It’s just another husbandless day.

The first question I’m typically asked when people find out my missing husband is deployed: What branch?

He’s prior Marine Corps, I tell them, but he works privately now. We did five years in the Marines.

Five years surrounded by a community of people who spoke my language, understood the acronyms, knew what it was like for spouses to miss Christmases and milestones and births. Wives also used to parenting alone, automatic friends. There were groups and commissary privileges and we had Tricare and the government (mostly) paid for our moves.

Today we’re out of the military, and my husband contracts. Praise Jesus, we chose the state we now live in instead of the government choosing it, and while we absolutely love it, I’m struggling to meet people.

Automatically, I feel drawn to the military wives–my people–until they find out my husband is no longer in; then I can see them somewhat shut down.

I get it, I really do.

When I was a military wife, I didn’t love my contractor friends any less, but there was a legitimate difference.

My husband was lower enlisted. Just because of his MOS, he had no rank advancement opportunities, regardless of how well he performed.

Her husband had a boss, but they were basically on a level playing field–there were no fraternization policies and he wasn’t a peon.

My husband could rarely communicate with us while he was away–it was so bad, in fact, that he didn’t find out I was pregnant with our daughter until my second trimester because besides a handful of texts, I didn’t hear from him for nearly six weeks.

Her husband could communicate much more freely.

My husband had to buy hundreds of dollars in gear he was never issued out of pocket because of paperwork mistakes. He spent hundreds on uniforms and gear for his team (needed but not issued), hundreds more on hotels and ball tickets, moving costs we were not reimbursed, broken furniture; there was always something coming out of pocket.

Her husband’s company paid for even his smallest work-related shipping expenses.

My husband wasn’t allowed the slightest hint of a stubble.

Her husband got his manly beard.

My husband was paid so little that our growing family often struggled to buy diapers.

Her husband easily made six figures.

My husband had to go where and do literally whatever the government told him to or he could go to jail. If we didn’t like it, it could not have mattered less.

Her husband could say no; he had choices, not orders.

And the list continues.

In many ways, we were the same, and my friendships with these women were based off shared experiences, our love for America and our husbands, and a million other personal factors. I loved them–it honestly didn’t make a difference–but still, it was real.

Today, I am that contractor’s-wife friend.

My husband has choices instead of orders, he is paid well, and I communicate with him freely, even though he is deployed.

I don’t take any of this for granted, and for our family, I would choose the contractor life over a military one for sure.

The best part–we get to choose.

I didn’t get to choose a thing when my husband was in the Marine Corps. We did what we were told, without questions, even when it was painful or frustrating or just plain dumb. Having a choice is the #1 reason I am thankful this is our life now.

But it feels like I’m stuck in the middle.

No longer military, yet not quite civilian.

And it’s awkward because the contractor community is small, but I don’t know where to find them. Many of us can live wherever we want, so we’re all spread out. A lot of the guys my husband works with are single, meaning there are no wifey friends to be found there. Besides, it’s all very hush hush–OPSEC and PERSEC, ya know? So we don’t talk about where our husbands are, how long they’re gone, what they’re doing.

Totally normal for me, totally not normal for civilians to be hush hush about their husbands’ work.

And the military wife groups that I used to love so dearly (if you’re near Camp Lejeune, Operation Hope Front is the greatest ministry ever!), I don’t quite belong in anymore. My husband says maybe I should try to go anyway, but I feel like an intruder. After all, many of their greatest challenges are over for us.

I no longer make friends at the Marine Corps ball, or chat with the mom next to me at the commissary about our shared disdain for mustaches (ew ew ew) and dress blue covers that seem to go missing, without fail, on uniform inspection day.

My kids don’t have friends with a missing daddy half the year anymore.

My own friends have never said goodbye to their husbands for five months.

There’s no guaranteed community when you’re a civilian; you have to work to find one, and when you do, it’s not usually full husbandless wives.

We are the awkward in-between–no longer a military family, but not quite a civilian one either.

Yet, I don’t mind it; I quite like it here, in fact. Thankful doesn’t even begin to describe how I feel about the path my husband is on, and I hope we stay here for awhile. There was just something inside of me, when he got out nearly two years ago, that thought maybe we were moving towards normal.

But you know, ever since my husband and I fell in love at fourteen, we’ve never been normal. Sometimes, it’s been problematic; mostly, it’s been wonderful.

We’ll probably never be normal.

It’s the destiny of a third culture missionary kid, then a military wife, now a contractor’s wife.

Not stuck in between the military and the civilian world, but getting to live both. I’m an in-betweener.

And I love it here.