080: Lessons in Love for military couples with Heather Wilson and Jenny Lynne Stroup

Jen Amos 0:00

All right. Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the award winning podcast holding down the fort. I am your co host, also veteran spouse and goldstar daughter, Jen aimost. And today I also have with me my co host who is active duty military spouse, career military family, mental health advocate and mom of two Jenny Lynch, troop and blogger. She's just a lot of things. Jalen strube. Welcome back.

Speaker 1 0:21

Hey, thanks for having me. Glad to be here. I also get to wear my professional hat today as the outreach coordinator for the Steven a Cohen military family clinic at bvsd. In San Diego.

Jen Amos 0:32

Yes, I'm so excited. And the reason why is because we have a special episode today for the month of love February. And so we actually brought on another person from the Cohen network. Let me go ahead and bring her on. We also have with us Heather Wilson, who has a military spouse, wife of first responder and Outreach Manager at the Steven a Cohen military family clinic at the appcenter over here in Virginia Beach.

Unknown Speaker 0:56

Welcome to the show.

Unknown Speaker 0:58

Thank you so much for having me.

Jen Amos 1:01

Yes, we've already decided offline that we're friends and we're going to hang out and I know you're located in I can say this correctly. Suffolk so Suffolk they say right, Suffolk No, okay. I'm good.

Speaker 2 1:11

Comment. I'm in Virginia Beach. My husband is a battalion chief and Suffolk.

Jen Amos 1:17

Okay, perfect. You weren't close. So I was like joking offline to them that like I live in Texas beach, because it's easy to pronounce. But I can't. I can't even say like Norfolk. Like they say that. Right? Norfolk, Virginia? Um,

Speaker 2 1:32

I think there's people that are from here, say Norfolk. And then I think anyone who comes in it's North folk. So

Jen Amos 1:40

r, just real briefly, how has: 2021

Speaker 2 2:10

It's been an interesting year. After last year, I think we're kind of getting the hang of how to do this in a pandemic. And I can honestly say that right now we're kind of in full swing of figuring things out with my daughter going back to school, and my husband not working as much. It's been, we're coasting, we're coasting.

Jen Amos 2:32

t therapy at the beginning of: 2020

Speaker 2 2:56

Absolutely. So we actually had telehealth services prior to the pandemic. But all of our clients were not using telehealth, we made the transition within 24 hours, which we were definitely proud of that we were able to do that. But we became 100%. Virtual telehealth we use zoom platform for that. And it's been very successful. In the beginning, we did have a couple of clients who were like, I don't know about this telehealth thing. But as they started to kind of see what it was like and how they would still be get that same amount of engagement with their therapists. A lot more people have said, I don't ever want to come back into the clinic. This kind of works for me. So it's been good. We really with the wrap around. I mean, we really it was teamwork, and getting everyone to that point. But I think with the world kind of turning in that transition, it made everyone a little bit more comfortable with it.

Jen Amos 3:50

Right? It wasn't like, Hey, everyone, we're just going virtual for no reason, right? Oh, it's like, we have a pandemic, we got to go virtual, genuine. I know for you, when you first started working at the clinic in San Diego bvsd. Specifically, you had plans to do a lot of networking in person, but very quickly, you had to work virtually can you tell us about what that was like for you to kind of get this job knowing that you're gonna be in the community. But since I've met you, you know, everything has been virtual.

Speaker 1 4:16

Yeah, I mean, for sure. It's interesting as an outreach coordinator to outreach from inside my own four walls of my house, which was not what I envisioned when I was interviewing for the job I interviewed the week before the world shut down and got the call that the job was mine. 24 hours after the California Governor closed everything and they were like, congratulations, welcome aboard. We'll figure this out. You know, I mean, at that point, it was we're gonna figure this out, and it'll probably be a couple weeks and you'll be in the office and to date, I have never sat in my office chair in our lovely building. But you know, like Heather said, I mean, we in San Diego had telehealth set up from the beginning and so it was a very March 13 seamless transition, nobody lost services or anything, because we were already all well trained and were able to make that shift. And, you know, similar to Virginia Beach, we had a few people who didn't think it was going to work for them. And turns out here we are almost a year later. And, you know, telehealth is going great.

Speaker 2 5:18

Yeah, we got a couple of clients to who in the beginning said, I'm gonna call you guys when this pandemic is over, because I need to come in face to face and then kind of couple months later, they call back and said about that telehealth? How do we get that set up? So yeah, it's been great. And I mean, you can use your tablet, you can use your computer. So people are really getting really comfortable with it. But you know, what I will say this, we do have some clients that are high risk that do come in person. So we do have some client traffic, not a lot. But there are some clients that do come through and have in person services. And then with our children, it's hard to kind of gain the attention of a child through a computer. So we do still have some play therapy going on in our play therapy room here at the clinic.

