Scotty M.,  Air Force Spouse

I separated from the Air Force in 2006 and became a full-time spouse and have been since that day as my wife is coming up on her 26th year in the Air Force.  My journey as a male spouse has been a great one filled with mostly positive experiences. I am an EXTREME extrovert and social person by nature with a big personality which has made making friends easy for me in my time as a spouse.  My advice to any and all spouses, especially male spouses, is get out there.  Get involved with the spouse’s clubs and/or volunteer to be a key spouse.  Even if you are the only male to start with once other males see you out and about, they are more likely to get involved simply because they won’t be the only male spouse. Go to unit and wing functions when spouses are invited, you will find that you will make friends not only with other spouses, but the active-duty members themselves.  When my wife’s commander asked me to be a key spouse many many years ago, I was very hesitant to do it.  Mostly out of ignorance of what exactly my responsibilities were going to be but also, I didn’t want to be the only guy doing it.  Turns out we had another male key spouse within our group, and it quickly turned into 5 male key spouses and 3 females within our Group.  I could go on and on and tell funny story after story about my 16 years as a male spouse but I can tell you the friends who became family and the countless families I have been able to positively effect have made it nothing short of a blessing.