Simone Gorrindo

Kate Bowler: What happens when the person you love changes in a way that you never expected? Or when their dream or career asks you to give up on the life you’ve built for one you would never have chosen? This is Everything Happens and I’m Kate Bowler. Friends, today’s conversation is one of those that stays with you, the kind that makes you reconsider the quiet, unseen sacrifices that shape a life. Simone Gorrindo is here with me. She brings us into a world that many of us have never considered: the world of military spouses. In her breathtaking memoir, The Wives, seriously, our whole team passed this book around like candy. This was the like great hot book around the Everything Happens project, once again called The Wives, Simone is this beautiful author and she shares what it means to leave behind the life that she built for the life her husband chose. I’m not somebody who has like a lot of, I think we just know that I don’t have a lot of knowledge about the military, but this conversation was so relatable and deeply resonant with me and I know it will be with you too. Maybe you know that feeling. Your partner or your parents work in, you know, healthcare or ministry which requires long hours or maybe lots of moves. Maybe they’re social workers or teachers who can’t help but bring their job home. There’s just all kinds of jobs that pull us into other people’s lives, other people’ worlds. And before we know it, we’re memorizing facts we never thought we would care about and deeply invested in this entire culture that’s been built around us. Love, as it turns out, isn’t just about saying yes. Sometimes it makes us wait or it makes lonely. or it asks us to build a home inside a world you never planned for. Through it all, Simone reminds us that no one is meant to carry life alone. And maybe we can find community in the unlikeliest of places. Simone, I am so glad to be talking with you today.

Simone Gorrindo: Me too, I am absolutely just thrilled and so excited to be here, I can’t even tell you.

Kate: Ask me how much I know about the military.

Simone: How much do you know about the military, Kate, tell me.

Kate: Pretty much everything I learned in your book. I’m so Canadian. And so like the opportunity to learn through your eyes about what this experience has been like was so, it’s very emotional because it’s also a love story. Like your husband, Andrew, felt this calling to serve his country by joining the military, but that was not in your bingo card. Can you take us back to the moment where you felt your life was about to shift and maybe this relationship would require a little more than you initially expected.

Simone: Yeah, I mean, there are a few moments. I think the first one was right after we’d moved in together. We were out on a walk in February. It was really cold. And I remember he just said, really, casually, sometimes I think about joining the military. And I less casually, but without any thinking, any forethought, said, I would leave you. It just came out of my mouth. And he said nothing, which is really unusual for him because he pretty much always has a retort or something to say. And he did not mention it again for two years. So I really didn’t take it into much more consideration than that. And then, he didn’t say anything at first, but recruitment pamphlets started popping up and there was like really particular. you know, workouts that seemed like they had a real agenda, like X amount of pushups and this amount of minutes. Then I started just, you know I realized I was like, are you really thinking about this? And he was like yeah, I really am. And you know at that point we were engaged. So we actually ended up in couples counseling to kind of really talk about these things and untangle these things because it was a really complicated decision for both of us ultimately.

Kate: Well, you had like fully opposite plans. I mean, your plan is a very city mouse plan.

Simone: I, like you, I knew literally nothing. I had a grandfather who’d served in World War II who never spoke about it once. And I grew up in a very liberal, I would say almost anti-military family in the Bay area in California. And so my approach was I will just read all the books. I will read all the articles, I will read all of the studies and I was in graduate school at the time too for journalism, so I will report on all the veterans affairs and all the active duty affairs. You know, that works only for so long, kind of. But I really felt like when I got there, like, oh, I’ll have a grasp on this. And I realized really quickly that reporting on something and reading about something is heck of a lot different than living something. And also, I think it’s really complicated because it’s just, the military is not a monolith. It’s a country unto itself, you know, like 60% of Americans have had an immediate family member serve in the military, and they’ve had vastly different experiences depending on the branch and the unit and the time they served and whether we were at war or not. And so, anything I’ve read is a very veiled, like, it is not the real thing. And beyond that, it doesn’t prepare you for the relationships. And, you know, you were talking about, like feeling like you belong. And yeah, I felt absolutely like an alien when I got there. I had never been south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Kate: And where was the there there?

