together as
much as possible at the beginning, just to have some
sort of normalcy, and I did put them in counseling briefly,
just because I thought I should because they were so young,
and I just never wanted to regret not doing it.
But it was a very brief stint in therapy for
(31:30):
them and Mike's husband, we would go to some of
the sessions together with the kids, and the therapist was just,
you know, your kids are okay with this. They're talking
about this. They're very okay with it. Yeah, so you know,
and they're okay with the book too. They neither of
them have read it yet, they will, they say they will.
That they both know about the book, they know what
(31:53):
it's about, so.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
They know Mom's making a difference in helping so many people.
So does rewriting your story, you're rewriting your story mean
to you.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Well, it means multiple things, since I am a writer.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I think for me, I think I stayed in the
marriage as long as I did because I was so
terrified of change. I knew that everything about my life
was going to change. And there came a point where
I said, I'm just so unhappy and I can't live
like this anymore, and I need to find my own happiness.
(32:28):
And I also didn't want my kids to think that
that was what a relationship was like. Either they needed
to see something that was healthy and not the fighting
or the or the you know, the not talking to
each other, the passive aggressive things. So for me, it
proved that I was so much stronger than I thought
I was, even though I was a military spouse, and
(32:50):
I proved to myself during my marriage that I was
strong as a military spouse. Dealing with all of those challenges,
moving on and leaving a marriage that wasn't serving me
anymore made me feel so empowered. And while it was
hard at first, of course, I try to warn everybody,
you know, it's the greatest thing on the other side,
(33:12):
don't fear the other side of divorce. But it's not
always easy. It's not going to be easy from the
get go. And someone had once told me the first
year of your life after divorce is going to be
the hardest, and at first I kind of frozen fear
when I heard that, But looking back, I'm so glad
that she said that to me because it gave me
kind of an end point goal. And I'll never forget
(33:35):
sitting on my deck of my apartment and it was
the one year anniversary of my divorce, and I had
a glass of wine and I was sitting there swirling
the wine. And I was sitting and I was overlooking
this little pond of my apartment, and I thought, I
am thriving, and I was so proud of myself, and
I thought the first year was the hardest year of
(33:57):
probably my entire life. But here I was.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Dating, doing the single mom thing. The kids were okay.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
I loved my apartment, I loved my neighbors, and I
was just so positive about the path that I was
on and I was so thankful that I did it.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
And you were okay, and I was okay. I was
more than okay.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
And oh my god, for so many people listening, just
hearing you say that, it's going to mean so much
to so many people that are thinking that they can't
get to the other side. And I always say that
there is happy ever after. The sun is going to
rise again, and there's going to be great things, and
you're going to wind up being more mindful, which is
a lot of my podcasts now I talk about being mindful.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
I love Okay.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
So the chapter of your life that you're writing now, Heather, Oh.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Wow, the chapter I'm writing now.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Well, I have been in a ten year relationship with
my boyfriend now and he is an amazing stepfather to
my children. But I am jumping into the empty yester chapter. Wow,
my children are in college. I've got a freshman and
a senior, and so because my boyfriend has never known me,
(35:18):
you know, apart from the kids, really, this will be
our chance to kind of do the empty nest thing together.
And of course we're we're both so proud of the kids,
and we love the kids.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
But this is kind of our chapter too, you know,
be alone.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
There's another book that's going to be coming to maybe first.
How happy was this? This? This, just this whole talk
with you made me so happy.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Thank you me too.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
I'm just sharing, just sharing your story. I I encourage
everyone to read Heather's book. It's an upcoming memoir, How
I Emerged Camouflage, How I Emerge from the Shadows of
the Military Marriage, a memoir about reclaiming her identity after
a thirteen year military marriage and divorce. Pretty amazing journey
you would not have been. You're still rewriting your story
because now you're about to rewrite it again. Being an
(36:12):
empty nester and I can tell you that you still
come home. My kids are three, two and three years
out of second and third year working in the workforce,
out of college. When they were when they were in college,
I never really felt empty nests, even though people always
said because I think I went to their games at
the football games and been to visit them in college
and et cetera. So I never felt it truly, even
(36:34):
though it was different, and they still come home to
this day.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
I feel I build be home every couple of months,
so yeah, they maybe yeah, true empty nesters, but we'll
definitely have some quiet time.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Yes, a lot more quiet time.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
That's not right.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
So I'm so happy for you. And what's your advice
to people out there? Like, like, you tiptoed into the
dating and you did a little bit more military dating,
and you knew that that was just not going to
be the life. But in hindsight, again, if you had
not been a military wife in the first place, this
memoir would had been written and your journey might have
been completely different.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Absolutely, And I do believe that everything happens for a reason,
and I believe that I stayed in the marriage as
long as I did for a reason. And I learned
so much from it, and I'm very thankful for the marriage.
