Military Spouse Employment with Dr. Elaina DaLomba

Episode Summary of “Military Spouse Employment with Dr. Elaina DaLomba”

Welcome to Episode 36 of the Communicate & Connect Podcast, your go-to resource for improving military relationships with expert advice and insight. I’m your host, Elizabeth Polinsky, a military marriage counselor dedicated to helping couples thrive amidst the unique challenges that come with military life. In this episode, we are excited to have Dr. Elaina DaLomba join us as our guest speaker. Dr. DaLomba brings her extensive experience and research expertise to the table as we delve into the pressing subject of military spouse employment.

In this discussion, we explore the various hurdles military spouses face in their professional lives, from frequent relocations to limited job opportunities and the struggle to maintain individual identity and fulfillment. Dr. DaLomba, who has lived the military spouse experience herself, shares valuable insights from her research, highlighting how creativity, adaptability, and open communication can empower military spouses to find meaningful employment and retain a strong sense of self amidst constantly changing circumstances.

This episode offers a wealth of practical tips for military spouses seeking career development and couples striving to support each other’s professional and personal growth. We discuss the importance of strategically planning for career success, leveraging community resources, and fostering resilience to prevent dissatisfaction and resentment from creeping into your relationship.

Guest Speaker Bio – “Dr. Elaina DaLomba”

Dr. Elaina DaLomba is a distinguished expert in the field of military spouse employment. Her impactful research has significantly contributed to the understanding and advancement of career opportunities for military spouses, making her an invaluable resource for individuals navigating this unique employment landscape. Her influential paper, recognized for its insight and depth, became an essential part of research for many, including the host of the “Communicate and Connect” podcast, who discovered it during the preparation of a dissertation. Dr. DaLomba’s dedication to supporting military spouses in their career pursuits has earned her a respected reputation, and she continues to share her expertise and experiences through various platforms, empowering others to achieve their professional aspirations.

Check out her article here.

Free Relationship Pattern Assessment

Many couples assume they have a communication problem when they’re actually stuck in a relationship pattern that keeps creating the same conflict.

Take the free Relationship Pattern Assessment to discover what pattern may be keeping you stuck and learn what to focus on next.

👉 https://pages.communicateandconnect.com/relationship-quiz

Episode Transcript for “Military Spouse Employment with Dr. Elaina DaLomba”

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:00:01]:
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 Relationship with your host, Elizabeth Polinsky, 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. Hey, everyone.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:01:05]:
Welcome back to the Communicate and Connect podcast. This is episode 36 on Military Spouse employment. I’m really excited today because we have a guest speaker. It’s Dr. Elena de Lomba. And I actually found her because I was working on my dissertation and I found her paper and I read it to use in my dissertation, and I was like, oh, my gosh, this is great. This is really helpful and has a lot of information for military spouses thinking about their careers, and so I’m glad to have her on. So, Elena, why don’t you introduce yourself a little bit and tell us about your experiences in this paper that you wrote.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:01:59]:
Sure, sure. Well, it’s nice to finally see you face to face as opposed to emailing. So, of course your, your listeners aren’t seeing us, but it’s very nice to see a face. So, yeah, I, I, I’m glad we had a chance to talk a little bit and, and discuss things that are near and dear to both of our hearts as, as military spouses. So I’ve been married to John for 20, almost 26 years, and we’ve been in the military for 21 of those years, and it doesn’t appear that we’re going to slow down anytime soon. So, kind of hanging on my hat for the end of the run here.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:02:32]:
Yeah, that’s amazing.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:02:34]:
Yeah, yeah, we’ve, we’ve seen a lot. The whole idea of this paper came about really, when I was getting my PhD, I was overseas, we were in England, and I was just doing the prerequisites to get into school again, and I had been a social worker, had switched over to occupational therapy, which I can describe to you if you want to hear anything about it. I’m a big fan.

