We’re pulling back the curtain on military marriage and divorce, a world built on service and sacrifice but also one that silences and sidelines the spouses, most often women, who hold everything together while their partners serve. I’m thrilled to welcome Heather Sweeney to the podcast for this conversation, one I’ve been wanting to have for years. She’s a writer, former military spouse, and the author of the upcoming memoir Camouflage: How I Emerged from the Shadows of a Military Marriage. 

Heather shares what it’s really like to build a life around someone else’s career, the toll of deployments, and the barriers military spouses face when seeking support. We also talk about losing your sense of self, navigating a system built on patriarchy that’s designed to keep spouses dependent and invisible, and finding the strength to step into life on your own terms after divorce.

Please know that this episode isn’t just for military spouses. It’s for anyone who has ever felt invisible in their own relationship or wondered what might happen if they stopped holding everything together.

✨ If you’d like to watch the video version of this episode, you can find it here.

What you’ll hear about in this episode:

• The unexpected ways military life might erode a spouse’s identity and independence (2:27)
• An inside look at reintegration after deployment and the obstacles couples face when learning to live together again (6:50)
• The systemic roadblocks military spouses deal with when seeking support or counseling (11:22)
• The weight military life adds to an already struggling marriage (34:29)
• How some military marriages can thrive when there is solid communication and support (45:07)

Learn more about Heather Sweeney: Heather Sweeney is the author of the memoir Camouflage: How I Emerged from the Shadows of a Military Marriage, which is about her journey from being overshadowed by her husband’s military career to rediscovering herself as a single mother approaching middle age. She writes essays about divorce, life as a military spouse, parenting, and women’s health, and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, HuffPost, TODAY.com, Newsweek, Business Insider, Good Housekeeping, Healthline, and Military.com, among many others. She lives in Virginia with her boyfriend, two college-aged kids, and their geriatric Labrador retriever.

Resources & Links:

Focused Strategy Sessions with Kate
The Divorce Survival Guide Resource Bundle
Phoenix Rising: A Divorce Empowerment Collective
Kate on Instagram
Kate on Facebook
Kate’s Substack Newsletter: Divorce Coaching Dispatch
The Divorce Survival Guide Podcast Episodes are also available YouTube!

Heather’s website
Heather’s book, Camouflage
Heather on Instagram
Heather’s Substack
Military OneSource

Show Transcript:

Kate Anthony: [00:00:00] Hey everyone. Welcome back. So I’m really excited to have with me today, Heather Sweeney, and we’re having a conversation that I have never had on the podcast and that I have been wanting to for many years. We are diving into the world that world that most civilians don’t ever really see the world of military, marriage and divorce.

It is a world of service and sacrifice. Also of silence, especially for the spouses who hold everything together while their partners serve. So my guest today, Heather Sweeney, she knows this world very intimately. She’s a writer, a former military spouse, and the author of the upcoming memoir, camouflage How I Emerged from the Shadows of a Military Marriage.

So this conversation, by the way, is not just for military spouses, it is for anyone who has felt invisible in their own relationship or wondered if they might might be if they stopped holding [00:01:00] everything together. Heather, welcome. Thank you so much for being here. 

Heather Sweeney: Thanks so much for having me, Kate.

It’s great to be here. 

Kate Anthony: I wanna start like at the beginning, I’ve read something that you wrote. You talked about how being married to someone in the military is like going home with a newborn baby. Like you have no idea what you’re getting yourself in for. Ultimately, right?

Same thing with motherhood. You’re like, you could read all the books, you can do all the work, you can all of the things, but at the end of the day, they send you home from the hospital. You have no idea what the fuck you’re doing. What was it like for you when you first got married and maybe you thought you knew what you were getting involved with, but.

Heather Sweeney: Oh boy, I had absolutely no idea. And the funny thing is that a lot of people say to military spouses, you knew what you were getting into. And when I first married my then husband, he wasn’t in the military yet, it must have been, I don’t know, a couple months before we got married.

And he came home one day and he said I wanna join the [00:02:00] military. And I said okay. I don’t know anything about that. He didn’t seem to know a whole lot about it either. In a way I almost thought it was just one of his, grand ideas. And we were young, we were 23 and trying to figure out what we wanted to do with our lives.

And sure enough, he joined the military about a month after we got married. And I just thought to myself, I’m just gonna go with the flow and I’m, I’ll follow him wherever he wants to go. I think for me, I was studying to be an elementary school teacher and I always thought his dreams are bigger than mine and he’ll always make more money than me.

I just wanna be a teacher, I just want a simple teaching life. And so I said he’s gonna make the bigger paychecks. I’ll just follow him, I’ll support him and we’ll see where it takes us. And I just had no idea, what I was getting into at all. 

Kate Anthony: And were you ever able to be a teacher?

Heather Sweeney: I was, but many years later. It took a long time. And part of it another thing I write [00:03:00] about is the fact that for military spouses, it’s so hard for us to hold down a career, right? Because of the constant moves and I had gotten my master’s degree at our first duty station in Florida and was all set to start looking for jobs.

We moved to Japan for three years. And not a lot of job opportunities there. And so then we moved to Virginia where I had to work all over again to get my teacher certification. From Florida to Virginia. So that took a year just to get my certification. And then we only had, he only had three year orders, so it’s okay, it took me a year to get certified in this state and it took me another six months to find a job.

We’re leaving in a year and a half, so yes it’s hard. 