I never regret it. I never say, you know that
I regret meeting him. It was meant to be. The
(37:31):
marriage was meant to be. As long as it was,
it meant to teach me things, not just about myself
as a partner, but what I'm capable of doing and
the woman I'm capable of being.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
I think everyone also needs to realize that whoever comes
into our life, whether it's a has been a boyfriend,
a friend there, and even if we lose them at
some point where they teach us a lesson. Everything that
we go through teaches us a lesson, right, and there's
so many more lessons to learn. And I'm excited because
I know you're going to have a new book coming out,
and I thank you for sharing this story, and I
(38:05):
encourage everyone to You don't have to be a military
wife to read this book. This is a book for everyone.
Thank you so much for sharing your story and I'm
so happy for you.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Thanks so much, Wendy. I love being here. Thanks for having.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Me, Thanks so much. Come back again for sure. I
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(38:40):
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(39:03):
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zero zero
Welcome to The Rewrite, a podcast about divorce, choice and
new beginnings. I'm your host Wendy Sloan, former TV producer,
mom of two and one sweet golden retriever. This is
a space for real talk about the moments that break us,
the choices that define us, and the power we have
to begin again. You'll hear personal stories, heartfelt insights, and
(00:22):
honest conversations about healing relationships and reclaiming your life one
choice at a time. I'll be joined by experts in divorce, finance,
mental health, wellness and more and everything you need to
support your next chapter. The most powerful chapters might be
the ones you write next. Let's begin your rewrite together.
This episode is brought to in part by the Needle
(00:44):
Kuda Law Firm guidance that Moves lives forward. Welcome back
to the Rewrite. I'm your host Wendy Sloan, and my
guest today is the author of the upcoming book Camouflage,
How I Emerged from the Shadows of a Military Marriage
and memoir about reclaiming her identity after a thirteen your
military marriage and divorce. Her work has appeared in The
New York Times, The Washington Post, Today, dot com and more,
(01:06):
focusing on divorce, military life, parenting, women's health. She's joining
me to share her story to support others navigating similar paths.
Her memory comes out this month. I'm so excited. Welcome
to my show, Heather Sweeney.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Thanks so much for having me, Wendy, I'm excited to
be here.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
I'm so excited for you to share your story, which
is I know is going to be so helpful to
so many people that are listening today, and that can
help you to listen. Yes, let's start with your marriage,
your being a military wife, and that.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Journey absolutely so. I got married pretty young.
Speaker 3 (01:43):
I had just turned twenty four and my husband was
only twenty three, and shortly before we got married, or
before we got married, he told me he wanted to
join the military, And of course I knew absolutely nothing
about military life or being a military spouse.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Quite frankly, I don't think he really did either.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
But we were young and we were in love, and
I thought, let's just go for it. Do your thing,
you have a career dream, I will follow you wherever
you go. And it didn't take long for me to
realize how difficult military life and being the wife of
a service member was going to be.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I kind of expected that.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
We would move around a lot, and I would have
trouble maintaining a career because of those moves. I had
to be adaptable, I had to be flexible. I was
lonely a lot. I was alone all the day. He
traveled all the time, and he was all over the world.
But I think one of the hardest things I realized
was when you have a military marriage and you're dealing
(02:46):
with all of those stressors to begin with, when you
realize that your marriage is in trouble, it is so
challenging to find a way to fix it when half
of your marriage is very rarely home. So I guess
it was after he came back from his first deployment
in Iraq and things were really rocky, and I didn't
(03:08):
realize that was actually normal. There's actually a term for that.
It's called reintegration, and nobody told me that for some reason,
but it's very common where when you've been separated for
six months to a year or however long the deployment is,
the service member comes back and he's used to being
on his own and not having to deal with a
wife or kids or someone else's schedule and the wife
(03:31):
is at home dealing with the kids and creating their
own schedule, and you know, because you have to figure
out life on your own when he's gone. So we fought,
and things were just odd, and I just had this.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
Gut feeling things just aren't right.
Speaker 3 (03:45):
We need to go to counseling, we need to do something,
but we couldn't because material Well not only that, about
four months after he got back from his first deployment,
and I'll say also when he left for his first deployment,
our son was six months old and I was in
graduate school getting a master's degree. So life was just crazy.