Simone: There’s a military town, Columbus, Georgia, and the base was then called Fort Benning. It’s a very big base, it’s been there a long time. Now the name has changed like three times. But it was the home of the infantry. So it’s where there’s a lot of men, because until pretty recently, infantry was only open to men. There’s a lot of man in the town and on the base, and they’re there and they are young, and they going through things like basic training and airborne school and ranger school. So that was also really jarring too. You know, aside from that, like, I had a pretty insular experience growing up in terms of living on the coasts and being surrounded by people who believed the same things I did. And I hadn’t been very exposed to religion. And suddenly I was in a place where like college football and, you know, Christianity were pretty much like the number one guiding forces to a lot of people around me.

Kate: One of the categories you’re really opening up is that these stories of the military are so often about sacrifice, but also the sacrifice for everybody who loves the service member. I wonder when that first really started to feel like that was gonna be a personal cost for you.

Simone: I knew that from the beginning and that is why I said, I would leave you. And you know, that reaction wasn’t about politics or belief. It was about, don’t leave me. It was about, I don’t want to be alone. It was, you know, anything I had seen depicted on screen or in books about military spouses was, you know, waiting by the window. It was, there was this profound, like, palpable loneliness. And I had, I felt like, oh, I just have found my person. Like, you’re gonna leave now? You know, I think it was a very instinctive reaction that was almost like childlike and I think that the experience bore out that way too. Like, I think, you know, that for the first couple of times he deployed, the child reared up in me and was like, don’t leave me. And I think that never goes away. That feeling. And then you have kids and you watch your kids go through that. And that really changes your sense of what the sacrifice is. And I think it’s made me just think about the generations of military kids, like what they have lived through and continue to live through whether their moms or dads are going somewhere dangerous or just training for months and months, but these really long periods of time where your primary attachment figure is torn away from you and there is, at least as an adult, you can understand why. It’s a hard thing to even let yourself explore that feeling in the military because you know, you know they can’t, like once they’ve signed up, it’s not in their control. And also the messaging from the unit is very like, your job is to support the unit and support your spouse and you are strong and brave and hearty and they can do what they do because you aren’t built like other women and I say women because at the time you know it really was all women and it still primarily is and so to I don’t know openly cry and say don’t leave me is to kind of just betray like no I am built like other women, like I am not special. I think that’s the most primary personal cost, is that this person you love more than anything is going to leave over and over and again, and you have to live with that reality.

Kate: Did you ever watch the show Fleabag?

Simone: Yes, oh my gosh, I love that show.

Kate: It just reminds me of that one line where she’s like, when she’s talking to a priest and she’s like, is it me or is it God? Like that feeling like you’re always up against a thing that’s bigger than yourself. And it feels very personal to say like, are you picking that or are you picking that over something?

Simone: Hmm.

Kate: We’re going to be right back after a break to hear from our sponsors. Don’t go anywhere. I thought it was so interesting and so evocative thinking about being a wife, like your job is wife in this community. I wrote a book about like, women in ministry. So I was really thinking a lot about how when people run a mega church, like, and they they have to marry a congregation effect.

Simone: It’s not dissimilar. It is not dissimmilar.

Kate: Well, I guess if I had, I mean in liberal world, if I could just like. broadly generalized, there’s like, there’s so much response to second way feminism and third way feminism for not really primarily identifying as being a wife and then to go into a community where like, actually, like, this is a huge identity. I now have to be a part of all these other wives and I now to figure out their hierarchies, their ecologies, their habits. Like you were really you, I was so impressed by how curious you got. You were like, okay, what are the rules? How do I fit in?

Simone: It serves to be a question asker, mostly. But it was strange to arrive in a world where I really was not accustomed to any of the social worlds that I ended up in. Like, I ended not just in the military, but also going to church with my friend Rachel and you know all of that was so new to me that I constantly felt like am I fouling up? I am absolutely fouling up and nobody will tell me if I am. They’ll just give me weird looks and make me feel uncomfortable for my husband too. It was very much like nothing was explained. You’re just thrown into the deep end of this incredibly challenging, tough, high speed unit and no one is going to tell you, like, no one’s going to, they’re going to show you the ropes, but no one’s going to explain, no one’s going to explain them to you.