Kate Anthony: It’s not a, it’s not fertile ground for you, first of all to plant any roots. And it really is. You said I’ll follow him anywhere, and that was really what your life became. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.

Heather Sweeney: It’s [00:04:00] not.

And they, another saying is, I. Bloom where you’re planted or prosper, where you’re planted. And because I loved the duty stations that we went to, but there are some that are really crummy and a lot of military spouses are like I don’t wanna live here for three years, but we have no choice.

Yeah, it’s, you just have to make do with where you’re told to go. 

Kate Anthony: That’s the or, and or Right. Just be completely separated for if, because if you don’t get on board and go with him. If you had stayed in Florida, what kind of a marriage is that? 

Heather Sweeney: No, it would’ve been ter. There is something called geo batching.

A geo bachelor, and that’s when the service member will go to a duty station, whether it’s overseas or somewhere that’s far away because he doesn’t wanna, he or she doesn’t wanna uproot the kids out of school or things like that. But it’s really for short, short stints and not really a three-year tour.

If he had gone to Japan for three years, that’s really unfeasible for a marriage. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah, absolutely. But I loved Japan. Yeah. Okay, good. There was that, right? [00:05:00] Exactly right. You do get to see the world, not necessarily on your terms. It is a bonus. And then, but then you know, you also talk about this thing that I think is really interesting and this idea of like reintegration, right?

And that it’s not about, it’s not just about, we’ve been separated, now we’re coming back together and we have to reintegrate. You’re reintegrating after tours of duty. You had to reintegrate with your husband after he came back from Iraq like. This is not a normal reintegration. This is like someone is coming back completely changed.

Heather Sweeney: Absolutely, yes. The first time he went to Iraq, he was gone for six months and when he left, our son was six months old and I was trying to get my master’s degree at the time, we said our goodbyes and I never knew where he was or what he was doing and I have fearing for his safety.

But yes. So when, while they’re gone, you get used, you have to make your own routines, you have to move on with your life without [00:06:00] them. So my son was young and his moms, we try to set routines and get used to just life on our own because it’s survival mode. You have to do your best to do what you can without your spouse.

And then on his end, he’s not used to living with other people or moving around other people or having a baby in the picture. And he has his own schedule. So then when he came back, it was just odd. It was just this weird, is something wrong with our marriage? What’s, I don’t know how to talk to you anymore.

You’re. Interrupting my schedule. This is what I do at this time of day. And then there’s the jet lag and all of these things that I’m looking for signs of PTSD and anything like that. And to make matters worse, four months after he got back from Iraq, we were on a plane to Japan. We had to sell the house. We had to just make all of these arrangements. See family that we wanted to see before we left. And there’s just a lot of moving parts. And nobody even told me at that time that [00:07:00] there was something called reintegration. And so I thought something was wrong with us. It wasn’t until years later when he got deployed again that I realized, oh, wait a minute.

There really is something that other couples, there’s a process. Yes, there’s a process. This is normal because I kept thinking something’s wrong with us. We’re not, this is not normal. We’re supposed to be, this romantic notion of homecoming, I’m sure you’ve seen on tv in the movie, all the videos.

Yes. 

Kate Anthony: All the tiktoks. Yes. All the right. Yes. 

Heather Sweeney: And. Sure it’s like that at the beginning. You jump into each other’s arms and you hug and you kiss and you’re so happy to see each other. And, but then real life happens again and you still have to pay the bills and you still have to go to work. And he went right back to work a couple weeks after he got home, after the jet lag.

And then he got sick and then his parents came. ’cause they hadn’t seen him for half a year either. And it was just a lot. It was a lot to get used to and a lot to learn. And I just felt like the military didn’t prepare the spouses at all. I don’t know how much they prepare the [00:08:00] service members, but there was no, there’s no class that, that I took to teach me these things.

It was all on the job training. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. It would be a, I think a good probably a good side gig for somebody. Yeah. Teaching these things ’cause, because also, stability at home creates stability in. In the armed forces, I would assume, right? Yeah. And so like maybe this is something they should actually think about.

Heather Sweeney: And there are resources out there for sure. And I’m sure that there are more now that the than there were back then. This was back in, 2004 ish. And I just, there were resources. I didn’t know about them at all. And maybe that’s on me. Maybe I was waiting for someone. But yeah, it was a tough time.

Kate Anthony: I assume these are the things that start chipping away at a marriage. 

Heather Sweeney: Yes. 

Kate Anthony: Is there, are there other things besides the separation? The reintegration, like I don’t know who you are anymore. You’re different, like all of those things, like our whole, our home life is [00:09:00] different, your different, are there other invisible pressures of military marriage that civilians might not see or understand or.

Heather Sweeney: Yeah. I think there’s also this level of, part of what I write about too is I had, I just completely lost my own identity in his career. Sure. And even though I was pursuing my own career, I think there’s the, there was, there’s this unwritten rule that military spouses are there primarily to hold down the home front while their service member is doing their job and serving their country.

And I guess nobody warned me about that either that my full-time job was supposed to be military spouse and even things like going to marriage counseling, and again, it’s not as bad these days anymore, but when I realized that we really needed. Marriage counseling. We were in Japan and it was an extremely small military base, and the only people that we could really use as a [00:10:00] resource for counseling were people that we socialized with, that we went out to karaoke bars with and we hung out with.

It’s very hard. To confide in people that my husband was working with on a daily basis, and he didn’t want everybody knowing our business. And I needed someone who was gonna be objective and we just didn’t have that at all. 