And so when he got back, I thought, this is perfect.
(04:07):
Our son just turned one. We have time to reconnect.
But four months after he got home, we moved to Japan.
So we're doing this huge overseas move. I'm saying goodbye
to my family. So I thought, well, we'll.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Just fix things when we get there. But when we
got there, it was a very very.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Small military community and it was a little town called Sassovo, Japan,
and we actually ended up my ex husband was an officer,
and so he interacted at his job with the people
that we would be going to counseling if we went
(04:45):
to marriage counseling, and so like, well, we can't go
to counseling. Here we go out singing karaoke with these people.
We socialize with these people. So we just were like, well,
we can figure this out. We started talking about our problems.
Let's just communicate. So we lived there for three years,
and for three years we just tried to wing it.
So we moved to Virginia, which is where I currently live,
(05:06):
and by then we had a daughter as well, and
things were just not great. And finally it was just awful,
and I said, we have to go to counseling. So
we tried counseling and things were going great with counseling,
and then the Navy sent him away for about two
months and then he came back and we were just
completely at square one. So we kind of talked back
(05:28):
and forth about divorce for literally years, and we just couldn't.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
We saw three different marriage counselors.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
We were in and out of counseling for a year,
and we just it was time to call it quits.
And I said, I'm done, I'm not happy, and we
need to move on with our lives.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
But you stuck in there for thirteen years.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
Thirteen years, yes, and you know, looking back on it now,
people ask me all the time, do you wish you
had gotten out earlier?
Speaker 2 (05:59):
And in a way yes, I spit in a way no.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
And when we first started talking about divorce, I was
a stay at home mom.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
I didn't have a job. We were living in Japan.
Speaker 3 (06:07):
It was just logistically, I thought to myself, I can't
do this.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
What am I going to do?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
I don't have any money, I don't have any family nearby.
So I just pushed so hard to fix a marriage
that ultimately wasn't fixable.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
So yeah, we ended up getting it.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
An uncontested divorce, and I found myself moving into a
little apartment and even custody schedules when you're divorcing, and
it's hard to be a military spouse, but it's also
difficult divorcing someone in the military. We had fifty to
fifty custody of the kids, and it was never fifty
to fifty because he was gone all the time, and
(06:48):
I couldn't fight that. There was nothing I could do
because that was just his job and his career, and
he would He ultimately got stationed in Hawaii at one point.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
And so I'm in Virginia with the kids and he's
in Hawaii.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
For three years, and the custody schedules were just constantly
all over the place.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
And so, but did you during that time, did you
have to send the kids to Hawaii?
Speaker 2 (07:09):
I did. It was heartbreaking.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
He was there. Who that's so far away.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I can't even it is it was.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
I was just heartbroken because, like I said, I did
a lot of the parenting by myself during the marriage anyway.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
So I was the one used to being with the
kids and he was used to.
Speaker 3 (07:31):
Being a part and so when he told me he
got orders, I know. We discussed the custody and he said,
I would like for the kids to stay with you
and stay in their school during the school year. And
at this point they were both in elementary school, so
they were young. And he said, I want to take
them to Hawaii for ten weeks every summer. And I
ended up seeing an attorney, uh, the same attorney that
(07:53):
I had spoken to when I was getting divorced. I said,
I don't want to do this. I don't want to
put my kids on a and send them to Hawaii.
And I live in Virginia Beach. It's very, very highly
populated with military service members. We have a lot of
military bases here. There are a lot of military families.
And this attorney actually says to me, she specialized in military.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Divorces, and she said, you will lose if you take
this to court.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
The judges around here are very sympathetic to service members
who you know, your ex husband wants to spend time
with his kids, and judges want to help them spend
time with their kids when they can't be at the
you know where the kids are.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
So yes, two summers.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
We didn't have to do it the first summer he
got there because he didn't have a house yet. But
for two summers I had to send the kids for
ten weeks to Hawaii.
Speaker 2 (08:46):
It was heartbreaking.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I can't imagine, especially you know, obviously we want them
to spend time with their father as well, but to
be be the one that was the primary for thirteen years,
let's say, because he was a and then to have
to that's hard on not just you, but it's hard
on the kids, I would imagine as well.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
It is.
Speaker 1 (09:07):
It was heartbreaking because I'm sure there's plenty of people
that are listening that had this similar experience, maybe not military,
maybe that are they don't know how to get through this.
