How a dual military couple overcame relationship challenges

Episode Summary of “How a dual military couple overcame relationship challenges”

Welcome to The Communicate & Connect Podcast for Military Relationships, hosted by Elizabeth Polinsky. We dive deep into the journeys of dual military couples, focusing on the unique challenges and triumphs they encounter. Our discerning guest, Alyssa, sheds light on her personal narrative, sharing the intricate details of meeting her husband while both were in the military, the trials of deployment, and the unexpected life changes that led them to matrimony and parenthood.

Alyssa candidly reveals the hurdles they faced, from maintaining communication across time zones during deployments to managing the stresses inherent in military life, all while nurturing a growing family. She recounts their decision to keep their marriage a secret initially to avoid societal judgments and stigmas, a choice many military couples can relate to. Her story is a testament to resilience, highlighting how they chose to break the cycle of broken homes they both came from, instead crafting a stable and supportive environment for their children.

Throughout this episode, we explore vital themes such as the importance of communication in sustaining strong relationships, the pressure of dual military duties, and Alyssa’s proactive steps in initiating pivotal moments in their relationship, like their proposal story. These insights offer invaluable lessons not only for those in the military but for any couple striving to strengthen their partnership under challenging circumstances.

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Episode Transcript for “How a dual military couple overcame relationship challenges”

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:00:02]:
This podcast is sponsored by Communicate and Connect Counseling, where we have a team of therapists who provide individual, couples, and family therapy services, all tailored to meet the needs of military and veteran families. To learn more about our services, visit www.communicateandconnect.com.

Welcome to the Communicate and Connect podcast for military Relationships with your host, Elizabeth Polinski, a military marriage counselor. If this is your first time listening to the Communicate and Connect podcast, please take a second to go, rate, review, and subscribe to make sure you get all our future episodes. We also really want to know what it is you love about our podcast. And if for some reason you’re not loving it, we want to know that too, because we’re committed to providing the best quality content to help you improve your relationships.

You’re listening to episode 13 on how a dual military couple overcame relationship challenges. All right, so I’m Elizabeth Polinski with the Communicate and Connect podcast, and I’m really excited because today I have Alyssa here who is going to tell us a little bit about her experiences being a military spouse and also being in the military herself.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:01:33]:
So, Alyssa, do you want to just introduce yourself a little bit for us?

Alyssa [00:01:37]:
Hi, I’m Alyssa. I’ve been in the military for three years now. I met my husband in the military. We are stationed in Norfolk. He’s currently on deployment right now. Should be coming.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:01:50]:
That’s hard.

Alyssa [00:01:51]:
Shortly. We have two daughters. Our oldest is 2 and our youngest is 10 months.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:02:00]:
Wow. So not only do you guys have. You’re both in the military, which is, I think, pretty stressful, which we can get into that in a second, but he’s also deployed and you have two kids. You guys have a lot of different little stressors going on.

Alyssa [00:02:14]:
It’s. It’s a lot.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:02:17]:
Yeah, I believe that. I believe that. I think, you know, for so many couples, just military life, even if you’re both in the same spot, you don’t have your partner deployed as rough sometimes. And then if your partner is deployed, that can be rough. And now you’ve got some young kids on top of that. So you’re like super mom right now. Super military mom. Yeah.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:02:42]:
So do you want to tell us a little bit about your love story? Just because I love stories, and I think other people love love stories too.

Alyssa [00:02:50]:
Of course. So I graduated. I went to boot camp in January of 2017, graduated March 10, 2017, and I actually met my husband that day. But we didn’t know at the point that we would be here. We actually stopped talking. We actually didn’t talk at all after that day. And I kind of lived my best life in a school and did my own thing, because at the time, I was only an E1, and he was an E4 at the time. And we kind of just stayed our own way.

Alyssa [00:03:37]:
He didn’t know at the time that I was, like, obsessed with him in a way, and from there.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:03:48]:
So can I ask a quick question? Just because I know what you’re talking about, but I realize that maybe some of the people in our audience may not understand, like, that difference between your rank and why that was important and why you lived your best life on your own and didn’t think that that was really a possibility. Do you. Do you mind explaining a little bit more about that?