Kate Anthony: And from a therapy perspective, that’s completely unethical anyway.

So like 

Heather Sweeney: that, even when we came back to the states and we were continuing to have problems in the marriage and I kept saying, we have got to go to counseling. It wasn’t until I was one foot out the door, half a bag packed that he said, okay let’s do it. Yeah. So he found a counselor and.

We met up at a library outside on a picnic table, and I said why are we not meeting in her office? And he said, oh, she’s a, she’s an off the books kind of therapist. And I said what does that mean? It was somebody [00:12:00] hired by the military, she worked for, her job was to serve the military.

And I quickly realized that like most things with. Having to do with the spouses or the families, the priority as a service member, not the spouse, not even the marriage. And so she didn’t care at all about me or my needs. She told me constantly that I was angry. We had a counseling session at Panera in the middle of the day.

Kate Anthony: No. 

Heather Sweeney: Yes, it was brutal. I was crying. I had tissues while people were eating their soups and sandwiches, and I truly believed that she wanted me to be uncomfortable, and when she was also meeting with us individually and would have this list of things that I wanted to talk about, things that were just constantly on my list of we need to fix this, which weren’t the same as my husband’s.

To be honest, and of course they weren’t. She refused to talk about any of the [00:13:00] things I wanted to talk about, and then when he had a session with her, he came back and he said, you know what? She said that our marriage cannot be fixed. Because you are not receptive to counseling. And I was like I’ve been begging you to go to counseling for years.

I, I think I am, I’m going to Panera, I’m going to the library. And yeah, it was it was tough. Wow. We ended up st. I said, I can’t see her anymore. And it ended up we saw her. For about a month, and then my husband had to go away for six weeks, I think. And that was another thing too, with counseling, it’s really hard to be consistent in counseling and stick to a plan when one of. The people in the partnership is just constantly gone. And so by the time he got back, we were back at square one. Everything, all the progress. ’cause we actually did make some progress. He was really responding to her, which is the only reason I kept going.

Because I’m like, okay, things are working a little bit. But then he got back and we were. [00:14:00] Square one and I said now I’m gonna find a counselor. 

Kate Anthony: And it is, you do write about that too, about the fact that for a lot of military spouses or military marriages, you end up in co in couples counseling by yourself.

A lot of the time. 

Heather Sweeney: Oh, I went a lot by myself. 

Not to her, I hope. Nice. No. We ended up finding, I found somebody else. We actually went to three different marriage counselors. The third one didn’t last very long. We were done by the time we got to her. I’m sure. I’m sure. Yes. 

Kate Anthony: So you end up really as you’ve said, as a support system, like you are in a supportive role. That’s it. Yes. That is your life. 

Heather Sweeney: Yes. 

Kate Anthony: Is there any way for that not to be the case in a military marriage?

Heather Sweeney: Oh boy, 

Kate Anthony: this, it feels like the system is set up so that that’s it. That’s all you get.

Heather Sweeney: From my experience and from the friendships I made in my military spouse [00:15:00] life.

Yeah that’s pretty much the case across the board. I, but I truly believe there are people, I have friends who make it, they do have struggles in their marriage. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. 

Heather Sweeney: But I do believe that if you’re with the right person, you can overcome certain things and I just wasn’t with. Right person.

And we weren’t meant to, we just couldn’t overcome these things because we had more going on than the military. And I do believe that the military might have kept us together longer than we would’ve without the military, because we just kept sweeping things under the rug. Oh, he needs to leave for two months.

Let’s not get in a fight before he leaves because that would stink. And I don’t want to, ship him off. Yeah. When we’re angry at each other. Yeah. And then you can’t get in a fight or talk things out when he is gone because sometimes it’s a three minute conversation. Oh, I can only call real quick and, oh, I don’t have internet access.

So you don’t wanna fight when he is gone. Then you don’t wanna fight or hash things out when he comes back. ’cause you’re supposed to be happy to see each other. ’cause Oh, I haven’t seen you in three months. Sure, I’m happy to see you. And then the next one, you don’t wanna be [00:15:00] sitting 

Kate Anthony: there with a list, be like, oh, I’ll come back.

That’s great now. 

Heather Sweeney: Exactly. And then before you, there were times in the marriage that he hadn’t even unpacked his bags from the last trip when he was starting to get ready for the next one. And for deployments, you have to worry about updating his will and me getting a power of attorney and making sure my military ID isn’t expired.

I, I had a military ID confiscated one time at the. Clinic because it was expired. He was expired, he was gone, and my power of attorney was expired. And so I’m like I can’t shop at the commissary, I can’t go to the doctor. I can’t bring the kids to the doctor. So you literally get a card and you are called a dependent, which I really don’t know any military spouse who likes that title, but we are called military dependents.

Kate Anthony: Wow. Yes. Wow. You really are not. Your own person? 

Heather Sweeney: No. No. In the eyes of the military? No. Wow. Even calling make the doctor’s appointment. When you call and say, what is your [00:16:00] sponsor’s social like? Everything you do as a spouse, you need your spouse’s social security number to access anything. 

Kate Anthony: Wow. 

Heather Sweeney: Yeah, so I didn’t even, I like, I memorized his social security number before mine.

Kate Anthony: It’s it feels so antiquated and so offensive and so deeply patriarchal. It’s oh, absolutely. And of course we know that, of course we know that about the military. But like really? No, really. 