Speaker 3 (09:19):
I even had a hard time at the beginning just
sending them to his house for the weekends.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
I didn't know what to do with myself. But on
the positive side.
Speaker 3 (09:28):
Of that, I did learn a lot about self care
because I said, Okay, I've got to send my kids away.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I feel like I'm missing a limb while they're going.
But I have to take care of myself.
Speaker 3 (09:41):
And I am tired during the week because I'm the
one doing all of the school stuff, and you need
to do your homework, and you need to go to
bed on time.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
Let's get into the bathtub.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
And on the weekends they got to go have fun,
do fun things with their father. But that was my
time to recharge. I joined a running club and I
tried to start dating, and so that was I try
to tell myself, youse, this time, don't be upset. They're
with their father. You know he wants to spend time
(10:11):
with them. Because I do realize there are some women
who aren't so lucky. The fathers aren't around. You get
divorced and they don't have the luxury of having a
co parent, and I did, even though the schedule is
very unpredictable. This was a man who wanted to spend
time with his kids.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
So the healthiest way for you and for your kids
is to be the best version of you, so to
take care of you and do self care. Gosh, we
talk about that so much on this podcast, self care,
because be the best version of you. That's the best
thing you can get for your kids. Do for your kids.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
It's so important.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
It's so important because when your tank is empty, your
patience is gone, and you just need the energy to
be there for them because they're going through the divorce too.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
It's not just you. Your kids are dealing with it too.
Speaker 3 (10:56):
And I was the one who moved out and they
came with me into an apartment. So we went for
in this big house with a fenced in backyard where
the dog couldn't run around, to this little apartment where
we could hear everybody moving around at any given time.
And of course I ended up loving my apartment, and
they loved their new school.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
They just switched schools. But yeah, it was just so
hard all the way around.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
And even when he came back from Hawaii, I was
still here I decided to stay here. I contemplated moving
back with my parents in Florida, but I decided to
stay here in Virginia. And even when my ex came
back from Hawaii, he was here for a short period
of time. Then he got deployed for a year, and
so then it was just me again, and so the
custody schedule changed all over again. At that point, my
(11:42):
son was in high school and COVID was starting, and
that was weird too. But yeah, it's not just a
military marriage that's tough. It's it's the divorce that's really unique.
It's a unique divorced situation.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
So when you when you were and when you were
in when you were in the marriage for thirty years
with the kids and he was gone a lot, how
was that? How was that life? How was it for you?
Did you eventually get used to it or did you
just adjust to it and you found, you know, a
new way. Besides it sounds like it became more turbulent
(12:18):
when he would come back.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
It was I did get used to it.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
And when I lived in Japan, I was with a
very very tight knit group of military spouses, and it
was the epitome of the phrase it takes a village.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
We watched each other's.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
Kids, We played bunko, we had dinners together, and we
just we went grocery shopping for each other things like that.
And I guess I also realized the marriage was in
trouble because I started looking forward to him leaving.
Speaker 2 (12:49):
And I'll never forget. There was one.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Time he was leaving and I think our daughter was
maybe she was two or three months old, very young.
Our son was about four, and he left and I
got the stomach flu, and.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
I thought to myself, I had the stomach flu.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
I've got these two young kids, one of whom is
still nursing, and life is easier when my husband is gone,
because it just we fought, and I would try not
to fight in front of the kids, and he just
it was just so turbulent and so chaotic, and then
we would have the silent treatment, and there was a
(13:29):
sense of relief when I knew he was leaving. It
was just a sense of relief for me because life
is just easier when he was gone. And that was
a huge red flag, obviously.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
And also I think from hearing what you're saying that
you were in your routine, you know you had the
other military wives to bond with than to do things with,
and then when he came home it was I don't
want to say it, I take these words, but it
was like almost a disruption because it was different. We're
going to take a really quick break for one of
(13:59):
our sponsors, and we're going to be right back, and
I'm going to ask you, thirteen years of navigating a
military life, what do you want wish that more people
understood about the realization of being a military spouse. We'll
ask you that question. I'm talking to Heather Sweeney. She's
the author of the upcoming Camouflage How I Emerge From
the Shadows of a Military Marriage, a memoir about reclaiming
(14:20):
her identity after thirteen years military marriage and divorce. We'll
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(15:50):
years navigating a military life, what do you wish more people?
Understood about that about being a military spouse.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
You know, there's a thing that military spouses to talk about,
and it's the military civilian divide. And there's just so
much that I think the civilian community doesn't know about
military families.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
And I think people see.