But I realized that, you know, a number of People were just falling apart around me. Number of families just couldn’t really cope with the overseas living. They were tired of being out of work. And it really just sparked my interest, like, what is it that makes some people able to cope with this stuff and all the change versus others who can’t, you know, so that became a real area of interest. It wasn’t what I did my dissertation on, but it was something that I kept in the back of my mind that I wanted to address once I knew how to research.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:03:28]:
So this was actually my first fully qualitative study, which, if you did any qualitative work, you know, it’s. It’s a real challenge. You end up with mounds of information from people and you, you know, you want to capture their experiences and their stories. And it was really kind of hard to keep myself out of the picture because I really have never struggled to find a job. And I don’t know if that’s because of what I do or just the. The places we’ve been. It’s. It’s hard to say.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:03:57]:
I’m certainly not remot like you are now being a Navy person in the desert, you know. Yeah, we’ve always been in big cities.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:04:05]:
Yeah. Which in some ways is helpful. I know. Since we moved. I’m not sure if the listeners are aware of this or not. I probably mentioned it, but I think the last thing I talked about was my husband was on deployment and he. So he’s back from deployment now. And then two weeks after he got back from deployment, we moved across the country and now we are in Nevada.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:04:27]:
So that. That PCs was fun. And so we are in rural Nevada now. And for sure, a lot of the spouses around me are talking about the difficulties of finding employment and of course, the difficulties of childcare if their kids are not school age. And sometimes even if they are school age, the schools here are being in the desert. There are some interesting things that happen, like if there’s the smoke from the fires that have. The California fires, if there’s too much smoke in the air, the schools will shut down. And so then there’s like, childcare issues that come up with that.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:05:03]:
But, well, and I know. And what adult do you know works from eight to three, you know? None of us.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:05:08]:
Exactly. Yeah. So it has. And I know from my experiences, it’s. It’s taken creativity to find a way to navigate my own career in a way that feels good and still, like, authentic to who I want to be while being a military spouse. So I’m really interested in this and to tie, to tie it into couples.

You and I were talking about this a little bit before we started the call, but it’s so related to retention of military service members that oftentimes they’re getting out of the military because of the unemployment or underemployment of the military spouse and the dissatisfaction that the military spouse is feeling at not having the career that they really want. And it’s so also tied to individual mental health, my feeling good about myself, my self esteem, my identity to be engaged in meaningful work.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:06:11]:
So this, I think is just really important stuff to be talking about. Do you have anything you want to add?

Evolving Identity: Education and Experience

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:06:21]:
It goes way beyond the scope of my practice as an ot and even in my social work background, it gets more into sociology. And I had to tap into a lot of mentors when I started the work because I didn’t want to extend beyond what I had a right to talk about. And yet I knew that I was someone who was on the inside who could capture these experiences from a variety of people.

You know, the lessons are unique, but sometimes they kind of echo the same things. And as you said, I really figured out who I was with each degree and each job I got. Certainly parenthood and marriage and all those other things contribute and comprise who you are, but development, mentally and even cognitively, like, I have never been the same since I got my PhD. It just was something that I wanted to do. It was a goal.

Career Challenges for Military Spouses

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:07:12]:
And I felt like I had reached, you know, my, my intellectual fulfillment by doing this. And even in this process for this, this article, doing this research was a dream come true because I felt like I could put forth some information that maybe could move the dial a little bit towards helping spouses, because as we’ve said, as we’ve talked about at the Family Readiness Centers and a lot of the SECO and some of the other programs that the government has introduced, while certainly helpful, they don’t necessarily apply to people with advanced degrees.

And I certainly understand that some people, some spouses, you know, get married and very happy to stay at home and do that, and that’s, that’s fine for them, but the people who kind of take on other things and move on, the more you’re specialized, the better chances are that you’ll be unemployed if you marry into the military.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:08:05]:
Yeah, that was one of the most interesting findings of like, something that you talked about in your paper that I was shocked by because I think especially like, there are programs for spouses to go get more education and there are sort of These talks about, well, you can use your husband’s GI Bill and go to school and stuff, but that’s not actually necessarily going to lead to better employment options. It’s actually maybe going to make it harder for you to be employed if you go get more education.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:08:43]:
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, I find that the word dependent, you know, categorizing that us as that has always rubbed because I’ve always earned more than my husband has and I’ve always been. I’m employed when he couldn’t be employed before we joined the military.