Kate: That’s such a  good description of the invisible scaffolding of the southern woman. I love it.

Simone: It was and then you know, I think also just the fact that I was I was old, you know I was 28. I had no kids and my husband was was essentially a private and a lot of privates are 18 19 even 17 so he went in really late and he also went in enlisted versus officer, which is something I didn’t understand much about going in. He had a college degree and usually when you have a college degree you become an officer but because it was a special operations unit that he’s still in now, you know, basically to serve continuously in it, you have to be an enlisted personnel, essentially. It’s complicated, but so a lot of these spouses were also 20, 21, 22, who were at the same, you know, level as we were that we were coming up in the ranks together just the way our husband’s work. but I was much older and most of them, everyone other than my friend Rachel across the street had kids at the time. So, I mean, I will never forget that the first barbecue I went to, one of the wives who was 21 and pregnant looked at me and she said, what have you been doing? She asked how old I was, and then she said, well, you don’t look that old.

Kate: That’s amazing. You’re like, I thought I had a job in this whole, like I had a coffee order.

Simone: I had coffee order. I know, I really did. And I did suddenly feel pretty deficient because all of the, like, outer trappings that I think would have made me feel like I fit into that role, like, I didn’t have them. And I think that is a feeling of being an outsider. It’s like a deficiency. Like, I don’t have the things you have. And the things that I thought I had are invisible.

Kate: Totally. It’s like I’ve got Canadian change. Nobody takes Canadian change here.

Simone: That’s exactly it.

Kate: But I have all this currency and I can’t spend it. I mean, I was shocked by the amount that you’re separate. Just like some context on the privacy and badassery of your husband’s job and training. He’s coming home with confusing injuries. Depending on what he’s doing, he looks either like, gaunt, or like he’s having a… set of, but he’s made all these lifelong friends but he is like in the ringer and you can only see like through glass what’s really going on.

Simone: That is, yeah, that is definitely one way to put it. And at the same time, I think sometimes we, our worlds get very small once we have families, because we just cling to that kind of bulwark against the rest of the terrifying world. And the real gift of this life has been that like, my husband is really in many ways the anchor of our family, and he leaves over and over again. And it’s, it’s awful. And it’s hard. And at the same time, it just leaves this door open for a lot of other relationships to grow. And I think I needed that in my life because I think when I showed up in Georgia, in particular, I was like a pretty guarded person. I wanted connection badly. And thus I was a writer, but I didn’t always know how to do it in person. I didn’ feel like I was good at it.

Kate: Oh my god. Stop knowing me. I totally agree. But just feeling like you can open yourself up to the vulnerability of belonging people that you genuinely need. I mean, this story, it sounds like of military spouses, sounds like it’s one of the enduring power of friendship and the requirement to make friends in a situation where you’ve got a few choices, but they’re gonna go really deep.

Simone: Yeah, that’s a beautiful way to put it. So when I got there, I met Rachel across the street immediately. She was on my driveway.

Kate: Wasn’t she just like, hi, hi, hi.

Simone: Let me help you. Yes. She was aggressively friendly is the way I’d describe her. And you know, they deployed our husbands, she had showed up a week prior, and she had been recently married. So like we had these really identical, we were in identical brick houses across the street from one another. I mean, we were in these identical life situations in so many ways. And they were deploying in two weeks. The only difference was she had a driver’s license and I didn’t. I didn’t even have a driver’s license. Thank God for a driver’s license. But the first, we were shy about connecting. We had driven to the deployment drop-off together. We had seen each other cry. And then we didn’t really talk for a week or so. And I was definitely looking through my blinds. And she texted me and said, do you want to come over for TV and wine at 8 at night or something, which became very normal. But I went over there and like we had this you know, at first it was awkward, but it very quickly became a very intimate conversation. And I feel like that conversation just never ended. Like I feel it just never stopped.

Kate: That’s so nice. That sounds exactly like women who just like fall in love with each other and are like, that’s it. And then you’re like, how do I live? And instead of being like, who are you? You’re like how do I live my life? Can you help me pick out furniture? Can you help be like, I don’t know, not hate my Friday now that I’m by myself? Can you teach me to drive? I mean she taught me to drive. I like knowing that you couldn’t drive an automatic car. That makes me happy. I really like that. We’re going to take a quick break to tell you about the sponsors of this show. We’ll be right back. When I was reading your book, I was thinking about military lifestyle, but it’s such a different culture of competency that I just don’t have any of those skills.