Alyssa [00:04:13]:
So our rule in boot camp was you can’t date two over and you can’t date two under. What I didn’t understand was they were talking about E5 and above. They are. They aren’t junior sailors anymore. E5 and above.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:04:32]:
Okay.

Alyssa [00:04:33]:
So it’s kind of a fraternization thing. Like, officers can’t date enlisted, and senior sailors, like a senior chief can’t date an E1. A fresh person right into the Navy because it’s kind of looked down upon. I mean, you can do it, but it’s. It’s very frowned upon.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:05:00]:
Kind of like dating your boss in the civilian world, if exactly what it is. Yeah.

Alyssa [00:05:06]:
A CEO won’t go after someone fresh on the job.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:05:10]:
Yeah. And it would. It would look odd, maybe, and co workers would feel like they’re not fair treatment or things like that. So you were worried that he was too high up for you to date in sort of a socially appropriate way?

Alyssa [00:05:28]:
Yeah, because at the time, he was my yeoman, which is. He was just someone that was put in charge of me. So, like, if I. I get in trouble, it comes down on him.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:05:42]:
Okay.

Seizing Opportunity During Barracks Transition

Alyssa [00:05:43]:
Which will go up to the higher ups, and they’ll go to him, be like, why? Why is this happening? So I stayed to myself. He ended up leaving the barracks, which we were both staying at the time, to go back to school so he could leave Great Lakes and go to a different school before heading to the fleet.

And I saw that as my moment to just swoop in. One of my roommates had gone downstairs and was like, hey, you need to talk to this girl. She’s, like, obsessed with you, has all these feelings, talks about you all the time. And he’s like, that’s weird. I’m not doing that. And I added him on Facebook and was like, hey.

Alyssa [00:06:28]:
And that’s what started it off.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:06:31]:
He was kind of nervous to make the first move.

Alyssa [00:06:33]:
Yeah, he’s very, very shy and nerdy. So he was like, I don’t know how I feel about this. And he messaging back. We went on, like, a zillion dates before he left and spent just about every single day together. And then he headed over to Dahgarn, which is about three hours north of Norfolk. And I was still stuck in Great Lakes waiting for orders. About two weeks passed, and they were like, hey, if you could get stationed anywhere, where would you want to go? I pretty much told them I was like, anywhere. You could send me to Norfolk if you wanted to.

Alyssa [00:07:18]:
And to fresh people in the Navy. Norfolk is not really where you want to be stationed at because it’s not a bad place. It’s just not the best place to get your start at in the Navy.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:07:34]:
Okay. I’m imagining that also depends on your job.

Alyssa [00:07:37]:
Yeah. On your job. We have a lot of broken ships over here in Norfolk.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:07:42]:
Gotcha. Yeah, I’ve heard some stories.

Alyssa [00:07:45]:
So you’re either going on lots of deployments or you’re not going to at all. I don’t care. Send me Norfolk. And they’re like, okay, well, good thing that’s where you’re going. And I was like, great. So I went home for about a week or so after leaving Great Lakes, and my husband. Boyfriend at the time, picked me up. Norfolk.

Alyssa [00:08:07]:
And we spent as much time as we could together before I ended up going to Israel to meet my ship for deployment.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:08:16]:
So you were deployed while you guys were dating? Yes. Okay. That’s. Was that challenging? I’m imagining that would be challenging.

Alyssa [00:08:24]:
It was very challenging because at the time, he was going to school at nighttime, and I was seven hours ahead of him in time.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:08:35]:
So not a great. Not a great time to sort of catch up and do phone calls or.

Alyssa [00:08:40]:
Or Very difficult. And then our relationship hit a weird patch. When we were leaving Israel, I took a pregnancy test because I wasn’t feeling right, and I, at the time, hadn’t had a period and a couple weeks.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:09:06]:
Yeah.