So, you know, for me there’s. There’s all kinds of affirmation and confirmation of who you are and your rank and medals and all of that stuff, but there’s none of that for us, except if you do things that make you a good wife, a good military wife, you know, that would be. You’d see quote signs if you could see me. But actually, one of the articles that. That was referenced in my article, the Aduchi article, the title is the Recipe for a Good Military Wife.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:09:28]:
And if you want to get your hackles up, that’s a good read because it’s just not who I am. I did take time when my children were born, but I had things I wanted to do and I still do. So.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:09:40]:
Yeah. Oh, I. That like hit my heart when you talked about dependency. I can really relate to that. I made. I made more money than my spouse did before he. Before we got married. So, like before, before I started having to move around.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:09:56]:
And now, and. And for now, I’m. I’m getting close to being more settled. But that whole time that I took a significant pay cut to follow him really was very challenging for me to feel like, I don’t know anybody who wants to feel dependent that they can’t take care of themselves and be their own independent, autonomous sort of person.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:10:23]:
Right, exactly. And as we move around and the choices can be limited, you are literally in the desert, and particularly for what you do. I know that finding mental health care for a number of clients that I’ve had has been virtually impossible because there just are no providers.

And yet very often there are military spouses sitting right there waiting to do something, and they’re held back by licensure or the lack of child care, like you said, or just the demands of their husband’s schedule. It’s a constant problem. It’s a huge problem overseas. Getting into the CDC or finding private childcare overseas is just terribly expensive. It makes it not worthwhile a lot of times for people to work Even.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:11:07]:
Even highly skilled people.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:11:10]:
Yeah. Yeah, I’ve, I’ve heard that we, we don’t have kids, but I’ve heard that from other military spouses who do have kids that it’s sort of like weighing the pros and cons. Even sometimes with the cost of child care, is it even worth it for me to work or should I just. Is it financially more reasonable to stay home?

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:11:32]:
Right, right.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:11:33]:
So these are maybe, you know, a lot of the limitations that military spouses face when it comes to navigating their career, when it comes along side of their spouse’s career, who’s in the military. And so your study, you said it was qualitative. So for people who are not. Not researchers, you basically did interviews with a bunch of military spouses to learn about their experiences, sort of navigating this for themselves. What were, what were some of the findings that came out of that?

Creative Career Fulfillment Impact

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:12:06]:
Yeah, well, I think one of the things you mentioned was a primary finding is that you really needed to get creative with your career, your profession. You know, some people obviously look at career as a calling, and they feel less than whole if they’re not pursuing their work. And I’m one of those people, like, I need to, to carry out my work in order to feel, you know, transactionally with the environment I’m in.

I get a lot of good feedback. Of course, I get negative, too, but it, it’s sort of what I need to continue to grow and thrive. So when I’m not able to work and not able to do what I want to do, it’s, you know, it’s real difficult. And I, and I know that, you know, as my husband is my closest friend, that he feels that. So you can certainly see why these ripple effects, you know, impact the military member and the desire to serve.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:12:56]:
I mean, there’s still days where my husband says, do you want me to retire? Because I, you know, I’m in charge of the children and the home and his constant TDYs, all that sort of stuff. So I’ve had to be creative. One of the creative things that I don’t know if they’re creative or not, but I guess what we decided to do was actually to live apart so that we could pursue things.

Now, none of the people in the study that I did chose that, which kind of surprised me because I know a number of professional spouses who have chosen that for. Or even not professional spouses, but for the stability of family and your own sanity. You know, I’m not, I’m not going this time. We’re in that position again. We, we were not living together for a year in order to make tenure.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:13:41]:
I had to stay put in the university for a while. And then we have a high schooler and our two oldest children went to three different high schools apiece. And I just can’t do that to this youngest child. So, you know, for the sake of both of us, we’re choosing to live apart. So that was one of the ways that I got creative about it. Now, my spouses that I interviewed, you know, they had a number of different things that they did. And I think that there’s a, you know, there’s a process that everybody goes through. As you said, you have to figure out where you’re comfortable.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:14:13]:
Some people can get so into base life and the mission itself and being a supportive spouse and community member and find real meaning in that. And, and for a while I did as well. But not everybody can. And I think we have to be careful, especially as, as spouses when we’re in those tight knit communities not to pass judgment on one another that everybody has a part to play and both of us are equally right to pursue what works for us. So that creativity piece and the compassion and understanding among military spouses I think is really critical. That was a key finding.