Simone: Yeah, on one side, there’s the culture of the spouses, where most people have children and I didn’t. And that was a real, it wasn’t a line in the sand. I became friends with all these women. I watched their kids, I loved their kids. And so there’s that culture and that world, and then there is the guys. And that was really, I think it was complicated on a lot of levels because it also revealed a lot of parts of who Andrew was that I wasn’t aware of, or I was aware of but dimly, but it kind of ignored them as like parts of his narrative that didn’t matter, which I feel almost ashamed to say now because I just didn’t want to know about them. I didn’t want to know that, you know, he had a gun at age 12. And he went shooting with his dad routinely. And, you know, I had grown up really, I mean, very strongly, almost radically liberal, like guns bat, military bat, you know, those kind of ways. So I had to, I got to know those parts of him. And that was not always comfortable.

Kate: I’m sure there’s, like, heroic qualities. You’re like, wait a minute, you’re tougher. You’re able to endure. Yeah, more than I could imagine. You also have, it sounds like he has this, I see this quality sometimes in like emergency room physicians. There’s like an alertness people have where they can awaken to danger.

Simone: I mean, you hear all these stories about the guys in his unit, you know, like, oh, they went mountain climbing and they saved a guy who like fell and found them in, you know, freezing in the snow. And like that happens kind of routinely. And I don’t know how to explain it exactly. It’s like with the alertness also comes this great sense of responsibility. I knew he was brave and I knew he was strong in like the most profound sense. Like my father says of him, he has, he’s a rare person because his mental strength matches his physical strength. And so that kind of like he is who you want in a harrowing situation, like he’s who you want if you get diagnosed with stage four cancer. Like he is you want there next to you. And I knew that, but I think the military has highlighted that and that has also made him, has honed those aspects of him as well. But the other side of that is that to be that way, you have to be able to really compartmentalize. And the unit really trains you to do that to the utmost. And that can sometimes feel like a door closing in your face. I am sure that like the spouses and kids of ER doctors feel that at times. You know, he said this to me, he’s like, you can’t like go into combat and then like be Tim O’Brien and be ruminating on like the senselessness of war, while you’re trying to, you know, make sure your buddy stays alive next to you. And so you have to kind of shut down those parts of your personality, if you have them, which he does, you know everyone does to some extent, but he has them pretty strongly. And that can feel like, oh, this other part of him comes to the fore, which is amazing to see, but then this other part that I’ve known…

Kate: Yes, withdraws.

Simone: Yeah, and it feels like, and then in the hardest moments, it can feel like it’s gone. Like what happened to that person I knew?

Kate: Yes, and now you’re leaving me twice.

Simone: Yes, exactly. Exactly. And that gets easier to negotiate for both of us, has gotten easier for both of us as time has gone on. Because it is a skill like to go back and forth is a skill he had to learn. And it’s not an easy one and no one tells you how to do it. And I have also just with time come to understand, it’s not, he’s not gone. That all those sides are there.

Kate: Yeah, that’s right. This is not a normal question, but when you marry somebody, when you love somebody very much and they have certain qualities which you really liked, sometimes they develop new sides of their personality and those parts are really annoying. In a very banal way, my husband is currently into pickleball. I don’t want to hear about it anymore.

Simone: Oh my gosh.

Simone: But I imagine there are parts where you’re like, and not even just like negative parts, but you’re kind of just like, well, what the hell is this like?

Simone: Yeah.

Kate: Now, wait, now you like this? This is who you are?

Simone: Now you chew tobacco, and I find disgusting spit models all over the house?

Kate: Sometimes those new evolving qualities of the like, this isn’t exactly the version, this is you adapting to a new culture, that must have been a bit hard to swallow sometimes.

Simone: It was a trip, because I also remember literally buying him a spittoon off of Amazon. So this part of me was like, I hate this. And also like, here, honey, I bought you a spittoon because it’s better than a plastic bottle that I find on our bedside.