Jen Amos 6:05

That's amazing how quickly the clinics have adapted and how seamless the transitions seem to be. And it sounds like you any patients, and as a result of it, I mean, that's probably to their own accord and choice. I mean, I think it's amazing. And I think for myself, like as I'm actively having telehealth services as well, what I like the most about it is it feels like I can do it from the comfort of my home. You know, it's like, I can do it in my own couch. And like, you know, my counselor will just kind of like point out whenever we have like a different scenery. I'm like, Oh, yeah, like, this is our living room. This is our desk. This is you know, like, it's just funny when we switch it up. But I think like, at least for me, in the majority of the time, I've done this, you know, virtually, I like it, I've grown to be comfortable with it. And I think just the whole act of driving to a clinic, at least with my husband was probably really weird at first for him. Because even though like I was never, like actively get therapy services until last year, but for him, I don't think he ever thought to seek therapy. So like, I think doing it from the comfort of our home has been a lot easier and bearable for him, in my opinion. At least that's what I'm telling myself.

Unknown Speaker 7:09

To show up though.

Jen Amos 7:11

Okay, so I want to go ahead and transition forward here. Alright. So one thing that I'm really excited to talk about today is in theme of love month, you know, as you know, at the time of this recording, Valentine's Day has already passed, but that doesn't stop us from celebrating love. In fact, we should never stop celebrating love. But anyway, for the sake of this conversation, February is love month, and clinics are doing something really exciting. You have a lessons in love for military couples campaign. Heather, let us know what that's about.

Speaker 2 7:39

Oh, my gosh, it's been amazing. It's really been amazing to kind of get to peek into the lives of some of our co workers that are veterans. And it literally is them sharing about what are some lessons in love that they learned when you're in the military, there's so many transitions, and you spend a lot of time apart. So with this campaign, they're literally walking us through what it's like and what they've learned from it. And some of them are just, it's just interesting to see even the pictures of the couples and to just hear what they have to say about how they remained connected and stayed connected. So it's been amazing, our specific clinic is actually also doing something aside from the network wide lessons in love. We are doing a game show, it's actually tomorrow night called the not so Newlywed Game Show. And so same kind of theme where we're really focusing on couples, and just having a good time. Because in this virtual world that we are in right now, we try to come up with just fun ways to kind of keep people engaged. And in this instance, keep couples engaged. So we're gonna kind of do it like the game show, like the Newlywed Game Show, and have couples answer questions about each other and just really get to know each other and laugh a little bit because that's an important part of lessons in love is just laughter

Jen Amos 9:03

Yeah, definitely. I think that's the fastest way to build a connection with someone is through laughter. And so if you can have like something such as a game to prompt that, because sometimes you can't just directly like talk to your spouse sometimes, right? Sometimes it's too hard to have like the hard conversations. I was just thinking about my conversation today that I was telling Jenny Lynn, when I was complaining to my husband for having the sliding door open because then the bugs come in conversation for another time. But like just to talk to him about it directly. It was very, like it freaked them out. Like he was just like, I just want this to end like I don't want you to be mad at me anymore. And I'm just here trying to tell him like, you know, whatever. But I know like he's kind of a jokester himself. So I think like later, I'm going to poke fun at the sliding door to lighten up the mood and stuff. Yeah, I think that's great to kind of prompt like create that, you know, create that kind of environment for couples to laugh together considering just, you know how difficult the military life is genuine. I know that you were involved with the campaign as well, you were quoted, tell us a little bit about that and like how you know what you've contributed to the lessons in love campaign. Yeah, so

: 10:00

I mean, the campaign, like Heather said, asked Cohen, networking employees, whether they be veterans or military spouses to talk about what it's like to be a military couple. And really, the whole idea is that though we may experience thing on in, in crease timeline, or like when I talk about my own marriage and say all the things that have happened, and people go, Wow, how long have you guys been married, they don't expect me to say 12 years, they expect me to say 200. You know, because everything just happens faster. And they're more transitions and more, you know, more kind of those big, like trauma points and things. But really, the underlying theme of this campaign is that we're just couples, and that there's something to be gained from our expedited timeline in marriage. And so, you know, it's a really thoughtful campaign that just kind of asked everybody to reflect on their own experience as a couple and what the military has added to that. So you know, wink wink, nod nod. Here's my mental health. My mental health pitch mine was about mental health and seeking couples counseling, and that my husband and I waited until we were in crisis to seek it. But really, I wish it was something that we had done much earlier, I think it would have built a really good foundation for all of that expedited trauma and events and things that happen with deployments and reintegration. And so yeah, you know, I'm quoted as in go to counseling, it's good for you. It helps you with your spouse. So, you know, I was looking through the campaign earlier today. And, and it's a lot of good things like don't stop having fun adventure together, find balance, you know, and those are just good solid life skills, military or not.