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Movies and they see TV shows, and they see the
romantic homecomings and the big hugs, and I think that
the behind the scenes reality of military life is that
spouses go through these huge stressors.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
And there's very little support.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
And one thing I always had a problem with the
first time my then husband deployed, I remember I wrote
down in my journal and I used a lot of
my journals to write my book. I wrote down in
my journal, while you know, I'm supporting his career and
he's going off to Iraq, and I'm worried about him.
I'm worried for his safety, and he's stressed, and he's
(16:57):
you know, maybe in danger.
Speaker 2 (16:59):
But as on supporting him, who's going to support me?
Speaker 3 (17:03):
And we lived in Pensacola, Florida the first time he deployed,
and I was not very close with the other military spouses,
and he deployed by himself. It was something called an
individual augmentee, and so he didn't deploy with the commands. Again,
not the romantic scene that you see in movies. I
(17:23):
took him to the airport and he flew to Texas
and from there to Kuwait and from there to.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Iraq, and I was all on my own.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
My parents weren't nearby, and my other military spouse friends
that I knew their husbands weren't deployed. They were still there,
and so nobody could really commiserate with what I was
going through, and so it was very, very lonely. But
another thing that a lot of people probably don't know
is that we're not We're lonely and we're dealing with
these challenges, but we're expected to not complain about it
(17:56):
because a lot what a lot of people will say, well,
you knew what you were getting into when you signed
up for this, you knew who you were marrying, and
I always equated to, well, when you become a mother
for the first time, you have no idea what being
a mother is like until you're actually in it. People
can give you advice and tell you what to expect
until they're blue in the face, but you don't know
(18:17):
what it's like to be a mother or a military.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Spouse until you're in the thick of it.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
And I think another thing that military spouses can't stand
when people say is, oh, my.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
Husband went away for two days. I miss them so much.
I don't know what to do. And we're all like, oh, gosh,
my husband's been gone for six months. And you know,
we are very strong and very resilient. And I one
thing I say in my.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
Book is I think that the skills that I learned
as a military spouse, being resilient, being adaptable, being flexible,
all of those skills actually trained me for life after divorce,
because those are all of the things I needed. I
need to be adaptable, flexible, resilient, and I was very
(19:04):
lonely after divorce. I did get a happy ending, but
the dating was was difficult, and I I just needed
to find myself and I think part of that was
using the skills as a military spouse and just saying,
you know what, I'm going to figure out who I
(19:25):
am on the other side of divorce, who I am
without this man, who I am? And I really do
attribute the skills that I learned as a military spouse
to being the person I am and being the partner
that I am to my boyfriend today.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
So what was it like rebuilding your life and your identity,
because it had to be huge after your divorce.
Speaker 3 (19:48):
It was. It really was, because when you become a
military spouse, that really is your full time job there there,
you know, I didn't.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
It was a stay at home mom for many years.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
And part of that, especially when I lived in Japan,
was going to spouse events, showing up as you know,
his spouse, and going to officer spouse events and just
being a face in the community. And so when I
got divorced, I'm like, well, I don't have any idea
who Heather is anymore. She's just completely gone. She was,
(20:21):
you know, his wife and the kid's mom. And I
did do a lot of hard work in therapy that
I always highly recommend therapy to everybody getting divorced, not
just because it's a hard time that you're going through,
but I learned a lot about myself and the role
(20:43):
I played in the divorce and what I needed to
I don't want to say fixed, because it wasn't broken,
but what I had to improve upon if I wanted
to be successful in another relationship, and for me, that
thing I was very bad.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
At communicating my needs.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
So all of these times that we would get in
these arguments, and I'm trying to put on this the
poise of a military spouse, I wasn't communicating with him, well,
you're not meeting my needs and I'm very lonely, and
I feel like you don't respect me. And I did
not verbalize any of those things until it was too late.
So I learned how to do that, and I just
(21:22):
kind of slowly figured out. I started dating.
Speaker 2 (21:26):
I went on a lot of really really.
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Bad first dates, but those dates were great lessons and
learning what I wanted in a relationship and what I
didn't want in a relationship, and I ultimately learned.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
Like I said, Virginia Beach has a very high population of.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Military people, and a lot of the dates I went
on were service members, and I just realized, I can't
do this again, and some people can and some people
love the lifestyle. And I just thought to myself, I
just I can't deal with the day employments anymore. And
also I thought about my kids and thinking, well, their
(22:05):
father's still in the military. He's still he's retired now,
their father, but he continued ten more years in his
military career, and I thought, well, if I have a
partner who's also in the military, then my kids will
have two father figures who are deploying and moving and
having to figure out custody schedules.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
It would just it was just I couldn't do it.