Kate: I will find you less gross in this version. That is so funny. I have tears in my eyes.

Simone: Also, you know, he’s a lot older now. He’s a much higher rank. He, his work has changed a lot, like what he does on a daily basis. And so the stuff that’s annoying now is he comes home and he wants to talk about like geopolitics for like two hours, right? Or he wants show me like an army white paper on like the most niche tactical thing you can imagine. And he’s just, you know, it’s, that’s now the kind of thing that I have to get used to. It’s like pickleball.

Kate: In my brain, when you were talking about like the things that evolved in him that were that were like crystallized versions of virtues, I was just picturing like the traffic light of like, these are the green ones. These are the lovely bits. It’s yellow is like the banal, but like annoying and different, but otherwise neutral, otherwise neutral.

Simone: I love that, I love that. That’s very useful.

Kate: In the like red light versions I know you’ve seen this in some other people’s marriages where people come back with like darkness in them and coping strategies that are violent or concerning like it seems to surface things in them that they can’t manage. How much of of being like the wife did you notice was really just trying to sort out some of the red yellow green qualities that you noticed?

Simone: Yeah, it was, um, I think those initial years were the strongest, or like the hardest for that, or I was doing the most sorting in those initial years, because it really was, you know, a baptism by fire in so many ways for both of us. And so, you now, I think it wasn’t just combat, so I could feel the effects of that when he would come home. you know, I could feel how alert he was or a car would turn towards us in a parking lot and he would just, I could just feel him suddenly be on alert in a way that he didn’t even realize he was doing. But more than that, or equal to that rather, I would say the culture that he was in was so counter to the professional civilian culture I’ve been in. You know, I mean, talk about people who use like, I have never heard people swear more in my entire life. And I lived in New York for a decade. And then also, they’re used to just barking at each other. They’re used to just there’s no like civility kind of gets thrown out the door, especially at the lower ranks, because you’re also being used to being barked at. And I think that was difficult because he would come home and he wouldn’t bark at me, but he would be in that mode and he would be really tightly wound and alert and you know also just not, like his tender self was way down there and that was really hard for me because that was definitely one of those moments like are you gone? Are you becoming a different person than the person I married? And um it serves you so well to be that way in the unit, especially, again, it was the lower ranks. There were times in those initial years that learning how to be with the unit versus learning how be with me, because really, truly, we were still learning. He had been gone for a year and that was our first year of marriage.

Kate: It’s almost like you both got married to his job at the same time that you were trying to get married to each other.

Simone: Yes, exactly. And so there was a feeling of, you know, gosh, with him, it was kind of like, okay, where’s your allegiance? And I think he was always feeling torn. And I think he still does. But I think it’s also, you know, he’s gotten older, he has children now. And like that gravitational force really is with us and at home. You know, his job is so much more than a job, and it’s such a huge part of his identity. And so then when he feels that gravitational force moving towards home, I think there’s this fear of like, oh, I’m not there enough for the other unit, you know versus the unit of my family. Like I think it’s like, I think that’s somewhat of an impossible situation to be in. And he says, he’s like yeah, it makes sense that I look around, you know, there’s some people who are wonderful family men. But he was like I also look around and I think people just choose the job. Because it’s easie, because it’s like, how do you choose one over the other?

Kate: You start to get good at something and then you naturally gravitate toward the thing you’re good at.

Simone: Yeah, it happens in the civilian world too, right? Like, you’re like, oh, intimacy is hard, like marriage is hard. So I’m just gonna throw everything into my career until my marriage is on life support.

Kate: And this is a special kind of case, I think, because when it’s vocation, when you feel called to something and that thing is bigger than you and that thing has all kinds of good attached to it and goods and it’s like a whole world to step inside of that in a way like has a kind of separateness from the rest of the world and its values, like that’s a really compelling place. And you know, it’s funny, I was thinking of Peter Berger, he was a sociologist of religion, he had this language for religion, it was called the sacred canopy. But I always thought it was a really helpful description for a world that you fully step under. It’s like, it becomes the sky. And then for it to ask somebody to not know they’re living under a certain sky, and then they have to go back to this, a duty that also takes 100% of their heart and soul and actions, it does, I imagine it just always feels impossible in every version.