Heather Sweeney: It really is. Wow. It really is. Wow. And there are some male spouses, but the majority are female. Sure.

Kate Anthony: I want, I just total sidebar. Do you think that their experiences as military spouses is different? A male spouse? 

Heather Sweeney: That’s a very good question. I’m not quite sure. I don’t know a lot of male spouses. I’m not really sure about that. Yeah, that’s just 

Kate Anthony: total 

Heather Sweeney: curiosity. Yeah. Yeah, 

Kate Anthony: that’s a very good question.

Okay, so [00:19:00] then at a certain point you realize this is unsustainable. We can’t do this anymore. Military or not, but because you’re a military spouse, divorce is not the same. It’s tricky. It is. For the rest of us. It’s, so can you talk a little bit about that. And how it differs? 

Heather Sweeney: Yeah, sure. First of all, spouses are entitled to see military lawyers that are called Jags.

But Jags don’t practice state law and divorce goes by state law, so they can’t represent you. So I did go try to see a Jag just to see what my benefits were and I wasn’t. There’s certain rules about how long you have to be married, how long he has to be in the military, and how long that overlaps in order for me to maintain some of those benefits, and we were not married long enough, so just, I lost all of my benefits, all of my healthcare.

Sh I could sh I was allowed to shop at the commissary if I was shopping for the kids, [00:20:00] which is a gray area. We have two kids. You can’t eat that Dino Nugget. Really, it has to be for them, has to be for the children. But I think that the. Biggest challenge for me after the divorce was the custody schedules.

Yes. It’s very tricky because, and at first it was like, okay, we have legal 50 50 custody, but they’re going to live most of the time with me because he is gone so much. So I’m getting child support based on 50 50 custody.

Kate Anthony: this, you’re, 

Heather Sweeney: oh, 

Kate Anthony: it gets 

Heather Sweeney: worse. It gets worse. Oh, good.

Kate Anthony: Oh good. Do go on.  

Heather Sweeney: So when we first got divorced, we were, he was still here and then. A little bit after that. So I live in Virginia. He got stationed for a year in Washington, DC So I’m like, okay. So he was driving, he was commuting back. ’cause to his credit he was one of those fathers who did wanna spend time with his kids.

He was. Yeah. Not [00:21:00] someone who disappeared Uhhuh. And so he was commuting back on the weekends, but he said can we change it? The kids would be with, used to be with him from Friday night to Sunday night, and then we switched it from Saturday morning to Monday morning where he had to take the kids to school on Monday morning.

And they were in elementary school and he lived 20 minutes away from us. So late to school, shoes are forgotten, schoolwork isn’t done. Things like that. Because he’s not used to, to our schedule and because I parenting. Yeah. But then it gets worse from there. So we did that for a year.

By the time everybody got used to their schedules again, he called me up one day and said, I got military orders. And I said, okay. I knew they were coming. And I said, where are you going? And he said, Hawaii. I said, okay. I’m not going to Hawaii, so what are we gonna do about the children? So he suggested.

I would like for the kids to stay with you during the school year and then spend 10 weeks every summer with me in Hawaii. And [00:22:00] I said, went back, consulted an attorney. ’cause I said, there’s no way in hell I want to. Ship off my kids for 10 weeks. I’ve never been apart from them for that long. And again, we have 50 50 custody and I went to see an attorney and she said, save your money.

And the judge is gonna side with him because he wants to spend time with his children. And we, I live in a very highly populated military area. She said that and I’ve heard this from other women as well, that as long as they wanna spend time with the kids. The judges are gonna do whatever in their power, whatever it takes.

Because they’re on military orders that. We want to make sure that, they can see the kids when they want to. So sure enough, the kids were with me. I was a full-time single mom. I worked, luckily I worked from home. And so if there was an emergency, the kids are sick at school, I could pick them up.

But I don’t have any family nearby. My parents and my in-laws were [00:23:00] both, they’re both in Florida and I didn’t grow up in Virginia, and so it was. It was me and then they went on an airplane and I didn’t see them for 10 weeks. And how old were they 

Kate Anthony: at this point? 

Heather Sweeney: Oh goodness. They were both in elementary school, so my God, they were they had just finished up second and fifth grade.

Kate Anthony: No. Yes. 

Heather Sweeney: So it was 

Kate Anthony: oh boy.

Heather Sweeney: It was heartbreaking. But you know what, I really, I stayed in therapy. Because it was very important for me to work on myself and figure out everything that had gone wrong before I started really dating and trying to look for another relationship. One of the things my therapist said is let’s flip the script.

Okay. You don’t have any choice. Your kids are going to Hawaii. Yay. They’re gonna have great fun. They went to this awesome summer camp, did some cool things. Totally, yes. And so I’m like, you know what? I have no choice, so I’m gonna take care of myself. I’m gonna focus on self-care. I’m gonna, and so I ended up going to Turks and Caicos for a week by myself.[00:22:00] 

Kate Anthony: I love that. Yes. I love that. I love that you did that. Yes. Good.

Okay. Couple of things, right? I, oh, so you have right? Pull it together, Kate. Yes. The feminist rage. Uhhuh. I get it. Okay. So you know, you have access to these military attorneys. But they actually can’t advise you on your divorce because they don’t, they’re not. ’cause they’re military attorneys, they’re not state law.

So so then you have to pay for an outside, outside counsel. Yes. Does he also have to pay for outside counsel or, yes. Yes. Okay. 

