When your spouse is away at training, it is important to lend your support to him. Going through basic training as well as the additional training that follows can be a very grueling time for him both emotionally and physically. He will need your support as he endures all of the training.
Part of the focus of basic training is for the drill sergeants to break them down so they can build them back up in the military way. In the first few weeks of training, it can be very overwhelming.
In addition to being away from family, the enlistees are also dealing with adjusting to the military lifestyle. It is not uncommon for him to regret his decision and speak about it in letters – though for most, this will change to a more positive outlook towards the end of training.
While he is in training, your main form of communication will be through letters. When my husband was in training, I wrote to him every single day. It didn’t matter if he didn’t have mail call or he wasn’t able to write back to me, I still wrote a letter to him each night.
Not only did it help to keep his spirits up, it also helped to feel more connected to him.
At the end of a typical day when he was at home, we would sit down and discuss what happened during our day. When he was gone, I felt like my day wasn’t complete because we weren’t able to have that conversation. This is how the letters helped me. I was still able to tell him about my day and feel like he was still very involved in my life and I was in his even though he was many miles away.
After a few weeks of writing about my day or what was going on with family and friends, I began to worry that he was getting bored with my updates.
On one of his very short phone calls, I asked him about it and he told me “letters were gold” and he loved them all.
Other than delivering letter after letter of bad news, I don’t think there’s much you can put in the letter that they won’t like reading about. Things that would have bored him if we had been having the conversation in person were suddenly interesting because it meant he was getting mail.
Writing letters to him and doing your best to keep up his morale is the best thing you can do for him during training. Let him know he is missed but also that you support his decision and you are proud of him. It really can make all of the difference.