Finding Fulfillment in Supportive Roles

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:14:52]:
I appreciate you sharing that because you, you’re absolutely right. I’m, I’m thinking about it again in terms of kids. Like, I, I’m not really a kid person. I’ve just never been, I’ve just never been that person. But I have so many friends who get so much meaning out of being a mom. And I’m sure if I had kids, which we, we might do one day, that I would certainly love them, you know, but I, you know, I know I have friends who, there’s a baby, they’re drawn to it, and there’s, there’s so much fulfillment in that role.

And so kind of what I’m hearing you talk about is as a support person, as a military spouse, I could take on this role as a support person for my service member and find a lot of meaning in that role and in being part of the support for the military mission. And then there are others who, that’s just not them.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:15:55]:
They want more independence, more of their own, something sort of separate from their spouse in military life.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:16:03]:
Right. You know, I was kind of laughing as you were saying that, because there was one spouse I interviewed and the spouses never ceased to surprise me with some little tidbit that was so different from my own experience that it really was humbling and just so much insight I gained from all of them.

But one of them was saying to me that she married Captain America and he was extremely patriotic. And the bulk of the now 25 spouses that I’ve interviewed at length are patriotic in some form or fashion. And she said, oh, no, not me. Captain America married an anarchist, and I don’t give a damn about the government. And I really appreciated that. Wow.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:16:42]:
I can. Most people just feel so constricted, especially where they know I’m a military spouse. They’re, you know, they. They hold back what they want to say. But she, she did not. And she found her way by working in the. Not the Family Readiness center, but the people who investigate abuse claims and things like that. Through the military families.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:17:02]:
Yeah, Fleet and Family Services.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:17:05]:
Yeah, something like that.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:17:07]:
Yeah. I also don’t know if the term might. Might change by branch of the military service, but I think it was part of Fleet and Family Services for the Navy.

Military Spouse Employment Support Challenges

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:17:18]:
On that note, one of the things that I asked every spouse was, is your spouse supportive and is their command supportive of the fact that you want to work and that you have this career in this profession? And most people said that the command didn’t know anything about what they did. They didn’t care. They only cared about this, the, you know, active duty member. But, you know, the communication of the expectations had to be abundantly clear because it did no good to get somewhere, you know, in Forks, North Dakota, jobless, and then complain. That only made things worse.

And in fact, I, as the interviews went on, as is true to this kind of research, you start refining your questions as you realize I wasn’t exactly asking the right questions. What we found is that I had to ask all the way back, did you know what you were getting into when you married a military member?

Did that member describe to you, as best they could, what military life would be like so that there are no unmet expectations or unreasonable expectations moving forward? Now, given that my husband pulled that on me when we had a newborn baby and nine, 11 happened, he said, I’m going to go into the Air Force. And I didn’t really know what to say.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:18:34]:
I was an emotional mess. I was, you know, fat and new baby, not sleeping. And I was like, okay. Nobody could have explained it to me, you know, what the experience would have been like. But I think that that’s a big piece of it is if you know what you’re getting into and you can make informed decisions, you have a much better place to come from.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:18:54]:
And I’m just thinking about my own journey with that. Both my parents were in the Navy, so I had some idea. My entire career has really focused heavily on working with military and veteran populations. So when I met my husband, I was working for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Dream job. Oh my God, I loved that job so much. It was so hard for me to agree to get married. Some people, some people are like really ready to get married.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:19:29]:
I was like ready to get married, but I wasn’t sure that I was ready to marry the military also. And that took a lot of therapy and self reflection for me to make that jump. And part of. I honestly wasn’t sure like what my career might look like. But I decided that I still wanted. That’s actually when I decided to go back and get a PhD in marriage in couples therapy and focus in on couples because it was something I had always wanted to do and if I was going to lose my dream job, then I was at least going to pursue another dream that I hadn’t yet pursued.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:20:11]:
Well, yeah, and so you adapted and it worked. But again, that’s not for everybody. And I think that that was the thing that a lot of the spouses found slightly condescending was, you know, oh, honey, use your husband’s GI Bill and advance your degree while you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere. Like that just really didn’t fly for a lot of the spouses and actually made them kind of, kind of hostile towards the whole environment.