Heather Sweeney: But I will also say that I couldn’t get a lot of information out of the Jag anyway because my ex-husband called them and said My ex-wife is probably gonna be coming in [00:26:00] and or soon to be ex-wife.

And once he spoke to them. I think he called, like there are multiple military bases here and I’m pretty sure he called all of the bases and just to conflict you out. Yes. So I couldn’t talk to them anyway. They wouldn’t have helped me anyway. And I knew that going into it, I think more, it was just more of a curiosity thing for me, just I wonder what they’re gonna say to me.

And it was, they started out by saying, ma’am, we can’t really talk to you. Our best advice is to hire a civilian attorney. 

Kate Anthony: Awesome. So then. In this negotiation, is there a world in which like you get in front of a judge who actually looks at this schedule and says, this doesn’t seem fair that you’re gonna get 50 50 on paper.

All of the financials are gonna be based on 50 50. Your child support, everything is gonna be based on 50 50. But you are basically going to be doing almost a hundred percent, maybe 70 30, probably more like 80 20, and then a hundred percent knowing that he’s gonna be [00:27:00] deployed. How does a judge look at that and say, yeah, no, 50 50 on paper is totally fair.

I 

Heather Sweeney: I don’t know. I could, so according to the attorney I saw, and the attorney I saw was wonderful. They represent only women and they represent. Military spouses or military service members who are women. Wow. So they know military, what’s going on with the military? They know how people, the judges in the courts are going to react to military families.

Okay. And she told me, she said, look, if you have your children for a certain percentage of the time, I can’t remember what that percentage was you can file for full custody. You can go back. Yes. You can go back, you can fight this, you can petition for full custody. She said, but. It’s gonna involve a lot, it’s gonna involve a lot of money for both of you in and out of court hiring attorneys.

And the biggest thing that is the, probably the reason I didn’t pursue it is because she said that there would be a [00:28:00] juvenile I don’t know, mediation or a juvenile, someone who was gonna come and talk to the teachers, the kids’ teachers, and do home visits and, the kids had enough.

Yeah. In their lives with a divorce. Yeah. Because I ended up moving out of the marital home and into an apartment and they changed schools because he would not move out of the house. So I moved and took the kids with me, moved into an apartment half the size, and then, so the kids had already changed.

Schools already made new friends were already dealing. Their parents being divorced. And I said, you know what? I just can’t put them through anymore. And the time it would’ve taken, these things just get held up in the court system. Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. At that point he probably would’ve been back, right?

He was in Hawaii for three years. I’m like, by the time this finishes, you might even be back. 

Kate Anthony: I just it’s just so upsetting to me that, you could go back and petition not just for full custody, but for at least amended support. Oh, you’re gonna be gone for this amount of time and I’m gonna have the kids all the time.

It costs a lot of money. You would [00:29:00] think that there would be. You would think that in a military divorce there would at least be sort some consideration for the fact that one spouse is gonna be absent a lot of the time. Yeah. And so even a time audit kind of situation where you would really, where the support might shift.

Yeah. Based on. But I guess we’d have to redo the entire system. But yeah, 

Heather Sweeney: and even, and so we dealt with that and the kids ended up just going to Hawaii for the two summers because the first summer he didn’t have a house. And so I’m like I’m not sending the kids to stay in a hotel with you.

Then he came, he ended up getting stationed back in this area for three years, but then during that time he got deployed for a year, so he was here. With his partner, new partner, and I was here with my new partner, but he wasn’t really here because then he was gone for a year. 

Kate Anthony: And so he never looked at this and said he was not the kind of guy who was gonna look at this and be like.

This [00:30:00] isn’t really fair. Let me support my children. ’cause this is, they think it’s about you. 

Heather Sweeney: And I never threatened to take him to court. For me, it wasn’t worth a court battle. I didn’t wanna pay for the attorneys. And the kids have a wonderful stepfather.

This was their home and we just made it work. And quite frankly, and I say this about our marriage, my life was easier when he was. Gone and towards when I realized that things were really bad in the marriage, it’s because I realized that I looked forward to him leaving on his trips. Life, my life. There was, there’s one instance I’ll never forget.

We were in Japan. He left for, I can’t even remember how long I had a stomach bug. Our daughter was eight months old. She was born in Japan. She was like seven or eight months old. I had a stomach bug and I literally was saying to my friend, life is just easier. I’d rather have a stomach bug with a newborn and a toddler, and he’s gone, and life is easier.

But even like during a deployment, after we were divorced, it was just easier when he was gone. The kids didn’t have to [00:28:00] pack up, they couldn’t stand packing their suitcases, every weekend and going to his house and disrupting things. And then they’re older now. My kids are 18 and 21 now, and so obviously the custody isn’t an issue anymore, but they got to an age where they wanted to spend the weekends hanging out with their friends.

And yeah, not going to their dad’s house when they’re like, oh, I, you don’t really know me and I don’t really know you. ’cause when he was deployed, they didn’t see him for almost a year. 

Kate Anthony: And they have, and then they have to be pulled out. Especially if you’re not living in the same community.

They have to be pulled out of their community. They don’t have a as much access to their friends. It’s just, yeah. It’s so disruptive for them. 

Heather Sweeney: Yeah. Very disruptive. 

Kate Anthony: There’s such seeming, and I’m not saying this about your ex in particular, ’cause I don’t know the man, but seeming lack of empathy or consideration for how all of this impacts you or the children.

