Help please!

I just received a rather upsetting message that said that I wasn't allowed to join the wives-of-the-unit Facebook profile where they plan social activities but also share information about what is going on with the unit (like troop movement!). I was fairly certain that I was going to be excluded from this too, but the FRO said to my not-husband that I just had to be on the MOL and he seemed miffed at me for feeling excluded by the group and taking a slightly victimized attitude towards it. Now, this is all hearsay and the BF tends to not always be the most careful with his word choice or remember exactly what he said, but that was what was reported to me. So after the conversation, I applied for a "friendship" (oh FB, what have you done to our vocabulary?).

This is what I received this morning:

Amanda,
Unfortunately we cannot accept your friend request at this time. The FRO has verified that you are not a Bastard Wife (yet), and said for you to email or call him if anything has changed. I understand you are very supportive of your Marine and am sorry we have to keep these rules. Best of luck to you,
Admin 

 Is it just me or is the "Best of luck to you," a little snotty? Like something out of Mean Girls. "Yea, you aren't cool enough to sit at our lunch table so never talk to us again. Goodbye."

This is my reply that I haven't sent yet:

That is interesting because he told my not-husband that anyone who was on the MOL was allowed to join and seemed upset that I would feel excluded for some reason. I wouldn't have sent the friend request if he hadn't said that.

I can accept being excluded from the social activities, although it DOES make it a little hard to fulfill the FRO's suggestion to have 5 friends in the battalion that you can call on to support you when things go wrong. Maybe girlfriends never experience family illness, cars breaking down, or the death or injury of their Marine? That would be nice, but I don't think that Murphy cares if you are married or not.

So the "finding support from people going through the same thing" is out. But, I guess it's your prerogative who you socialize with and under what conditions.

My concern is that you seem to be posting important information about the Battalion on the profile page; for example, movements related to the FEX III. This is information that is necessary for me in the same way that it is necessary for you--to make sure I'm available to pick him up instead of being out of town for the weekend (which I had planned to be but fortunately had already canceled), to do whatever cleaning and preparations I put off, and to have the peace of mind that he's coming home early. I'm not saying these are vital reasons, but they are the exact same reasons that a wife would want to know and if they are good enough for you, then I don't see why they aren't good enough for me.

I accept that your/Dan's decision is final, but please keep in mind that I too am sending a loved one off to war, that I too am trying to keep the home fire burning and the ship on course without the help of my partner, and I too am all alone in a new city--only I don't have the support of the (almost) fellow-wives that I heard was so crucial to a successful deployment.

I'm just sorry that those aren't the qualifications you are looking for.

Is that okay? Keep in mind that I don't know who the admin for the site is (and she clearly didn't want to tell me since she signed the note "admin"). Which brings up another point about how I can't trust anyone else in the Battalion now because I'm paranoid that they are the person who told me to 'go away.' Great.

I did have something in there about DADT being completely repealed recently and asking what they planned to do about THOSE significant others without a marriage license, but decided that I didn't need to trivialize a fight for civil rights by comparing it to my situation. Also that mentioning DADT probably won't endear me to "admin."

So please, please, please--tell me what you think! My people are in deserts and planes and I'm not sure who to ask for advice on this one and I'm pretty upset about it (about to start my third cry) because it seems so stupid and cruel to make my life just a little bit harder because we aren't married.

And to the Battalion Commander: It's a little inconsiderate to tell us not to get married before the deployment or allow the USMC to dictate our status, and then allow your FRO and other representatives to discriminate against me for following that advice. Also, this might be a contributing factor to the quickie and quickly failed marriages in the unit.

It's funny how life works

I guess I've owed this thing an update for a while now. I'm going to number it, which I know is lazy writing, but at this point I think it best to get it out and then worry about making it pretty.

1. The part-time converting to full-time job that I had a few months ago completely disappeared. I'm not sure what happened, but I was having a really hard time getting in touch with my employer and now I don't know what the status is. He said they are working on development, but I'm not sure if he plans to keep me on board in a few months when they are ready to do more marketing. If not, then I lost a very crucial part of my network.

2. On the other hand, I want to be working full-time (or something close to it) before his project would be ready to go. So I decided it was time to start looking for work locally. I found one job that was too good to be true, and I didn't even get a phone call. Come to think of it, I found out a few weeks ago that they had hired someone, but I still haven't received any sort of official notification which is incredibly rude, especially considering that they have an HR department whose job is to hire (or not hire, in my case) employees. I hate that. I hate that about the job market--that employers don't need to sell themselves anymore so they also got rid of consideration and common decency. I've applied to couple of other things with no response what-so-ever. It's exasperating and disheartening.