Alyssa [00:09:07]:
And I was like, ah, I don’t feel right. So I went to medical.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:09:10]:
Yeah.

Alyssa [00:09:12]:
They’re like, well, we’ll take a test for you. We’ll do it for you. And I was like, okay, cool. So I took it, and we. We looked at the test maybe 30 seconds, and I was like, oh, it’s negative. I’m fine. It’s just stress. And then I go to Indoc, and not even 20 minutes later, I get a call to come back into medical.

Alyssa [00:09:39]:
So I was like, oh, they’re probably just wanting to do like a consultation, make sure they have it all documented.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:09:46]:
Yeah.

Alyssa [00:09:47]:
So I was like, this is fine. So I go in there, we have baby doc, who is like the newest doctor or corpsman that we have on the ship. We call him baby doc. And then we had another HM in there. And then we had doc, who is the head corpsman.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:10:07]:
Okay.

Surprise Pregnancy Test Result

Alyssa [00:10:08]:
Those two were sitting over there just looking at me all like wide eyed and stuff. And I was like, okay. And then doc was sitting by the computer. I walk over to him and I’m like, hey, what’s up? He’s like, oh, heard you took a pregnancy test. I was like, yeah, it was negative. He slides it over and he’s like, you want to look again? I was three weeks pregnant.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:10:35]:
Wow. Okay. What a shocker. I cannot even imagine taking a pregnancy test, having it go negative, and then all of a sudden someone telling me, psych, it’s positive. That would be.

Alyssa [00:10:47]:
It was a major shock.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:10:50]:
Yeah.

Alyssa [00:10:51]:
We had just left Israel. We were on our way to transit to France at the time. And doc was like, hey, just so you know, you can’t be pregnant on deployment. It’s like, yeah, I get that. He said, you don’t know where we’re gonna. When we’re gonna get you on a plane to take you home, but we’ll figure it out. Like, okay. So I hung out in France.

Alyssa [00:11:18]:
When we went, we. They had this big festival, lots of really cool things. So I was like, okay, this is cool. And then from there we transited to Spain Rota, which is one of our ports. We have a Navy base there. And they’re like, this is where we’re taking you off. You’re gonna, we’re gonna drive you up to Montreal and you’re gonna fly from there home. So I was like, okay, cool.

Alyssa [00:11:49]:
So we drove to Montreal, got on a plane, took that plane to Miami. Worst flight ever. The flight to Israel was so much easier.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:11:59]:
Yeah, I believe that this flight to.

Alyssa [00:12:02]:
Miami, it was long, it was uncomfortable.

Pregnancy Discovery Amid Military Deployment

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:12:07]:
Yeah. So here you were, you had gone on deployment, you were away from your partner, which is hard, especially when you, you kind of, you know, you went there, it sounded like to be with him, to be closer to him. And then while you’re on deployment, which is kind of like a big deal for your career in the military, you find out you’re pregnant, you have to leave deployment early, and now you’re headed home. Does he know that you’re pregnant? Yet.

Alyssa [00:12:35]:
Oh, I had completely forgot how. How I told him. So I found out. And they gave me permission to use the ship’s phone, the outline, to call home. So I called him. Granted. Remember, he’s on nights for school, so during that time, he’s asleep. So I called him.

Alyssa [00:12:57]:
It was like. I want to say like, three in the afternoon, maybe earlier. And I was like, hey, in the ship’s phone, when you call out, it gives, like, this random number sometimes. So it was like, 001 dash five.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:13:14]:
Okay.

Alyssa [00:13:14]:
And he. He answered and he’s like, who is this? I was like, hey, it’s me. And he was like, oh, hey, what’s up? Still groggy and everything else. And I was like, just so you know, I’m heading home soon. He’s like, what? Why? I was like, I’m pregnant. And the second I said it, the ship’s phone died.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:13:37]:
Oh, no. That’s, like, horrible.