It’s just this is what I get and this is who I am and like. The fact that like your whole life is disrupted and that you su do nothing but supportive. But then it [00:29:00] becomes this entitlement, right? It, it sets that in play. The system sets that entitlement in place from the beginning. 

Heather Sweeney: Yes. Yes.

It’s very much and I don’t know if it’s something that would’ve come out in his personality. Anyway. Yeah, regardless of what his job was, but I definitely do feel like military spouses are put in place to make sure that the service member doesn’t have to worry about, little things like the grocery shopping or taking the kids.

To the doctor or things like that. It’s very much okay, the service member has a mission to do. We need here, him to do this. And the spouse is gonna be at home making sure that they have something good to eat and maybe other military spouses didn’t have the same experience again.

Everybody’s got a different marriage. And I do know a lot of military couples who made it and figured out a way, ’cause communication is so hard when you spend a very large portion of your [00:30:00] marriage apart. You have to find a way to communicate. And our, yeah, in my marriage, communication was just, it was never good.

Kate Anthony: It wasn’t your forte to begin with. No, it was not. But I think, and I do think that there’s a right, there’s a way in which the system is so stacked against the spouse and it would take someone pretty extraordinary to see that and. Work and work to counterbalance it a bit or to balance it out.

And it, it sounds like you did not have that spouse. 

Heather Sweeney: No, I did not. Sorry. And really we would’ve, we’ve would’ve gotten divorced regardless. Totally. Yeah. But, military life puts a lot of extra stress on couples that wouldn’t otherwise have to deal with certain things. 

Kate Anthony: Absolutely.

Absolutely. But you also had, but you also married to a guy who just changed the script like in the 11th hour, decided to join the military without it being like a, Hey, this is a [00:31:00] massive lifestyle change for both of us, right? Absolutely. 

Heather Sweeney: Absolutely. And. Maybe if I had done more research, I just was following his lead and you were young, you were 23?

We were very young, yes. We were 23. Yeah. When we met, God, I think we were 22 when we met, and it was very a whirlwind romance. I was getting out of a long-term relationship and we moved in together after three months and after nine months we were engaged and it was very quick and romantic. I think because my, I like, I never considered myself a hugely ambitious person.

Like I said, I just wanted to be a te a teacher. I wanted to, have a nice home and live near family and have a couple kids and dog maybe, and I just didn’t think that. The whole military thing would come to mean as much as it did and affect us as much as it did. 

Kate Anthony: And you weren’t raised in the military.

You don’t know. No. What you don’t [00:36:00] know. A hundred percent. All right, let’s talk about afterwards. After the divorce, while you’re in this marriage, you’re trying to reclaim. And trying to maintain some sense of self because you have to for that consistency. But then also it’s constantly being disrupted.

So you write about how like actually that really prepared you pretty well for life as a single mom on the other side of divorce, as hard as it was in the marriage. 

Heather Sweeney: Absolutely. There, there’s so many things about being a military spouse that later on I learned. Okay. I’m really good at moving, at packing things up and moving.

Even in Japan, we were there for three years. We lived in three different houses. I can pack a moving box, like no one’s business. Yes. But even just, being alone, spending time alone and solo parenting. And I often say too, that I used to call myself a sometimes single mom, but there I did learn there’s a very big difference between single parenting.

When your [00:33:00] husband is gone on a deployment and then single parenting after divorce, mostly for the financial reasons, you know when you’re right, but just the resiliency and just learning the loneliness and being adaptable. I took all of those skills from my military spouse life and used them after the divorce.

Kate Anthony: Yeah, so 

Heather Sweeney: thanks military. You taught me something. 

Kate Anthony: You taught me how to be lonely. 

Heather Sweeney: Thank you. Yes.

Kate Anthony: There’s something about, I almost feel like it’s a little like a Shawshank situation, right? Where it’s like you were living under sort of this military. Structure that was very structured and regimented and really you didn’t have a whole lot of freedom and say in a lot of the ways that your life was set up.

And then you get out into the world and it’s not there anymore. And I can imagine there’s a little destabilizing despite the fact that you were trained to be okay with change and loneliness and all of those things. Also, [00:38:00] you take away the support structures and you’re a fish out of water.

Heather Sweeney: Yeah, I did and I did. A large part was also that I had a hard time finding my community. The military spouse community is very tight knit, especially when we were overseas and there were some amazing military spouses over there. And we were each other’s villa. We helped raise each other’s kids and, we played bunko together and we went shopping together and all of that stuff.

I am still friends with a lot of military spouses, and they were all still friends with me when I got divorced, but everything was different that they didn’t understand, they were just like, oh, my husband’s gone, he got this special pay, when they go overseas, they get a special extra pay, like ha, like just hazardous duty pay and things like that.

I’m like, oh, his paychecks are bigger and I’m just like, oh, i’m alone now, but my paychecks are, I’m living paycheck to paycheck here because I’m not reaping the benefits of that. My friends were starting to leave too, so I was used [00:35:00] to moving every three years, but my friends were also moving every couple of years, and so I had a lot of friends here and then all of a sudden I’m like.

Oh my gosh. They’re all moving. They’re all leaving. And a large part of my identity was wrapped up in that. And I’m like I don’t even wanna be involved in the military and why I can’t relate to them and they can’t really relate to me. And so I’m like now I wanna find a divorced community.

And so I started hanging out with some women, but they didn’t have any kids. And so they didn’t have the single mom aspect. And yeah 

Kate Anthony: not the same. Not the same. Often not the same. 