3. I do have two part-time things lined up though, so not all is lost. One is doing marketing (as an unpaid intern) for a law firm, but since it's lots of SEO and web presence development, I'm not too concerned about the lack of pay. The other is freelance writing for a job board for diversity candidates. All in all, it's a lot more writing than I've done in a long time, so I'm hoping that my sporadic blog posts kept me fresh enough to pull it off. Also that by stating with my blog in the AM, I can get a flow going for writing the other things.

4. I mentioned previously that I had a new idea for a start-up. First, let me clarify and say that I'm not giving up on my old idea, I just need to gain a few more skills before I'm ready to tackle something like that full time. Although now that I think about, I guess I've been very private about that idea, so you don't actually know what I'm talking about. I want to start an online retail store that sells home goods designed and created by military and veteran hobbyists. I need to do a feasibility plan for it (how much it would cost versus how much my potential sales are) but I'm completely lost on how to get that data and it seems so daunting the more I put it off. Also, I since I can't even get up the courage to talk to my own dad about selling some of his iron pieces, I'm a little lacking on merchandisers.

However, the new idea is a lot easier. It's starting a local social media marketing firm. We have so many shops and restaurants around here that could use some serious tweaking of their social media plans/efforts and it gives me a lot of energy to think of everything I could offer. I still need to run some numbers, figure out what the costs v profits could be, etc. but I think this could be a winner. Not the least of which is because the craigslist ad that inspired me to think of this was advertising that they could set up Twitter and Facebook for a company for only $850. Does that seem steep to you? It seems ridiculous to me. But also like there is a lot of money to be made here.

So things I need to do: find a graphic designer/co-founder (I need someone to keep me motivated); do some feasibility research; talk to the local chamber of commerce to get more information on the businesses here; ??write a business plan??; figure out what to offer in each marketing package; put together a formal presentation; develop a kick-a marketing plan for my company; research local businesses to create a sales pitch; implement.

It's scary but exciting!

Just to clarify, an actual business plan is mostly financial projections and broad stroke marketing (as in, look! There really is a market for my thingamajig!). You use it to illustrate the money making potential of your business to banks and interested investors. Since I'm not planning on using either of those sources of cash, a proper business plan is really just a time suck. Not to be mention a little hard since the projections are all estimates based off other estimates which come from industry standards which themselves are averages. It's like building a business on jello--it might be where you say it is, but there's a heck of a lot of wiggle room. Also jello falls apart easily and leaves stains, so I don't mess with jello.

What I would need is a detailed outline of my marketing strategy, my products, and any processes I want to put in place (bookkeeping, sales, website administration, division of responsibilities, etc.). That, I will do for sure, but probably not a "real" business plan. We're shoestringing it here, people!

5. On a more personal note, the BF is doing some of those several week long trainings in preparation for his fast approaching deployment to Afghanistan. I kinda feel like he already left. Or more like this is the beginning of the long and tumultuous journey known as a deployment. In the 3 months (ish--I don't post dates) he has left, he'll be around for about 4 weeks. And by around, I mean working late hours, taking phone calls all night when he does get home, trying to fall asleep at 9, and being grumpy when I try to get him to stay up for a little while so we can have some time together. Not to mention, all the INSANE amounts of paperwork that we have to do to get ready for this thing. He's going to love that.

By the way, if you are ever faced with the decision to move with a boyfriend who is about to deploy, I'm not sure that I would recommend it. To the Marine Corps girlfriends are invisible, or even worse--suspect, . Everyone is pretty sure that the only way to keep a woman from stealing your money and running away with another man is to marry her, because otherwise we'll just run wild as soon as the guys leave. And because no wives have ever done that. Right?

Seriously though, you'll be excluded from a lot of things because you aren't married. And you'll have to work extra hard to predict any potential crises so that you can get all the paperwork pre-set-up to take care of it. There is no fall back position of any significance to give you the authority to do anything on behalf of your guy. Like pay the rent, the bills, or pick up something that he needs from the PX. In fact, sometimes I think it would be easier to describe myself as a concerned/caring friend who is just trying to help out, because girlfriends are considered more likely to screw the guy over.  This is how it is going to feel to be life partner when DADT is repealed.

