Helping the Helpers
Early on in my time as a mil spouse, I learned that within that special group of men and women who marry into the military, there is an abnormally high number of us with helper careers, think nurses and teachers. (There’s also the MLM contingent and a significant subset of photographers, but that would be another post.)
For those of you wondering, I fall into the teacher category. I also have a rotating field of nurse friends who can answer health questions mid-PCS or when I can’t be bothered to drag my kid to the base ER.
But basically, throw a stone in base housing, and chances are good you’re going to hit either a teacher or a nurse. Hit the teacher, and they’ll give you a detention. Hit a nurse, and she’s already armed with a well-stocked first aid kit.
It’s no surprise that so many military members marry helpers. To a certain extent, it’s a case of opposites attract. But it’s also that the helper personality is drawn to the big adventure, no holds barred, I’ll-take-on-the-world people because we can tell they are desperately in need of someone to take care of them. And in general, this combination works out really well.
The hold up, unfortunately, occurs when the helper personality is married to someone who is, first, frequently out of town, and second, periodically moving them away from their hard won support network. And you know who has the most trouble asking for help? That’s right: the helpers.
Who has to grit her teeth before she asks for help getting kids to overlapping sports practices while her husband is TDY? The helper. Who has to psych herself up before she goes to her neighbor to see if she can borrow their steam vac? The helper. Who has no problem taking anyone else a meal but would rather jam bamboo shoots under her toenails before admitting that she’s fed the kids quesadillas for the third night in a row? Yep, still the helper.
The helper can’t handle the awkwardness of asking. And it births in her deep feelings of guilt and shame (she’s the helper; how dare she force someone else to carry her weight?).
She worries that asking for help will sound like she’s demanding a right, that she thinks she deserves something. Or that if she asks once when she only sort of needs help, then she won’t feel comfortable asking again later when she’s desperate. Or even worse, that the second time she asks, she’ll be inconveniencing someone by asking too much of them.
She’ll wait to ask for help only when there are absolutely no other options or when not asking for help means her kids will pay the price.
There’s a reason this video has been making the rounds in the mil spouse community. “I’m not cold.” “Are you sure?”
The only thing we’re sure of is that, while we have no problem helping other people, we’d better be dying before we ask someone else to help us.
Today I helped out a friend whose husband wasn’t answering the phone…when she desperately needed to use a BOGO Starbucks coupon.
It was a tough gig, but someone had to do it.
But there’s a two fold problem with this mindset.
First, every time we refuse to ask for help, we train another military spouse to not ask for help. If the commander’s spouse can handle things on his/her own, then surely the Chief’s spouse can too. If the Chief’s spouse can, then so can the Ops O’s…and so on. Before we know it, we have a disconnected community of men and women who are positive they are drowning and can’t survive. Hear me on this: until we normalize asking for help, someone out there is feeling like a failure for needing it.
The second problem is that every time we refuse to ask for help, we keep another military spouse from feeling strong and capable and generous and needed. We keep them from feeling like they have something to offer too. Do we really want to do that?
I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that asking for help feels nice. Neither will I tell you that receiving help is the adult equivalent of fun-in-a-box. Sometimes, it’s just not. It doesn’t feel good. I’m like a two year old throwing a tantrum because I WANNA DO IT MYSELF but I am totally incapable of doing so.
But I know how privileged I feel every time someone asks me for help. You trust me enough to keep your child for a few hours? to bring you a meal? to pick up popsicles and aloe-infused kleenex at the commissary when you’re sick? My heart just grew three sizes.
So why would I deny someone else that heart growth? Why would I deny someone else the opportunity to feel integral to someone else’s survival? Why would I deny someone else the blessing of being made in God’s image as—you guessed it—a helper?
Today, if someone offers you help, don’t hesitate. Take them up on it. And if no one offers, here’s your permission to ask. You can even ask me. Because I promise you: we could almost all use the confidence boost of having someone as awesome as you ask us (US!) for help.