Alyssa [00:13:40]:
We went into River City. River City is, like, full lockdown of, like, all Internet out calls, everything.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:13:49]:
Oh, my gosh. I cannot even imagine. So here you’re finally like, hey, honey, I’m pregnant. And then the phone call drops, and you have no idea how he’s going to respond.

Alyssa [00:13:59]:
Yes. And at the time, we’d only been dating about a month, month and a half. Like, we started dating beginning of June. So this is about August, mid August at this time. So that’s how long we had been dating.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:14:19]:
Okay. You had. You had known each other longer. That was like the official dating type of thing.

Alyssa [00:14:25]:
We had finally exited River City, and I get on Facebook, and I’m like, hey.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:14:34]:
Yeah, I need your reaction.

Dream Predicts Real Pregnancy News

Alyssa [00:14:38]:
He’s like, I had a crazy dream a couple days ago. I was like, oh, that’s cool. What happened? He’s like, you told me you were pregnant. And I was like, oh, about that. I should be home here soon because I am pregnant. And he’s like, what? So he’s freaking out. We told our parents we’re free. We’re all freaking out.

Alyssa [00:15:07]:
And my parents. My mom was like, look. She’s like, I had told you about birth control. You knew all this other stuff. She’s like, you. You can’t get mad about it. She’s like, there’s nothing you can really do. She’s like, are you gonna keep the baby? And I said, yeah, of course.

Alyssa [00:15:27]:
And she was like, okay. Then she’s like, y’all figure it out.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:15:32]:
So how did that. How did that impact your relationship?

Alyssa [00:15:35]:
It definitely took a turn. We. It was. It was a big shock. For us, it was a big. We didn’t know what to do at the time.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:15:46]:
Yeah, I mean, you guys were so. So new into sort of like an official relationship. That. That sounds like very challenging.

Alyssa [00:15:54]:
We were both very young. I was. I was 19 at the time, turning 20. I would have turned 20 a couple months later, and he was only 21, very young, fresh in the Navy. We didn’t have. I didn’t have a car at the time. We didn’t own a house. I was living in the barracks.

Alyssa [00:16:16]:
So it’s very much a loop for us.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:16:20]:
So what did you guys do to sort of make it, keep your relationship strong and survive all of that? You guys had a lot maybe going on, like the deployment, the night school, the. Like, starting off your career. Now there’s a pregnancy.

Alyssa [00:16:36]:
We spent as much time as we possibly. We could together. I went back home, I got a car, went up there and spent time with him, still trying. We learned. We tried to learn more about each other and get as close as possible as we could possibly get, as two people could possibly get with each other.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:17:00]:
Yeah.

Alyssa [00:17:01]:
And we fought really hard to make this work because we both grew up in very broken homes, and we. We didn’t want to repeat that cycle. We were. We were hanging out one one night, and I rolled over, and I was like, we should get married. And he was like, okay. We went the next day, and we were. We were married.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:17:29]:
Yeah. So you basically proposed. I love that.

Alyssa [00:17:32]:
I did. I definitely did.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:17:34]:
Earlier on. When. Earlier on in first started this interview, and you said that you were kind of the one to initiate going on a date, in my mind, I was thinking, yeah, she’s this, like, strong, independent woman who’s gonna go be assertive and ask the guy out, you know, which is so hard for women to do. And not only did you do that, but you’re the one who proposed. I just think that’s so wonderful.

Alyssa [00:18:03]:
Yeah, it was. It was crazy. We got married Aug. 25. It was a Friday. It was raining. We went to the courthouse. Within an hour, we were married.

Alyssa [00:18:16]:
And I was like, cool.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:18:18]:
Yeah.

Alyssa [00:18:18]:
Now what?

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:18:20]:
Yeah. Goes by really fast, doesn’t it? Yeah, I got. We got married at the courthouse, too. And I was like, in and out. And I was like, well, man, that was fast. Now I’m married.

Alyssa [00:18:31]:
I don’t know what to do now. We decided to keep our marriage a secret.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:18:36]:
Okay.