And, and a few of them were actually thinking about retirement or getting out, you know, separation or their, their spouses were because of the angst that this the spouse felt. You know, I especially those that had gotten married older and the active duty member had been in for a while and the spouse was new to this and it was, you know, just lots of stories of like, I could have never been prepared for this. Who knew? I, you know, I didn’t understand. I think when you kind of grow with it together, it’s a different, A different ball of wax.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:21:08]:
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I, I’m, you know, in some ways grateful that I had that other dream that had been a longstanding dream. I knew from like for years that I wanted to do couples therapy and didn’t have the opportunity because the government is so individually focused. But I can imagine, I can imagine if I didn’t have that, I do not know if I would have married my husband. I don’t know if I could have given up my. I really had the dream job and if I didn’t have another dream that had sort of gone unfulfilled.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:21:43]:
I don’t know if I could have done that. So I can understand why, why that would rub people the wrong way to be told to, well, go, go back to school or something. Well, if I already have the dream job, what am I going to school for? Right, right.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:21:58]:
Well, and I think that that’s, you know, being open to new things is always good. So I interviewed one a psychologist who ended up at Fort Benning and felt very isolated and ended up taking a job as I came, if it was a party planner or something like that. And that worked for a while because she’s sort of a bubbly, happy personality. But then she found beekeeping and she said, you know, I’m happy just consulting a couple weeks and doing beekeeping.

And I would have never been open to this, you know, had we not moved to the middle of nowhere. And I’d come to the end of my own problem solving and my own ability to think of what to do next. She just happened to bump into somebody, I believe in a statement fair or something like that. And she said, I just became interested in it and now this works for me.

Resilience in Unforeseen Life Paths

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:22:46]:
And adopting children, different things she never thought of doing before sort of came to light because of that, that experience of just losing it all, being hung out, you know, without any resources. She found them and I think that, that, that was a primary thing that set people apart.

Who succeeded is, you know, they, sure they had their pity party and yes, they grieved things that they had lost, but they were able to come back and either find, you know, what we call career adjacent kinds of work or unpaid work that had significant meaning. You know, one of the spouses was in, stationed in Korea with, I can’t remember if they were there.

You know, usually those assignments for the Air Force are a year and they’re, they’re not accompanied. So you’re, you know, so she was lucky to be with him. And she just said, I knew that I was not going to be nursing, so I started working in the kennels and took on the key spouse role. And she said, the first time I realized I could see North Korea from across the border, I realized that I was doing something very meaningful.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:23:51]:
So, you know, you, that, that adage of blooming where you’re planted is, you know, that’s the kind of happy baloney that spouses often can’t take either. Like just roll with it, like, you know, saying no and doing your own thing when you’re creative but open to Change and open to different versions of what you thought might be, you know, for your career and your work. And I do mean work because sometimes it’s not always exactly your career that they could find fulfillment. It just. It was a process.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:24:27]:
Yeah, it’s. As you’re talking about that I was thinking the, The. The rub. What is. What is the rub about? And it’s. I think it’s the. It’s invalidation. It’s invalidating of the pain and the loss that spouses go through at losing and losing over and over and over.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:24:48]:
Something so meaningful.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:24:50]:
Right. Well. And it’s tied into your very identity, as you said. So, you know, a couple spouses said that it’s not. It’s not what I do. It’s. It’s who I am. I can.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:25:01]:
And I feel that way about occupational therapy. I. That’s who I am. It’s not what I do. It’s how. It’s, you know, the lens through which I see the world. It’s lens through which I interpret all of my research data, you know, because that’s where I’m coming from. And I will borrow other theories, but I will always look at it as, you know, when we are occupied with fulfilling roles and tasks and activities, we develop, we grow, we thrive without those things.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:25:32]:
We’re stripped down and we’re just a, you know, a portion of what we could be. So it can be very unfulfilling if you’re not engaged in those activities that are most meaningful to you.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:25:44]:
Yeah. And so that I’m tracking with all of that. And so the, the thing that. So when I think about somebody who is finding more success at blooming who. I was like, yeah, I was like. I don’t know. I was like. I don’t even like saying that.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:26:05]:
I was like cringing even saying it. I don’t know. I don’t know the right term to call this, but who are able to find. Yeah, thriving. They’re finding meaning and identity again. I guess I would almost call it, like, it’s. It’s. It is a form of resiliency because even though I had this loss, I am finding a new way to.