Heather Sweeney: Yes. And and I did consider, I did. It’s funny, after I lived in Virginia for a few years, I did get an itch to move.

I’m like, wait a minute. Isn’t it time to move? Yeah, I bet. I bet. But I’m still here. I’ve been here a long time. This is actually the longest I’ve ever lived in one place. I’ve been here since like 2008. Yeah. Yeah. So good for you. It was nice. I was able to, and the kids home base is with me, so when they come home from college, this is home for them.

And it’s been quite, quite an adventure in the military then now. 

Kate Anthony: Yeah. And and at some point [00:41:00] you started writing and you’ve written quite prolifically for the New York Times and other outlets and your substack, like you’ve got quite a body of work and some of it was. Pre-divorce you’ve written about I am not gonna be one of those divorce statistics and then cut to Okay.

But you’ve written about, you’ve written about the difficulty of being a military spouse and getting divorced in the military. And so how did writing help? Buoy you through some of these times? 

Heather Sweeney: Absolutely. Absolutely. I actually announced my divorce in the New York Times. I had worked with an editor on two other pieces.

It was for a vertical called the at war blog. And I had written a piece about not being a statistic of military divorce and about going to marriage counseling and how at the time it was working Uhhuh. And I messaged this editor and I. Said despite my last essay about marriage counseling, I am getting divorced.

My ex [00:42:00] asked me not to write about it for a year. In the state of Virginia, if you have children, you have to be legally separated for an entire year before you can get divorced. And so my ex said. Just, could you not write about this for a year? And at first I was like, no, you can’t tell me what to do anymore.

But I’m really glad that happened because I journaled like crazy. And when I went back and looked through those journals as I was writing my memoir, I realized how angry and bitter and raw everything was. I’m like, I’m so glad I didn’t publish any of this, because it’s not good. And I wouldn’t want my kids to see that either.

It was a lot of just anger that, no longer mattered. Once I kind of, time healed the wounds, we got divorced. I’m walking out of the courtroom, I’m walking to my car. I emailed the editor and I said, it’s a done deal. And an hour later my New York Times piece went up and the first sentence was, today I got divorced.

And I think another thing for me too, as far as like finding the [00:43:00] identity. My ex was adamant that I write under my maiden name. So when I first, I, my writing career started with a blog, and for years I, it was called Riding the Rollercoaster. And my entire identity, my name was Rollercoaster, which seems ridiculous to me now.

But he would not let me write under my name, like not even my maiden name. And then, so then I got this opportunity with the New York Times and they said, you cannot write under a pen name for the New York Times. So I went back to my then husband and said, I’m not giving up this opportunity. It’s the New York freaking times.

He said you, I don’t want you to write under your married name. And so we worked out, okay, write under my maiden name. But I won’t make a connection to my blog persona. So I’m writing these essays for the New York Times, and I couldn’t share them anywhere. Couldn’t share ’em on my blog, couldn’t share ’em on my social media because my ex [00:39:00] didn’t want me to.

But then when we got divorced. 

Kate Anthony: Huh. Uhhuh. I was like, you could have, but, 

Heather Sweeney: It ended up working out well for me because also walking out of that courtroom, I reverted back to my maiden name, and so Heather Sweeney is my maiden name, but it’s also the only name I’ve ever written under, and so I have no bylines under my married name. Yeah. So it ended up, working out well for me anyway. But yeah, for a while I was, I couldn’t, so I would have social media accounts under a roller coaster, and he didn’t even want me putting pictures of myself. So I didn’t even have a profile picture.

I had just. Some graphics. 

Kate Anthony: Oh dear. Yes. Alright. Yeah, there’s my feminist. My feminist rage is going at it again. I know, right? Alright, so Heather, for someone maybe currently in a military marriage and struggling, what would you want them to know? Oh, 

Heather Sweeney: I would want them to know that if they are in a solid marriage and a solid [00:45:00] relationship, that there are ways.

To handle this kind of lifestyle. And there are resources out there too, and I just didn’t know about a lot of them. You can call your the military one source. That is a great resource for military families. They do all sorts of things. They do tax preparation and that’s how I found my second marriage counselor is you can call them up and say, I live in such and such a city.

I need to find a marriage counselor. You get, I, we got 12 free sessions. I’m not quite sure. They’re still, I think they are still doing that, but at the time, I got 12 free sessions and it was not somebody who worked for the military, it was a civilian counselor. Oh, good. They just are resource to help you find that you can go to other spouses at your service member’s command.

You can go on base to learn. What kind of resources they have as far as counseling or just making friends or meetups. And I would say my biggest advice is [00:47:00] to get involved because when we were in Japan, I got involved in everything. I thought I can’t work. There are no jobs. There was a Department of Defense School there, but the waiting list, just to be a substitute teacher was two years long.

So there are resources everywhere on base. We went on trips for, with morale, welfare and recreation, MWR. You could do all sorts of, they’ll take you to parks. We got on a bus and went to a Japanese baseball game. Just getting involved. And I think the hardest thing is finding the resources. Everything online these days, you can just.

Google the base that your service member is stationed at, and figure out all the resources there and say, Hey I need counseling. How can you help me? I need help with my taxes, and my husband is gone. Who can help me with this? I’d say just get involved. Find your people and don’t do it alone because you’re already alone.