: 11:52

Yeah. deployments, I saw a lot about deployments and how people stay connected. When they're on deployments. I know for my husband, with him being a first responder, there's a lot of nights that he's not home, and it does you feel like that single parent and just trying to do it all, by yourself. And I think that with us, we've had to learn how to find our way through that. We've had to learn how we can stay connected, but not only just us, but also our daughter, how do we continue to keep her connected. And so we do a lot of FaceTime. Tons of FaceTime. And we even do wear at night, he'll call it a certain time when we do our prayers, and we read a short book just so that they can stay connected. So there are ways to really continue that love language and continue to stay connected, even when you're not together.

Jen Amos: 12:49

Yeah, you know, speaking of love languages, you know, some people their love languages, physical touch, which is you know, that physical affection, a hug, holding a hand, you know, kiss on the forehead or kiss on the, you know, lips goodbye kind of thing. And you know, a lot of spouses don't have that opportunity. Sometimes seeing my mom herself when I was growing up when dad was gone months at a time. You know, it's like she didn't have that opportunity. And I'm curious to know if there's any lesson that you heard so far, in regard to you know, those whose love language is physical touch.

Unknown Speaker: 13:20

I'm so

: 13:22

sure about physical touch. Yeah, specifically, but it brings up a really good thing that I just want to put out there for other military spouses and that when my husband returned from his combat deployment, we went to like a reintegration seminar and one of the things they had us do was the love language quiz. So we're in this room of, you know, 100 other couples, and they have us take this quiz and like, you know, then they're like, Alright, who scored, you know, more on physical touch, raise your hand, you know, and hands go up across the room who scored more on all the other? Well, they get two gifts. And I was like a 19 out of 20. And I'm like, raising my hand on gifts. And that was what I felt in that moment made me so hot and sweaty, because I was like, Oh my gosh, does that make me shallow? And then I realized, I'm a military spouse, and my husband wasn't home for like four consecutive years. And so the only option we had really was gifts, he could send things thanks to the beauty of the internet, you know, and there were some words of affirmations. Thankfully, he's a really nice kind letter writer. But like, I realized, like, Oh, my gosh, this is lifestyle driven. It's so I just want to throw that out there for anyone else who gets 19 out of 20 goes, Oh my god, what does that say about me? Like it says that you're a military spouse and that your husband is gone all the time. And it's kind enough to send you things and so you feel loved that way.

: 14:49

We actually do weekly support group. It's called expressing yourself and it's a spousal support group. And last week, of course, we focused on love what you love language, and so we had all have our clients take take the month love language quiz beforehand. And it's interesting that I think it was about two of them. That said, I think my love language changes depending on if we're on deployments if we're home if we're together. And it was very interesting to think about it like that, because you're almost forced to have a certain type of love language.

Jen Amos: 15:24

Yeah. Genuine I like that you shared that, you know, your love language is gift receiving. Because even for me, like I have a zero on that, by the way, like, I'm just like, practice social distancing Valentine's Day with some friends this past weekend. And like two of them were giving gifts. And I was like, was I supposed to come with stuff like, I'm here? Like mine? Is that okay? But I really appreciate your perspective, because now it gives me a more broader view as to why, you know, some people their love language would be gift receiving because of that distance because they can physically be there. And receiving a gift is a physical thing that you can, you know, touch that reminds you of them and knowing that they gave that to you. So thank you for sharing that perspective.

: 16:09

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And again, to Heather's point of taking the quiz, I mean, we haven't had a deployment in several years now. And like now, I would say it's strongly physical touch and words of affirmation, like, I would much rather have that than a gift, I probably wouldn't score 19 out of 20, right this minute, however, comma, right? deployment, probably on the near future, and I may be back in 19, or 20. And you know, I mean, thankfully, with age and wisdom, that's okay. I'm gonna take those flowers and really feel appreciated and loved, right?