Speaker 3 (22:28):
So my partner now is not in the military, and
I'm very happy with that.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Oh okay, well I can understand why you say that.
So was there a specific moment after you got divorced
that you felt yourself When did you start re emerging
as the person that you are now or did it
take time or was it the dating, Was it when
you started writing? And when was the moment you started writing?
Was my next question?
Speaker 2 (22:53):
Well, that's another story.
Speaker 3 (22:54):
So part of one of the issues that we had
in the marriage was I did I'd start writing while
we were still married, and I started a blog that
was about military spouse life and the blog got pretty popular,
and after a couple of years of blogging, I landed
myself a job at a website working writing about military issues,
(23:21):
and I started getting bigger gigs. I was offered to
write for the New York Times, which is a very
big deal, and my ex husband at the time did
not want me to write under my married name for
whatever reason, and I guess he just wanted to protect
(23:41):
our privacy. But it kind of snowballed from there where
I was writing anonymously for a very long time, and
I felt like he wasn't supporting something that I was
very passionate about.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
And so when we started the process of divorce.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
In the state of Regina, if you have children, you
have to be separated for an entire year.
Speaker 2 (24:04):
And so I promised him, I said, I will not write.
Speaker 3 (24:07):
About the divorce until the divorce is finalized, so we
have a whole year. I didn't even want to write
about it. Everything was too raw. I just didn't want
anything to come off angry or bitter, anything that my
children could see. Somewhere along the line, you know, I
just wanted to kind of journal And I think where
(24:28):
when I really realized that I had found myself and
my own voice was when the day of the divorce.
I had planned this with the New York Times editor
that I had worked with twice before that I announced
my divorce in the New York Times. Most people want
(24:49):
to announce their weddings. I announced that the New York Times,
I had written this post and my court date kept
getting pushed back, and the New York Times editor said,
I I got your essay. Let's I'll sit on it
until you give me the go ahead. And as I
was walking out of the courtroom as a divorced woman
with my maiden name restored, I emailed the editor and said,
(25:14):
let's go for it.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
And within a couple hours the post was live.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
And I think that for me, and I wrote, I started,
I had been writing under my maiden name, and I
legally changed back to my maiden name the day of
the divorce, and so for me, it was really me
writing as me instead of me writing as someone Oh
definitely maiden name, but I go by my marry name.
(25:39):
And it was extremely empowering.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
I was going to say that empowering.
Speaker 2 (25:44):
Wow it was.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
And I pushed him the link and said, I just
want to give you a heads up that this went live,
and he said it's a great essay.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
Congratulations, and yeah, so you.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Know I'm sure that writing that when did when? Okay,
we had to back up. Congratulations and all that and wow,
just wow, Heather, that's all I got to say. You
starting to write about you know, your life as a
military wife, and was so probably so helpful because some
people don't know how to express themselves like that or
(26:23):
talk about it or can't talk about it. So there
you were making a big difference. And had you not
been the military wife, you wouldn't be who you are
today and this book wouldn't be coming out right. I
totally when did they? Okay, what inspired you to write Camouflage?
Obviously what you went through? And the name, the title?
What does that title mean to you?
Speaker 2 (26:45):
Oh? The title, it's funny, that's not the original title.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Uh. The original title was Permanent change of Station, which means, uh,
that's what the military calls a move. It's just they
love their it's a peace, they love their acronyms. But
I went, I wanted to have a title that had
kind of a double meaning, that was a phrase that
was military related but also kind of related to what
(27:13):
was going on in my life. And I ended up
getting a developmental editor and she said, no, nobody knows
what that means. You know, if you're not military, nobody
knows what a you know, what a PCs is. So
she said, let's brainstorm. Just think of all sorts of
military terms. That we can possibly use, no matter how
off the wall. So I made this huge list. I
(27:35):
must have listed, you know, twenty thirty terms. And so
she went down to listen to emails. She said, camouflage.