Your spouse is gone a lot. Find your community. It’s out there. There are military spouses out there, and I think I’ve. [00:48:00] First found my community in Japan. It was just, again, amazing people. And then when we came to Virginia and we were at a much larger base, a much larger community, I let that fall off.

And I do take that on myself because there are multiple ways I could have gotten involved and I didn’t. But then when I started blogging, I found my people and yeah. It really broadened my horizons because we were, na my ex-husband was Navy and I learned a lot about other branches of the military and I, I was an officer’s wife and I wasn’t supposed to socialize with enlisted families.

That’s a whole other story. Oh my God. So I learned a lot about enlisted families. There’s a lot of, you’re not supposed to fraternize with anyone who could be under your husband’s chain of command. Under, 

Kate Anthony: yeah. Yes. Wow. They really make it hard for you. Yeah, I think they really do.

Like they stack so much against you and it seems pretty counterintuitive given. What they need [00:49:00] of, the military service member. Absolutely. So for people who are currently navigating divorce in the military, what advice do you have for them? 

Heather Sweeney: Get a good attorney. That was, that’s, I saw someone, I don’t know how prevalent this is in other communities, but like I said, my attorney that I sought out, they know military all about what you’re due as far as retirement and benefits there.

And that’s another tricky thing too when you get divorced, because military retirement is, it’s a big deal. For service members it’s pretty great. They make it 20 years, they retire and it’s a great retirement. Yep. Sure is. And there are, and if you are married a certain period of time, you still have access to Tricare, which is the healthcare and all of the things on base.

And I was married for 13 years and that was not long enough. I know that’s, I had to find my own health insurance and it was. I was booted outta that system very [00:50:00] quickly and I was rationing my thyroid medication because I didn’t have health insurance and couldn’t afford it.

I was living paycheck to paycheck and ultimately, and I did have a job at the time and I ended up, getting a promotion where I did get my benefits. But a lot of military spouses who do force aren’t that lucky. I’ve heard stories of spouses just getting handed papers where their husbands are like, yeah, I don’t wanna be married anymore.

And the spouse is blindsided and they’re like, I don’t even know what to do.

Kate Anthony: It’s like your exiled, right? You’re banished 

Heather Sweeney: Yes. 

Kate Anthony: From this entire system Yeah. That you have dedicated your life to. 

And now it’s like your persona non grata. And that’s it. You’re out. 

Heather Sweeney: Absolutely.

Absolutely. I will say also that I did make a very conscious decision too at some point that when I did start dating again, I did not want to get into another military relationship. And I did write about that once and oh boy, did I get slammed in the comments? 

Kate Anthony: [00:45:00] Oh, yes. You know what you wrote about it quite in a measured tone.

’cause I read it. You did not. You did not write about it from a, I’ll never do this again. You wrote about it from a, now I now understand it and I’m, and I choose. It’s not something I would choose Again, when I got into it to the beginning, I didn’t know anything about it. And now I know I wouldn’t choose it again.

Like 

Heather Sweeney: absolutely, 

Kate Anthony: yeah you did not actually say anything negative. 

Heather Sweeney: And I think a large part of it too for me is going back to the kids and you wanna do what’s right for the children and. I just couldn’t imagine getting involved with another service member where we’re moving every three years.

But their fa, my kid’s father is also moving every three years and getting deployed. Oh my God. Deployed. And I just didn’t want them to have two father figures who were gone all the time. Absolutely. And you’re right, I did, as. As we talked about at the beginning of the conversation, that when people, it always used to just annoy [00:52:00] me when people say you knew what you were getting into, but if I got in a relationship with another service member, yeah, I absolutely know what I’m getting into and I don’t want to do it.

Kate Anthony: And that’s your choice as a civilian. Yeah. You actually get to choose this time. Absolutely. Absolutely. Oh my gosh, Heather, thank you so much for this. This has been a really enlightening conversation and I really hope that women who are involved in this or nav about to navigate the system can really understand where they’re at.

So what is life like for you now, on the other side of this? 

Heather Sweeney: On the other side? I always say that the first year after divorce is the hardest. I worked a lot on myself and I did start dating. I did find someone on the apps. Really? My boyfriend and I, we’ve been together, oh boy, over 10 years.

Wow. And good for you. He’s a wonderful stepfather to the kids. And yes we consider ourselves a match.com success story. [00:53:00] Excellent. And I’m still in Virginia. We’re still here and the kids are off to college and don’t have to worry about custody anymore. But yeah, things are good. 

Kate Anthony: Excellent. So where can listeners find your work and pre-order camouflage, which is coming out this month.

Heather Sweeney: Yes, it’s October 28th. Very exciting. It’s happening very quickly all of a sudden. You could pre-order camouflage pretty much wherever books are sold right now. The audio book is also for presale and I recorded it. My site narrated it myself. Good. Which is fun. My website is heather l sweeney.com and I’m on pretty much.

Every social media platform, which is a lot these days, but I think I’m mostly on Instagram. I’m at Writer Sweeney and I’m on Substack. Yeah, you can just Google me. I’m pretty much everywhere these days 

Kate Anthony: and everything will be in the show notes. So thank you so much. [00:55:00] Yes, I’m so happy. Thank you so much.

So you guys, Heather’s. Camouflage how I emerged from the shadows of a military marriage is coming out soon. So definitely support that. Everything will be linked in the show notes. And as always, if anything in this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who needs to hear it and your story, your healing, and your freedom, they all matter.

Thanks for being here and we’ll see you next time.

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