Is there a Motive to Scare Civilian Spouses? You decide

One San Diego Base decides most recently that it will take on the practice of intimidating spouses or allowing harassment and lies to be spread across their close knit world.  Unfortunately, this is not isolated to just one base in the area.

Family Advocacy has its many purposes. I wholeheartedly believe that it was a program much needed, however the disparities of treatment for spouses and for the service members are proving to be greater than ever anticipated.  I would like to believe that good people saw a huge problem, the exact problems I am identifying here even, and decided the Armed Forces needed more to help stop it from happening.  I'd also like to believe that these same good people desperately wanted to stop the violence.  There are some really good people operating these programs and the problems from what I can tell run deeper than the program itself.  

A program intended to independently operate should not be "reporting to command" or "asking for permission".  Just by these two phrases alone, we already have an implied "sweeping under the rug" mentality at higher levels.  If the non-professionals have the opinion that nothing should be done, and no one can force a service member to enter into services offered, then the professionals who clearly identify a problem are stuck at an impasse.

So what authority does a base have over a spouse?  None, right? Not Exactly!  While they have no jurisdictional authority over you, they can however screw with your entire life.  

What can begin as a marital spat in front of peers can later be argued as a spouse run out of control.  Tripping and dropping plates can then become characterized as "becoming out of control and throwing, dropping, and breaking things in hysterics".  I know you see where I am going with this this.

Now, I have a particular scenario available for thought provoking discussion.  Spouses "know what they signed up for" when they married into the service.  At least that is the common argument.  There are many ways I would agree, but a civilian is still entitled to their rights.  One of those rights doesn't get erased simply due to convenience.

A spouse has the right to feel alone or upset when their loved one is deployed or TDY-ed multiple times, ESPECIALLY if they are left home to care for the home and to deal with raising children.  Although one might argue they are not actually alone, if you go into most base communities today, the women and men spouses really do feel isolated in what could become such a huge network of support.  What was once known as the FRG, or the Wives Club (which included husbands too), and more, has become a group of elite few among top ranking commands where the subordinate level spouses are not quite sure who they can trust.  What should be an open dialogue becomes a mechanism for silence and fear.  What happens out in the open then becomes the only reality anyone knows.  What happens when that door closes is a whole different story.

I am a firm believer in Parental Equality.  However, I am also neither blind nor lacking intelligence and common sense.  Parental Equality becomes a difficult concept in the realm of service members when a person is never home for over a decade and the parent at home is then told they were not enough, they want a divorce and they also want the children.  The sacrifice to support their spouse is ignored and boo-hoo quit your crying becomes the new mantra and the years of tears and loneliness and even the common argument due to absence or relational neglect and maltreatment become a past-time.  Sorry, I disagree with that.  If the spouse did not find it appropriate to be an involved parent before a divorce or separation, I am sorry, but the service injects a unique imbalance into that scenario where they are literally "at the beck and call of the service".  They are "unavailable" as a parent, and their behavior as a person demonstrates characteristics of narcissism if they can ever dismiss the role and importance of the person back at home holding down the fort and home front.  

A person that believes they can become a parent overnight to an already developed mind is a fool.  On the other hand, people adopt and have children every day and face a similar obstacle, no?  While I see the legal style arguments behind each scenario, I also have to say one thing:  If no one stopped the parent from being with their child, and they were never really home to engage in the marriage to begin with, then there is not a whole lot of blame and upset that can be deflected to the spouse when they simply just didn't care to figure out why the home was falling apart in front of their very eyes.  Rewriting history helps no one and the service tends to promote the old cliche black and white 1950's Cleaver mentality where men go home to a clean home, clothes on the line and dinner made, to watch tv and take a shower before bed, all with their uniform ready and primped for the next day.  But today doesn't quite work that way and the military has yet to catch up with the times.

People in general are usually ungrateful assholes.  There wasn't a problem with your wife or husband when you came home to happy children and dinner made.  There wasn't a problem when they had your dry cleaning picked up and your Ribbons appropriately placed and adorned upon your uniform in perfect compliance to Regulations and Specifications of the Service.  You had no problem displaying your spouse at annual balls bragging what a wonderful partner they've been and oh the sacrifices they have made to support you and your country.  And then the reality comes with the night is over and all turn in for the night.  Behind closed doors again, the facade goes away.

Anger, hurt, abandonment, loneliness, sadness, hesitation, and any other negative thoughts or feeling of that amazing spouse just hours before don't exist and simply are not allowed.  You're a wife/husband- get over your tears and quit your complaining.  No, that is where I draw the line.  That, my dear is abuse and maltreatment.  But who do you go to for help?  

The only resource every family is now told about is Family Advocacy.  You are misguided into believing that Family Advocacy can fix your marriage, can stop the gas-lighting, can stop the abuse, can stop the overall emotional horrors that happen in that not-so-happy home of yours.  You see, that is just it.  Family Advocacy can't and won't stop anything.  It's just not designed that way.  It is designed to offer resources and help to assist someone in helping themselves.  Family Advocacy however is limited to what they CAN do and not permitted to go beyond that.  Here is where I think every spouse should caution themselves.

If you don't have texts, e-mails or pictures and videos of anything- RUN to the nearest Domestic Violence Resource- one that helps civilians and one that is completely not associated to the service.  Rantings of emotional upset will be used against you, not intentionally but because that is all they see and by the time the truth is revealed it may be too late and the harm may already be done.  Stay away from the base resources as a spouse if you can help it, because the really sad part is you will be denied any information as a creature of policy rather than habit.  You think you have civil rights but on base, you are a spouse and a subject piece to a military "jacket" to be silenced.  Ugh...that angers me just even having to be so bold about that statement.  The service doesn't care about you.  The FAP specialist trying to help you, and I mean genuine help, can only do what they are "allowed" to do.  Their hands are tied.  If command says don't, they can't.  If command says stop, they must stop.  If command says mind your business- well you get the picture.