Alyssa [00:18:37]:
Because we didn’t know how people would react to us only dating, like, a couple months, being pregnant and now married. We didn’t. We didn’t want that stigmatism. The stigma to be put against us, that fresh in the Navy, married, the divorce rate. We’re like, we didn’t want that.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:18:57]:
I can really understand that. That’s. There are. There’s a lot of judgment, I think, with all. All relationships, maybe especially military relationships, but I would. I see it in the civilian world, too. Like, people can get very judgmental of other people’s relationships.

Alyssa [00:19:14]:
Yeah.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:19:15]:
Like, you’ve been dating too long, and you need to hurry up and get married. Or. Or things like, why aren’t you married yet? Or. Or you’re getting married too soon. Soon. Or. There’s just so many.

Alyssa [00:19:26]:
Yeah. There’s just so much stuff put against you.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:19:29]:
Yeah. So I can really understand that nervousness. So what. What happened? Because I think you said you guys have two kids now, and it’s been. It’s been longer. So how did you guys finally, in a way, come out to everybody and be like, hey, we’re married?

Accidental Secret Marriage Revelation

Alyssa [00:19:48]:
A few months before I give, I gave birth to our first daughter. I had accidentally called him my husband, on a phone call with my sister and my birth mom. And that’s when they found out, and they kept. I was like, look, you got to keep this secret. I was like, I will literally not talk to any of you ever again if you let this out. I was like, this is my secret. I was like, not something for you to tell. It’s my thing to tell.

Alyssa [00:20:18]:
So they kept the secret. And then one day, I made my birth mom mad, and she messaged my dad and my stepmom and was like, hey, just so you know, Alyssa and Zach have been married for a year now.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:20:34]:
Okay. So it wasn’t really your choice. It just.

Alyssa [00:20:37]:
I had told them. I. She. She told them. Oh, yeah. I told her months before I found out my. After I gave birth. And then she told them.

Alyssa [00:20:45]:
She was about five months old at the time when my. When she told my parents, and I was like, are you serious? So, year being married, it finally came out that we had been married. And at the time, we were planning this wedding so that we didn’t have to tell people, hey, we’ve been married for this long.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:21:07]:
Yeah.

Alyssa [00:21:08]:
So.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:21:09]:
Which is very common in the military, I think, for people to get married at the courthouse and then to have a wedding.

Alyssa [00:21:17]:
Yes.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:21:17]:
Ceremony or reception later on. I know so many couples. We did that ourselves.

Alyssa [00:21:22]:
I said, yeah, that was. That was our. Everyone found out, and it was very dramatic. But my parents, they accepted it, and they were like, we understand. As long as y’all are happy. We don’t really care. And I was like, okay, cool.

Inspiring Journey: Intentional Parenting Success

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:21:37]:
Good parents for the win there. Glad they came back around. So you guys had quite the journey, I would say, and I think it’s pretty inspiring. I, you know, a lot of people worry about being like, getting married too young or getting married too soon or should we get married if we’re gonna.

If we have kids, should we keep kids? And this is. And what I really love about your story is that you both were really reflective of we, you guys kind of decided we do want the kid and that you were reflective about what were our types of growing up experiences. And you made a very intentional choice. Like, we want to raise our daughter.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:22:24]:
Daughter. Is that right? Yeah, we want to raise our daughter and we want this type of family and we want to have a very different experience. And you guys made like a very conscious choice and committed to that outcome. So being. I’m sure that other people listening to this because I’m thinking about it too. So I’m thinking other people must be thinking about it. Who might be listening. You guys are dual military.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:22:48]:
What are the biggest challenges that you guys have faced with. With both of you being in the military?

Alyssa [00:22:54]:
Oh, geez. It’s very competitive between me and him with certain things that we do, like.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:23:05]:
Who can do the most push ups or whatever.

Alyssa [00:23:09]:
Mostly when it comes to like, exams and stuff. Okay, so he was a push button, which means, like right after boot camp, he made automatic E4. So I was like, ah, it’s fine. I’m fine with it. You’re. You’re third class. It’s fine. So it came to me taking the exam for the first time and I made it first up.