Jen Amos: 16:41

Yeah, absolutely. I do like that. Because I think some people, they'll take that test once, and then assume that's like their love language forever. And just to like, really own it and run with it. But you know, love changes, right? Like, love evolves, it adapts. And therefore your love language will change as well.

: 16:57

Yeah. Well, and I think that speaks to the quality of their well into the heart of the lessons in love program. I mean, one of the things we experience as a military family is seasons, and not based on winter, summer, spring and fall like we have deployment season reintegration season, we have, you know, shore duty season, and it's all of those are varying timelines and varying distances apart. And it you know, that is one of the things is I've read through the campaign, because it's really fun to see what everybody else said, like that. They really speak to that, like, how do you do it in this season of your military life, what it looks like, I mean, I'm married and enlisted sailor on shore duty, and he worked shift work, had extra days off for like good behavior, got to come to my school and volunteer. That is not the man I'm married to now. He's an officer on shore duty, who works all the time. It looks very different than it did. And I think that's the one thing that like this campaign speaks to and what our other, you know, counterparts talk about is like, there are plenty of things to do to keep whatever season you're in full of love and connection.

Jen Amos: 18:04

Yeah. Well, let's dive in a little deeper to the campaign. Heather, what has been maybe your favorite lessons and love that you've been able to read about so far? Just to give people a hint as to what to expect when they look this up?

: 18:16

Yeah. So I actually have a couple with me. Oh, perfect. Yeah. All right. So one thing that I noticed a lot of people focused on was, as I said, deployments, and so this one's from someone that's right here in our clinic. And they wrote about when returning home from deployments always felt disconnected from everything that had happened with the family during her time away. So during deployments or extended trainings, she would start little notes about their day to day activities, what had happened, and she actually made a journal and had her husband do the same. And they would send it back and forth and write entries in the journal. So whether it was something like a lost tooth from their kid, a new restaurant, or Platoon, prankster, it was all written in a journal and it really helped keep them connected. I thought that was so sweet.

Jen Amos: 19:10

I love that. Yeah. I love that. That's like a shared journal.

Unknown Speaker: 19:14

Yeah,

Jen Amos: 19:15

it's like you send it back and forth. So rather than having like mailing like pieces of paper, it's like, oh, here's a book you know, and you fill it out and send it back or journal. And I really like that because it really like tells a chronological story of the relationship and it's like, you have that solid journal that you can you know, keep for memories sake,

Unknown Speaker: 19:32

and it's nice to get mail.

Jen Amos: 19:36

It's always nice to get mail. That's not junk mail, right.

Unknown Speaker: 19:40

gifts that would be gift coming to you.

Unknown Speaker: 19:45

I like how you're totally defending this gift. love language right now. Genuine.

Unknown Speaker: 19:50

I will

Jen Amos: 19:51

forever Yeah. What about you? jennylyn what has been maybe your favorite thing so far about the lessons in love for military couples camp? I

: 20:00

think one of my favorite was the adventure together one, you know, really talking about how you really have the opportunity of mindset and military life. And admittedly, mine hasn't always been stellar. Some of those adventures look like real bummer kind of things that I did not want to do and probably kicked and screamed a little bit. But, you know, one of the things that this military spouse or minus have is to venture together and her story is about PCs, saying during the pandemic, No, thank you. But you know how you can look at it as an adventure. And when I think about our last PCs, I mean, that's what we did, we drove cross country and made it a like, eat local and stop. And it was so fun. And that is like, will go down is one of the best things we've done together. That was compliments of a military life.

: 20:52

And when you think about to what's love, love isn't always pretty wrapped up in a bow. Love is hard. There are times when love is hard, I can speak for myself, my husband and I, in I would say we were about two years into our marriage, and we lost our daughter. And I just think about when you think of love during the times when it's good, it's it's easy, it flows, it's great. But what about love when you're going through something, whether it be a deployment, whether it be the death of a child, whether it be family that has passed away, and you can't get to them, because you're away in a different country, I think about what's how you continue to stay connected in love, and how you bond with each other, and continue to love each other when tragedy strikes. Yeah, so in just the stories we hear in the clinic, about couples who are so very much in love, but they're just going through something, it's so awesome to have a place like CVN, the colon clinic in San Diego, the colon clinic here at the epicenter of Virginia Beach, as a place for healing as a place to know that the love is not lost, we just need to work through something. So I think it's important that we also talk about love at its hardest points, loving someone when you don't want to love them. I think that that's important. That's an important part of love as well.