The Military is not there to afford you, the spouse, your civil rights.  BOOM there it is. If your marriage is already beyond repair, their only job is to protect the service during the process of dissolving any correlation the spouse has to the service by and through the service member.

Barments become common, spouses get forced out of their homes with no where to go, financial abuse is rampant and abandonment is rarely charged as a UCMJ offense.  The scary part is that the service members you once had over for dinner are no longer there for you.  This is a mask of support that doesn't really exist if behind closed doors you hold a different reality.

While I could go on and on, I think it plenty to say three things that become an every day practice:

*Don't threaten a civilian whom you have no authority over, especially if you think you can tell wives and husbands you will issue an MPO against them, of which has no validity to begin with because you have no authority on them.  Even the mere sense of impropriety will have someone screaming loudly.  That doesn't make them crazy- it makes you someone who is willing to break the law and deprive someone of their rights.  Stop for a moment and actually listen- don't be "THAT GUY".

*Don't gas-light a person who sacrificed for their spouse just so you could safely rest your head at night.  When they do finally speak out, that doesn't make them crazy, bi-polar, insane, or otherwise unstable.  You had zero problems with them until they said they had enough and wanted help.  They wanted help for themselves because their hopeless feeling can lead to unspeakable horrors.  So you made that mess, maybe even made a spouse feel suicidal in despair...Guess what hunny...

*You made that bed, now LAY IN IT.   Don't Cower.  You played your part in all of that.  If it wasn't enough for 22-23 veterans a day committing suicide out of 35 total a day, according to statistics, how many are driven to that point as a military spouse during or after the marriage? The numbers don't lie.  You did that.  

You let it be that way.  So excuse me, but don't tell me that our Armed Forces are so damn great when the real problems become identified and the people are told to ignore the numbers.

There are different forms of maltreatment and from what I can tell thus far in digging deeper into the World of Victims of Abuse at Military Bases is that maltreatment can even become the evening jokes over coffee.

The world behind a military home door is one of the scariest homes I've seen.  The veil of that uniform fools people to think everything is so honorable.  It can be, but unfortunately things just aren't operating the way they should be and people in high places are using their discretion to pick and choose and to decide when they feel someone is harming, abusing or neglecting their family.  No let's not leave it to the professionals to decide, but instead allow a boys club eyesight to decide who did what and when and to whom.  Facts become irrelevant.  An emotional spouse becomes the problem.  Let's oust the spouse for having the courage to come forward.

Oh wait, isn't there some law that talks about this?  Yes there is.  It is actually illegal for the military to deprive a civilian spouse their civil rights.  It is illegal for the military to retaliate for coming forward as a victim.

Dun Dun Dun...  You have a fundamental human and Constitutional Right to speak out- DO IT!

When the Inspector General of your base or the Office of Special Investigations is asking you to be quiet "during their investigations", take that as one sign only.  You are the combatant enemy they will fight to disarm.  When you think they are trying to help you, their first action, inadvertently built into the process, will be to tear apart every angle and find out if they "think" you have a motive.  When someone tells you to be quiet as a victim, do exactly the opposite.  Why? Because a victim should never be told to remain silent.  Justice can only prevail in the presence of hearts who become as outraged as though it had happened to them.  Benjamin Franklin said it best: 

“Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.”

The Military is actually in daily violation of the Violence Against Women Act in addition to many other laws about victims where they actually turn to victim blaming and shaming all in the name of "THE SERVICE".  Can't have your cake and eat it too. 

If you are a spouse trying to decide your next step, or maybe you are already in the system of FAP, please please please try to reach out to your local wives group that are going through something very unique not unlike yourself.  They can help you.  But at all costs, unless you have severe evidence of abuse, AND  a damn good FAP advocate helping, then get away from the very world that will operate to discredit, disarm, and silence anything you might have that would stain not the spouse, but the military for having that kind of person in uniform at all.  These people are not taught and trained to break the law, but to the contrary are taught how to do their job to the best of their ability.  That is exactly what they are doing.  Have an exit strategy that doesn't involve them.  They're just getting started but it doesn't have to break you.

I'd like to continue believing that FAP was built to be something amazing.  The disheartening reality is that while there exist some really amazing people working in their offices nationwide, the program is already set for failure because the rights of civilian spouses are not preserved from the onset.  It is just that simple.  Even worse, a military service member can be determined to be an endangerment to their spouse, their family, their children, their peers and subordinates, but unless federal subpoenas order the release of that information, that information will never be brought out under Tasseroff Circumstances.  Military policy prohibits any disclosure of anything to a civilian setting because any information that is attached to the service member possesses a mystery veil of silence that says "Nope, can't talk about it and without a proper order, it doesn't exist unless ordered otherwise."  What should be released to family courts becomes the single most piece of information that can literally save lives.  Remember, let's not talk about it and maybe it will go away. 

Self worth as a military spouse is not determined by base command.  Actually, I adamantly believe self-worth begins within yourself.  That day you chose to speak up was a new awakening in your life.  Don't let any person or "asshat" try to dissuade you in your new path.  Have a plan, become informed, and don't turn a blind eye to the neighbor on base who never seems to go outside.  I've always felt coffee and cookies can be a great ice-breaker.  Maybe the bases can learn something from that concept- personalize not institutionalize.

When we stop being human is when we have failed as a country.