Alyssa [00:23:34]:
So I was like, huh?

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:23:36]:
Yeah. Okay. So it’s like, who does better on SAMs and promotions and things like that? Gotcha.

Alyssa [00:23:43]:
He’s 100%, 1,000% smarter than me, and I will give him that.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:23:49]:
Yeah, that’s very sweet of you to say. I’m sure if he listens to this, he’s going to appreciate that.

Alyssa [00:23:55]:
He’s. He’s a major nerd. I love him to death, but he really is. And it’s adorable. I love it. He. He teaches our. He’s trying to teach.

Alyssa [00:24:07]:
When he comes back, he wants to teach our oldest all about computers and everything. He wants to build her her own computer and all of that stuff. But I’m like, go for it. It’s all you.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:24:21]:
Yeah. So has the. So there’s the been the competitiveness. Any other struggles from being dual Military.

Alyssa [00:24:29]:
He doesn’t. He. He kind of fits in everywhere because he’s a man. So when we hang out with our military friends, it’s mostly just males, so he can hang out with them and it be just fine. It’s socially acceptable.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:24:48]:
Yeah.

Alyssa [00:24:49]:
In the military with me, I work in a man’s world pretty much that’s what a man’s world in the military. So I don’t really fit in with some of them. Well, I connect with the men because I work with what they’re doing.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:25:10]:
Yeah. You have the same type of job, you’re doing the same thing. Everybody kind of connects with their co workers because you really can relate. Yeah.

Alyssa [00:25:17]:
But if they’re married, the wives don’t really. Or girlfriends don’t really see it that way because of the stigmatism of the boat ho or boat boo.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:25:31]:
Yeah. That people form connections while they’re on deployment. Sometimes that leads to affairs.

Alyssa [00:25:37]:
Yes. And that’s led to this kind of wall with some of the women on his ship. Because I. I connect and I have a slight. I have like three girl. Three women on the. Of the Navy wives that I really connect with because they understand that just like, just because I connect with them doesn’t mean I want them.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:26:13]:
Yeah.

Alyssa [00:26:13]:
And that’s what I try to explain with people. But they don’t really see it that way.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:26:19]:
Yeah. You can have very close friendships without it transitioning into something romantic or sexual.

Alyssa [00:26:25]:
Exactly. It’s kind of affected me in a way. But he. He doesn’t truly understand why. Because he can.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:26:32]:
Yeah, he doesn’t get it. That makes so much sense. Sense to me. We all. Everybody needs to have like a tribe, I guess, a way to connect with other people, to get emotional support. And usually we need to get emotional support from the people who understand what we’re going through. And.

Alyssa [00:26:50]:
And it’s. It’s difficult sometimes because like some of the wives, they try and understand what I’m going through same time. They. They really don’t. Because they don’t see it from my aspect of being active duty. Know what’s. Knowing what’s going on. Knowing pretty much because I make the ship schedules.

Alyssa [00:27:12]:
That’s my job.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:27:13]:
Okay. Yeah.

Alyssa [00:27:15]:
So I, I know what’s going on with the ship 24 7. And they don’t really understand why I act a certain way or why I tend to disagree with certain things. That’s kind of a difficulty for me is I need to be more compassionate.

Dual Military Couples: Unique Challenges

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:27:34]:
I guess, like kind of trying to understand that they don’t get. Get it. They don’t get. They don’t see the same things that you see. They don’t have the same understanding or the same context about what all is going on that you have given your job and being actually in the military, dealing with the same things that their spouses. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me.

So we’re getting close to running out of time. So I’m trying to think maybe, like, if there were other dual military couples, because I think that is part of what makes your guys’s story so, so unique is that you both are in the military and the fact that.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:28:17]:
That you, like, met really young and you had sort of an unexpected pregnancy and you made this very conscious choice. We are gonna do what is needed to make this be the best family we can have. Or like tips maybe, or even things you wish you had known before becoming a dual military couple, you know, that you would want to make sure other people were aware of or knew.