It's kinda like this:

As a GF, I have none of the rights or privileges, and we get no extra benefits. However, I have all of the stress and worry during deployment, all the responsibility to keep our household running, the limited career opportunities that come from moving with your significant other, and everything else that comes with being with someone in the military. And on top of that, I'm ostracized and have to lie about our relationship status (or at least let people think what they think) in order to get any consideration from some of the spouses. I can't attend wife functions; I can't get on base to attend company functions; we had to make special exemptions to get me on the notification list in case something should happen to him.

Maybe I'm biased, but I'd say you have to respect a girl who loves her man enough to hang on despite being invisible and insignificant to everyone else on base. Especially when all they are missing is a set of rings and a piece of paper.
 Written as a comment on SpouseBuzz

Now, I'm not saying that the military should change all of it's rules and let the latest flavor of the week make the notification list, but if you have a category for "adopted step-granddaughter," then it shouldn't be too hard to list "non-married significant other." Because it's ridiculous that I could love a man, have a house, a family (a dog, but you know it counts), and a life with him, and have to wait for his mom to remember to call me to let me know if he's hurt or killed.

That's my worst fear--that I won't know that I lost my love.

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You can see what this deployment has done to my head. I'm anticipating a lot of day-to-day grief and possibly the big grief. Joy.

To be fair, there are plus sides to living near the base and living with the BF. One is that I do get to see him everyday which is a lot more than I'd get to see him if I was back home. Those two hours before bed when we are on the couch and cuddling are probably worth everything else. There is also the chance to find a battle buddy and make friends with other SOs in the unit. It would be unfair to let you think that everyone I met is disparaging of our relationship when some people have been really great and inclusive. It's more the establishment which can occasionally trickle down to the personal. Plus, it's a military friendly area which I assume will make a big difference when I inevitably break down crying in some public place. Plus, I really like it here; I like my new business idea; I like having a place that is OUR home.

I'm just staring down the "extra special lonely" and starting to freak out.

It can't be Thursday again, can it?

The BF just left for a 12 day (I think, it got extended a day but might shorten?) FEX, which is really nothing compared to the 6mo or more deployment that we have coming up, but right now it's making me sad. I think it makes Almondine sad too, although I'm not sure how she knows. All I know is that she isn't looking for him to come home, which she normally does at this time of day.

On the plus side, we're going on a nice, "see you in 8 months" vacation right after he gets back from the training. It's 8 months in my head because there is the Mojave Viper training and then I'm pretty certain I'll never see him the last few weeks while they are getting ready to leave.

I guess that is why this feels so much more dramatic than the previous FEXes and all the months that we spent apart while we were long distance. Right now starts the 8 months in which, best case scenario, I get to hear from him about once a month. That's a heck of a lot different than going 1 month between visits but talking every.single.day for at least 2 hours. Yea, I know I was spoiled.

So I know I don't have too many readers, and definitely not too many comment-givers, but I'm BEGGING for advice on what to do to help me get through this "he's gone but he's here stage" as well as the actual deployment.

No paycheck next week?

I'm not proud of it, and I definitely never thought that I would say this in my lifetime, but my BF is supporting me financially. I feel like such a gold digger, but since I put my career on hold and moved around the country with him, this is my transition back to paychecks period. It's rough, but I have a part-time job and I'm doing it.

Anyway, my few hundred dollars covers 21.5% of the rent, but I need it for food, gas, student loan payments, etc. So he's paying for our expenses as a unit.

And now the government is going to stop paying him.  Okay, that's a little sensationalized, but really, we're going to miss a week's pay in the next paycheck--maybe more if Congress can't work out a budget. The week is okay for us, we've got savings, but what about all the people who live paycheck to paycheck? The couples that you see at the Commissary filling two carts until they spill over, every payday. What are THEY going to do?

And what about BAH? Our finances definitely count on BAH continuing so we can cover our rent/utilities (can you tell that I think about rent a lot?). No mention in the articles about anything other than pay being effected, but surely "monetary benefits" are too?

This is my most ridiculous, self-ish thought, but if they aren't getting paid, why are they still required to show up to work? I mean, if you aren't going to pay the BF, at least let him stay home and hang out with me! Before anyone says anything, I know that there are greater needs here than my own and the entire military can't take a holiday over something like funding (but if they did, I bet that would get the Dems and the GOP hopping). Especially the troops in the sandbox because wars don't stop to get resupplied. At least not anymore.

Anyway, I'm a tad bit worried about the possible shutdown. Are you?