“Why do you follow your husband all over the country and world at the sacrifice of your own career and goals?”

As military wives, we are asked this question often. Sometimes, it seems, civilians view us as weak, dependent women with no aspirations of our own. To them, we are the epitome of “stand by your man.”

Well, I can tell you once place I won’t follow my husband: to the podium, as so many wives of disgraced politicians and public leaders have done. Most recently, Silda Spitzer, wife of former governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, followed her husband to the podium and stood by him as he apologized for using the services of prostitutes. Like many of you, I watched Mrs. Spitzer and thought, “Why? Why, why, why? For the love of–” Well, you get the picture.

Then it occurred to me that maybe we have misperceived these “podium wives,” just as civilians have misperceived military wives. What makes a woman follow her husband to the podium? Perhaps it is the for some of the same reasons military wives give up their careers, homes, and life plans to follow their activity duty husbands. Some of those reasons are:

Disbelief and/or Shock

When your husband comes home on a Friday and tells you that he’s been transferred to Alaska and needs to leave in four weeks, it’s nice to think you’d have the presence of mind to consider all the options and make a decision that didn’t involve tears and shouting “Are you freaking kidding me?” Usually, however, when our husbands drop these announcements on us, we are so shell-shocked, we don’t know what else to do, and before we know it, we are freezing our butts off in Alaska, asking, “If this is just a 6-month tour, maybe I should have stayed behind, no?”

Commitment

More often than not, you knew your husband was in the military (or going to be) when you married him, and you were prepared for frequent moves, deployments, and the horrors of Spouse Club bake sales. But any marriage, military of not, involves an uncountable amount of other surprises, and that’s why you vowed to stay through sickness and health, for richer, for poorer. So even when your husband makes a stupid decision — such as volunteering for an unaccompanied tour in Diego Garcia — you remain committed, because even though the vows didn’t necessarily state “stupid decisions,” you know it was probably implied.

Love

It’s hard to imagine loving your husband through something as horrible as meeting with a prostitute the night before Valentine’s Day (or any other day, of course), but it’s just as hard to imagine ceasing to love someone over night. We follow our husbands and sacrifice our careers and goals because we know that keeping our family together, raising our children and honoring the commitment we’ve made might be the harder thing to do, but it is also the most important.

Which isn’t to say (in any way) that if Dustin ever got caught with a prostitute I wouldn’t make very sure that he could never be with another. If you know what I mean.