Strategies for Personal Fulfillment and Identity

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:26:30]:
To promote my individual identity and have meaning and fulfillment in life. I’m. I’m somehow finding a way to do that. And so the people who were. Were able to do. I guess that the people who were able to do that foundation were able to enhance their feeling of fulfillment and meaning through a variety of ways. Sometimes that was finding a creative solution to maintaining the career field. They Were in sometimes that was finding something kind of adjacent, not exactly the same, and sometime that was doing something totally different that had meaning and fulfillment, even if it was more of a volunteer sort of thing.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:27:18]:
Right. And how you frame it, I think is really key. So if you are constantly labeling it, you know, how when we say things, we start to believe them. But if you label it as well, I’m settling for this, or this is the consolation prize. And believe me, I’m as guilty of saying those things all through these 20 years as anybody.

But once you get away from that language and you start saying, this is what I’m doing now, this meets my needs now, and it might not in the future. And I really did have to say that to my husband, you know, especially when we went overseas, I finally had a job offer, and then his boss said, because we’re both medical, you can’t work in the same unit. She cannot work.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:28:01]:
That’s crushing.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:28:02]:
Devastating. Yeah. So we. I did work. I took the position and we did quite well. But, you know, it was always sort of hanging out there that, like, that was my one opportunity to work. And we just got our youngest child into the cdc and you’re going to take that away. And I had a little hissy bit and I cried a lot and hated it there and turned out to be the best assignment of our lives.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:28:26]:
But at that moment, I had. I was done.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:28:32]:
Was there anything that was really helpful that your spouse did to support you in your career?

Military Spousal Support and Communication

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:28:40]:
In fact, this was one of the findings of our study, too, that I was a little remiss in not mentioning is that not only does communication have to be good between you and your spouse so that, you know, everybody knows what’s what, the goal is, the family aspiration, not just the active duties, members, aspirations, but that they were very verbal and supportive with command and co workers, that they talk up their spouse and the work that they’re doing now. My research at the moment, I work for the army, so I’m a professor in the postgraduate programs at Fort Sam. And so that fits right in.

And he’s very easily able to work my work into his conversations. Some of the people he works with have made referrals to our unit, the soldier recovery units, and I see their children in therapy. And so it’s an easy. An easy sell. But all along, like, even when we were in England, in different places, he was able to just make an effort to talk about the work that I did so that they would understand how important this is to.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:29:45]:
To me, to us. To our marriage, to our family. Well, being that I was a partner in this, of the same, you know, rank and influence as he was on what happened, and that made all the difference. And several of the spouses said the same thing, that they, you know, the fourth or fifth time that the wives particularly were asked to come and bake cookies. And, you know, no, my wife is an emergency room physician. She will not be there.

People back down. But he’s had, my husband has had commanders say, you know, you’ve got to do this event, and it would be helpful if your spouse was there, but of course, she’s not, you know, derogatory things.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:30:23]:
And he just says, you, you knew my life when, you know, we knew what my life was like when we decided we could work together and I took this assignment, you knew, and I, you know, I had some guilt with that too, because I wonder, would his career have been somewhat easier if I had not done my own thing? But ultimately, you know, I hope to be married to the same man at the end of all this. He wants me to be who I am. That involves me doing what I do.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:30:48]:
Yeah. Yeah, I, I’m glad that we were able to cover that extra piece on, on that. The really supportive thing for the service member to be supportive of, of spouses and their careers is to talk them up, to view them as, as an equal with a. Their goals, whatever those goals are, as being equally important to what that person is doing and to convey that to others. So that way it’s not just.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:31:24]:
It’S.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:31:25]:
Not just like, yeah, I say that to you, honey, but no, but, no, I’m, like, saying it to other people. I really believe it.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:31:31]:
Right.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:31:33]:
Yeah. Well, I know we only have. We’re starting to run out of time. So I was thinking, based on your research and even your personal experience, if you had sort of one to two tips or like, takeaways for military spouses or couples who are trying to navigate this area around career development and jobs, what do you think would be the top things that would be really helpful for them to just start taking, like, the next steps forward?