Jen Amos: 22:17

You know, I learned a long time ago that love is a verb. You know, love is something that you do, not just what you have, right. And that reminds me of a time where I had this whole day, it was a really rough day for me. And I had this moment where I thought, is this the end of our relationship? You know, like is this it like, like, I felt I felt like I was already seeing my past in front of me like, like, I was getting a glimpse of like, like, wow, this is really hard right now. And it's just not going anywhere positive. But thanks to couples counseling, we were able to work through it. And for me when I think of what love is, I think love is the willingness to do life with someone, you know, good, bad and ugly. And that's one thing I appreciate shameless plug for my husband here. You know, that's one thing I appreciate about him because our love languages are so different. You know, he's very, like, you know, solution oriented. I'm very, like heart centered. And, you know, it's hard to you know, deal with that. If you you know, if you have that those clashing personalities at home, but thanks to couples. Oh, yeah, I'm doing more shameless plugs here for everyone. But no, I think thanks to all of that. It's like, Oh, we just needed the tools. If you know, we, that's all we needed was we did like, school doesn't teach you how to love. You know, school teaches you to, you know, to go go to school to get good grades, get a good job, but it doesn't teach you on on relationships. And so that's what I'm most grateful for telehealth currently, and for the good work that you all are doing at CBN is just reminding couples like, hey, being in a relationship is hard. You do need help. And that's okay. Like that's absolutely okay. And so I just want to take this moment to thank you both for what you're doing at CBN as well as are the the Cohen veterans network in case anyone's wondering what that acronym is, and and also with the lessons in love for military couples campaign.

Unknown Speaker: 24:07

Alright,

Jen Amos: 24:08

so with what you're doing with the lessons in love for military couples campaign, what do you feel like our civilian counterparts can take away? Like, what lessons can they apply to their own relationships? and Heather and genuine you both can answer this If you want, I'll start with you, Heather.

: 24:23

Okay, so yeah, I definitely think that they can see themselves in some of these anecdotes that are written now and I think it's important to find out that you're not alone and that it is very relatable, any, any of these feelings that you might be having. And also just to learn more about what it is that others might love, that could be the same that you love about as far as lessons and also I think that they will definitely enjoy reading about other couples but also feeling connected to the lessons and loves that others have discovered within their relationships.

Unknown Speaker: 24:57

Beautiful gentlemen,

: 24:59

what are your thoughts that are Oh, no, absolutely. I was thinking of one that came out of our clinic. She is a military spouse. And one of our clinicians, you know, her advice was, and it was deployment based, but the overall theme was cut yourself some slack. And I mean, I think that's something that all of us need to hear, especially during a global pandemic, like some of this stuff is just hard. Yeah. And be gentle with yourself allows you then to be gentle with the people that you love. And so I mean, everything, I think is very applicable and universal, regardless of what if you've done 10 deployments or zero?

Jen Amos: 25:36

Yeah, I really think that our civilian counterparts can learn so much from military couples, I just feel like the relationship intensifies and this type of environment, and you're really prompt to confront things sooner than later. So you know, Heather and Jenny Lynn, thank you so much for what you're doing at the Cohen veterans network. And Heather, let us know if people want to learn more about the lessons in love for military couples campaign, or even the Coen veterans network overall, how can they learn more?

: 26:04

Yes, all of this information, lessons in love can be found on our website. You can also reach us on social media, we're on Facebook, we're on Instagram, we're also on Twitter.

Jen Amos: 26:16

Perfect. And we will definitely have all of that in the show notes for our listeners to dive into. So I think that's it any closing thoughts from either of you, Heather are genuine.

: 26:25

Yes, I will say this, Heather did a good job of promoting us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. And I would just like to say that that is both for CBN. At the epicenter, they have their own. If you were in the Virginia Beach area, follow them if you're in the San Diego area, we have our own. And also, our two clinics are part of a larger network of clinics. So there are 19 places across the United States where people can go and receive the good mental health services and couples counseling that we've talked about today. And you can follow the larger network on all of those same social media platforms too. So there are multiple ways to find us and to locate us wherever it is that you're located.

Jen Amos: 27:08

Awesome, wonderfully said. And thank you both for doing what you're doing. And really just overall to the Coen veterans network for existing, it's a great organization that I think more of our community should be aware of and take advantage of. Alright, and that's it. I think we'll just wrap up from here. Normally, I do like a closing statement that I say, but I told you anyway, I'm gonna like report that now. So I'm not gonna say it. So let me just wrap up and say, thank you all so much for being here and we'll chat with you in the next episode. Tune in next time.