Speaker 2 (27:41):
That's it. That is the title.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
It's so perfect.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
Thank you and I you know, so she helped me
brainstorm that.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
But really the inspiration behind writing the book, I really
never thought I was going to write a memoir. I
was writing a novel about something completely different, and at work,
I wrote this article. It was this little you know,
I think it was like five marriage tips from a
divorced military spouse. And it went up and I started
(28:13):
getting floods of messages from women because military divorce isn't
really talked about.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
Nobody really wants to talk about that.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
I don't know if because there's shame to it that
that you know, in the military, there's there's even a
stigma going to therapy because you know, military is kind
of synonymous with strength and you know, success, and you
don't want to think of anything as a failure. And
you know, while I don't think of my divorce as
(28:41):
a failure, it could be construed that way. But also,
I think military spouses are just so used to their
titles being wrapped up in their husband's career that they
get divorced, and there is some shame, and you know,
it's hard starting over, no matter who you're married you
(29:02):
were married to. And so I started getting all of
these emails from people asking me logistical questions about you know,
what kind of lawyer did you see and things like that,
and everyone of the emails said, could you please write
more about this?
Speaker 2 (29:16):
We want to know more about this. Nobody talks about this.
I feel so alone.
Speaker 3 (29:21):
And I thought, okay, maybe I've got something here. I'm
not quite sure I have enough material for a book.
I'll go back to all of my journals and just see.
So I started writing the book, and I think it
was about twenty eighteen, and it took me a long
time to write the first draft, a couple of years
because I was going through all my journals and reading
(29:43):
and it was I went through about twenty years worth
of journals.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Wow, And sure.
Speaker 3 (29:48):
Enough I had a really long, long first draft that
I had to revise and cut a lot, and I.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Thought, okay, I can do this. And there it is there.
Speaker 1 (30:00):
It was there, it is there, It's born. So Heather's Finish.
She's the author of the upcoming book of memoir I'm
Sorry Camouflage, How I emerged from the shadows of a
military marriage and memoir about reclaiming her identity after thirteen
year military marriage and divorce. It's pretty amazing. It's going
to be so helpful to so many people out there,
even if they weren't married to someone that was in
(30:22):
the military, because you can feel alone in your marriage
even when your husband's with you. So many people feel
like that as well. So I'm sure writing this played
a huge part in your healing.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
It did it did? What? Did you get it out
of my system? Right?
Speaker 1 (30:42):
And your kids? Were your kids fine through all this?
I mean, we're the finest could be.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
Were they with the book or with the whole divorce?
It's the whole divorce with everything, They were okay. My
daughter was five and my son was nine, and they
seemed pretty okay. You know, we didn't fight a lot
after the divorce, and we kind of talked through everything.
We sat down together with the kids to tell them
(31:08):
about the divorce. We tried to do things together as
much as possible at the beginning, just to have some
sort of normalcy, and I did put them in counseling briefly,
just because I thought I should because they were so young,
and I just never wanted to regret not doing it.
But it was a very brief stint in therapy for
(31:30):
them and Mike's husband, we would go to some of
the sessions together with the kids, and the therapist was just,
you know, your kids are okay with this. They're talking
about this. They're very okay with it. Yeah, so you know,
and they're okay with the book too. They neither of
them have read it yet, they will, they say they will.
That they both know about the book, they know what
(31:53):
it's about, so.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
They know Mom's making a difference in helping so many people.
So does rewriting your story, you're rewriting your story mean
to you.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Well, it means multiple things, since I am a writer.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I think for me, I think I stayed in the
marriage as long as I did because I was so
terrified of change. I knew that everything about my life
was going to change. And there came a point where
I said, I'm just so unhappy and I can't live
like this anymore, and I need to find my own happiness.
(32:28):
And I also didn't want my kids to think that
that was what a relationship was like. Either they needed
to see something that was healthy and not the fighting
or the or the you know, the not talking to
each other, the passive aggressive things. So for me, it
proved that I was so much stronger than I thought
I was, even though I was a military spouse, and
(32:50):
I proved to myself during my marriage that I was
strong as a military spouse. Dealing with all of those challenges,
moving on and leaving a marriage that wasn't serving me
anymore made me feel so empowered. And while it was
hard at first, of course, I try to warn everybody,
you know, it's the greatest thing on the other side,
(33:12):
don't fear the other side of divorce. But it's not
always easy. It's not going to be easy from the
get go. And someone had once told me the first
year of your life after divorce is going to be
the hardest, and at first I kind of frozen fear
when I heard that, But looking back, I'm so glad
that she said that to me because it gave me
kind of an end point goal. And I'll never forget
(33:35):
sitting on my deck of my apartment and it was
the one year anniversary of my divorce, and I had
a glass of wine and I was sitting there swirling
the wine. And I was sitting and I was overlooking
this little pond of my apartment, and I thought, I
am thriving, and I was so proud of myself, and
I thought the first year was the hardest year of
(33:57):
probably my entire life. But here I was.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Dating, doing the single mom thing. The kids were okay.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
I loved my apartment, I loved my neighbors, and I
was just so positive about the path that I was
on and I was so thankful that I did it.