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:32:05]:
Right. Well, based on my research and my own experience, I think the biggest thing is communication, and it has to be painfully honest sometimes. But if your spouse really knows you, they’re going to know that these, you know, these facts of who you are, these features, these characteristics are, you know, alive and well, and they comprise who you are and they’re important to you. But stating that again and again, I can’t remember how many times over the Years I’ve just said, and I will be working, so you’ll have to help me call daycares or you know, this is a team effort.

I’m not going to be left alone just reminding him of my agency and my goals. So that’s a big one. So you know, being able to humbly and directly listen to one another. And there were times where I did step aside and a lot of the spouses did too and, and temporarily for that time accept underemployment or part time employment as part of my sacrifice for the sustenance of our marriage.

Relocation Tips for Military Spouses

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:33:05]:
So it does need to go both ways. That, that’s a big one. And then for spouses particular who are licensed or certified is to just to totally get on top of it as soon as, you know, orders are going to drop. You know, the, the hardest thing for me to listen to is when spouses, you know, end up, you know, like you did in the desert and say, well, I didn’t know it was going to be so hard to do this and to do that when there are so many things you can do ahead of time.

Even if, as a few of my spouses did, found that they really can’t work. But at least you’ve done the legwork and you’re not, you know, gushing with emotion, trying to vent it all when you arrive at that the one time where you really need to be present, focused, organized to find your house, get your, you know, your TV set up, get your kids in school. Those pivotal moments where you need to not be as stressed or accept that this will be a period of time when you’re not going to work and at that time you’ll be ready to start your job, your work, searching.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:34:10]:
I like that idea of sort of the pre planning. So even though I do mostly couples counseling now, I have done tons of individual therapy in the past and I remembering a conversation I had with somebody around finding a job, they had done research to look it up. How long does it take to find a job? And it was something like six to nine months for the average American to like find a job.

From the moment they start looking and submitting applications, doing all the interviews to then, yeah, being, being actually in a, in a job. And so the, the doing it sooner rather than later. I can see how that would sort of speed up the process and, and then you, you have more knowledge, more, more ways to decide your next steps.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:35:04]:
Yeah, and you’re starting from a stronger point where you’re not emotional. And as I said, a lot of times you do conclude that I, you know, I, I’m not going to be able to work, at least initially here. And that’s okay. I will start working or start looking, you know, when I get there or, you know, by Christmas. And of course, therein lies the issue with military placements is that we’re only there for three years, so by the time you get it going.

But, but you know, it’s, you know, as I said, each change affords different things, you know, and you can embrace them and not, not bloom where you’re planted, but you can have that agency to choose what you will do and how you frame each, each step. And if you don’t, I find that you just end up resentful and, and hurt. So.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:35:52]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast. I’ve, I’ve really enjoyed, enjoyed our conversation and I’m really grateful that you were willing to come talk about your research. Any last thoughts for us before we end?

Adapting to Military Relocations Effectively

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:36:05]:
No, I just wanted to say if you don’t, if your listeners aren’t involved with the Blue Star Families Survey every year, like definitely get involved with that because you get to express everything about military life. And I use a lot of their data in my research and they’re very giving and it’s not supported by the DoD so it’s not biased in any way. And that’s just a great, great place to speak your mind and allow all of us that are out there collecting and doing research to get the real deal.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:36:36]:
Yeah, I will include a link to that also in the show notes. Great.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:36:41]:
Thanks for having me.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:36:43]:
Yeah, thank you.

Dr. Elaina DaLomba [00:36:44]:
Bye.

Elizabeth Polinsky [00:36:53]:
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 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.