Alyssa [00:28:45]:
Communication is key. That’s with any relationship.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:28:49]:
100% agree. Yeah.

Alyssa [00:28:51]:
Don’t let your commands bully you at all. If you want to get married, get married. It’s. It’s not up to anyone else besides you two. If you decide not to change your last name in the military, that’s perfectly okay. I didn’t do it because I wanted to be my own person in the military and my husband understood that. We actually plan on, once I get out, changing my last name, then it’s just in the military, it’s hard to be your own person, especially when you’re literally owned by the military.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:29:24]:
Yeah.

Alyssa [00:29:25]:
So if you. If you want to have that little bit of yourself, it’s perfectly okay. Don’t let anyone judge you for keeping your last name.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:29:34]:
I love that I kept my last name too. I realize I’m not. I’m not in the military. My spouse is in the military. But I can really relate to that because I got some pushback about why I wasn’t changing my name too.

Alyssa [00:29:47]:
It’s hard trying to find, especially once you have. Because when you have a husband, you give your all to him. Like, I’ve birthed his kids. I changed my whole life for him. It’s hard once you become a mom and a wife to find something that’s still yours.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:30:09]:
Yeah. And I got to hold on to them.

Alyssa [00:30:11]:
My dad never had sons, so my last name was the last little bit of his line that I had left.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:30:19]:
Yeah, I can relate to that too. That’s same thing. We don’t. I don’t have any brothers, so. Great. Well, before we end, do you have any questions for me or last thoughts?

Alyssa [00:30:30]:
You had answered my first question of how you got into this. You wanted to see everyone so they can see the aspect of the military from personalities.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:30:41]:
I think I answered that before we started recording, so I might actually jump in for the audience because they didn’t hear that part of our conversation. But Melissa had asked about why I was starting this podcast. And I come from a military family. Both my parents were Navy, so they were also a dual military couple. Now I’m a military spouse. My husband’s in the Navy, and all of my work experience, I think that really came from, like, my family. We have so many generations of Navy that I wanted to really work with Navy families. And at first I worked for the Veterans Affairs Clinic.

Strengthening Military Families’ Connections

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:31:24]:
So actually most of my work experience up until recently has been with veterans. And I’m pretty glad that I started with them first, actually, because I really got to see the impact that military had on them afterwards, after leaving the military.

And now I’m more motivated, even more motivated than I was before, to help families who are in the military really have, like, close relationships and that strong connection, because that, I think is a big, I guess, a protective factor. Something that helps prevent, I think, a lot of the problems that veterans are facing after retirement or after they.

They leave, leave the military. And so part of this podcast was the goal just for people to have information about how to have healthy relationships. Because I know I never got that information when I was a kid and really be able to reach a broader audience.

Alyssa [00:32:22]:
That’s amazing.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:32:22]:
Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. So any other questions I could answer for you before we end?

Alyssa [00:32:28]:
No, that’s it.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:32:29]:
Okay. Well, Alyssa, I just want to say thank you so much for sharing your story. I have so much respect for you. Now hearing, like, the full depth. I mean, I was grateful. I was so grateful that you were willing to talk on this podcast. But even now afterwards, and I’m thinking about, like, how you guys fought to have the relationship that you want and to have a family that’s gonna be a good role model for your kids and the fact that you are just a go getter with. With the being the one to initiate things.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:33:00]:
Mad respect. So thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Alyssa [00:33:04]:
Thank you so much for having me.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:33:17]:
I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If so Please take a second to go rate, review and subscribe so you get all of our future episodes. Make sure to check out the show notes to sign up for our FREE 10-week relationship email course.

This email course is really designed for people who are are maybe having trouble with communication or connection in their relationship and helping them develop some quick wins right away to start improving it. While I am a therapist, this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not considered therapy and it should also not be a replacement for therapy. If you think you need a professional of any kind, you should definitely go find one. Until next time.