Speaker 2 (34:18):
And you were okay, and I was okay. I was
more than okay.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
And oh my god, for so many people listening, just
hearing you say that, it's going to mean so much
to so many people that are thinking that they can't
get to the other side. And I always say that
there is happy ever after. The sun is going to
rise again, and there's going to be great things, and
you're going to wind up being more mindful, which is
a lot of my podcasts now I talk about being mindful.
Speaker 2 (34:45):
I love Okay.
Speaker 1 (34:46):
So the chapter of your life that you're writing now, Heather, Oh.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Wow, the chapter I'm writing now.
Speaker 3 (34:53):
Well, I have been in a ten year relationship with
my boyfriend now and he is an amazing stepfather to
my children. But I am jumping into the empty yester chapter. Wow,
my children are in college. I've got a freshman and
a senior, and so because my boyfriend has never known me,
(35:18):
you know, apart from the kids, really, this will be
our chance to kind of do the empty nest thing together.
And of course we're we're both so proud of the kids,
and we love the kids.
Speaker 2 (35:29):
But this is kind of our chapter too, you know,
be alone.
Speaker 1 (35:36):
There's another book that's going to be coming to maybe first.
How happy was this? This? This, just this whole talk
with you made me so happy.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Thank you me too.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
I'm just sharing, just sharing your story. I I encourage
everyone to read Heather's book. It's an upcoming memoir, How
I Emerged Camouflage, How I Emerge from the Shadows of
the Military Marriage, a memoir about reclaiming her identity after
a thirteen year military marriage and divorce. Pretty amazing journey
you would not have been. You're still rewriting your story
because now you're about to rewrite it again. Being an
(36:12):
empty nester and I can tell you that you still
come home. My kids are three, two and three years
out of second and third year working in the workforce,
out of college. When they were when they were in college,
I never really felt empty nests, even though people always
said because I think I went to their games at
the football games and been to visit them in college
and et cetera. So I never felt it truly, even
(36:34):
though it was different, and they still come home to
this day.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
I feel I build be home every couple of months,
so yeah, they maybe yeah, true empty nesters, but we'll
definitely have some quiet time.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Yes, a lot more quiet time.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
That's not right.
Speaker 1 (36:49):
So I'm so happy for you. And what's your advice
to people out there? Like, like, you tiptoed into the
dating and you did a little bit more military dating,
and you knew that that was just not going to
be the life. But in hindsight, again, if you had
not been a military wife in the first place, this
memoir would had been written and your journey might have
been completely different.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Absolutely, And I do believe that everything happens for a reason,
and I believe that I stayed in the marriage as
long as I did for a reason. And I learned
so much from it, and I'm very thankful for the marriage.
I never regret it. I never say, you know that
I regret meeting him. It was meant to be. The
(37:31):
marriage was meant to be. As long as it was,
it meant to teach me things, not just about myself
as a partner, but what I'm capable of doing and
the woman I'm capable of being.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
I think everyone also needs to realize that whoever comes
into our life, whether it's a has been a boyfriend,
a friend there, and even if we lose them at
some point where they teach us a lesson. Everything that
we go through teaches us a lesson, right, and there's
so many more lessons to learn. And I'm excited because
I know you're going to have a new book coming out,
and I thank you for sharing this story, and I
(38:05):
encourage everyone to You don't have to be a military
wife to read this book. This is a book for everyone.
Thank you so much for sharing your story and I'm
so happy for you.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
Thanks so much, Wendy. I love being here. Thanks for having.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
Me, Thanks so much. Come back again for sure. I
will Nito Kuda. Divorce and family laws attorneys have guided
Connecticut and New York families through complex divorce actions, contested
child custody, and alimony disputes for over thirty years. Their
Connecticut and New York attorneys have extensive experience in family
matters involving substance abuse, domestic violence, mental illness, and many
(38:40):
other X factors that can complicate a divorce. Their attorneys
a deptly managed privacy and reputation concerns inherit to public
divorce proceedings and the related exposure for their ultra high
net worth clients. Find your new path forward, define your
post divorce family, and secure an enforceable agreement to protect
your future with Needlecuda Act now put the strength of
(39:03):
their team behind you. Visit them at Needlecuda dot com
or call two O three five five seven nine five
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