Simone: I think it’s gut wrenching, too. You know, I think especially after we had children watching him leave our children, you know, he can compartmentalize with the best of them. But it was and yet, I never saw him cry in front of me about it. But I’m watching my daughter wail. It is always so acutely painful for me. And she’s cried when I’ve left on work trips, but it’s a different kind of thing when daddy leaves. Even when she was really small, it was like she just knew. And I think it feels so wrong. Also because especially if you’re going somewhere dangerous, there’s just this added layer. And I think this is true of any goodbye is that like, maybe I won’t ever see you again, because that is the uncertainty of being alive. But you feel that very strongly, very acutely, it’s very much in your face when you say goodbye to someone you love who is going into a combat zone. And she didn’t know that and yet this way it felt like she knew that and certainly he knew that. And so I think it was like trying to leave the sky or something. You know what I mean? I think that’s a beautiful way of putting it is that there is something impossible about, you can’t leave the sky. Like you can leave your children. Not really. He says that like I, some people he’s like, I really do think they’re able to compartmentalize to the extent that they’ll go out of mission. And it’s like, they’re going out to play blackjack. Like they just, and they’ve been on five, they’ve probably been on 19 deployments. And then he’s like, I think about you and the kids every single time. Which is just, how do you even, you know, how do you that? But that at the same time, I think that that’s also just what it is to be in the world and love people and to have children is to like, is to sort of carry, I don’t know, be a separate entity in the world moving about and yet you carry these people like with you wherever you go, even in like the weirdest places like combat zone. I don’t know, that was kind of a strange tangent but I just, it struck me when you talk about the sacred canopy that like I don’t think you can leave the sacred canopy.

Kate: I agree.

Simone: And there’s something really gut wrenching, but also really beautiful about that.

Kate: It comes back to that deep question you were asking about, like, are you choosing me or are you leaving me? And then the answer can then always be never.

Simone: Exactly.

Kate: I love thinking with you. I loved learning about a world that you were learning. I love how soft you kept yourself in a situation where feeling rejected could make you feel brittle. And I think you’re asking us to pay attention to like a whole category of people who otherwise really would not be noticed for the sacrifices that you’re making and, Simone, what an absolute delight to share your brain.

Simone: Thank you, I love thinking with you too.

Kate: Love is not just the easy parts. It’s choosing again and again to stay, to soften instead of harden, to find community even in the most unexpected places, to hold on to yourself even as life asks more of you than you ever imagined. And for anyone listening who knows this kind of waiting, this kind of sacrifice, whether you’re a military spouse, or married to somebody whose job makes all kinds of promises to other people, like healthcare, anything people-facing, ministry, or someone whose life has taken a turn you didn’t see coming, just please know this. You are not invisible. And you are not alone. People do want to know you and love you through this season. And this is just my hope for you and for us all. Just let them. Let them know you. Let them love you. So here’s a little blessing for the life you didn’t choose because hey, man, it takes you places. Blessed are you in the quiet sacrifices no one sees. The dreams set aside, the plans rearranged, the way you showed up again and again for a life you never expected to be yours. Blessed are you who step into unfamiliar places, learn the unspoken rules, who build belonging from scratch, even when you’re the newcomer, the outsider, the one who must begin again. Blessed are you who hold others up, who make the meals, send the texts, fill in the gaps, and carry the weight. Even when no one thinks to ask if you need caring too. And blessed are you in the moments when you wonder if anyone sees how much you give, how much you hold, and what weighs you down. You are not invisible. You are not forgotten. You too deserve to be held. Bless you, my dears. And hey, did you know that all of our episodes are available to watch on YouTube? I know, weird, you can see this face. Whatever this face looks like today, subscribe to my channel at youtube.com @katecbowler. And I will link it in the show notes too. Also, our team loves hearing about you. We are obsessed with you. We read everything. So come find me on socials @katecbowler or leave us a voicemail, 919-322-8731. Or if you want bonus points and I will love you forever, leave us review on Apple or Spotify. It is our very favorite thing and it will help people in other places on other algorithms find us. A huge thank you to our partners, Lilly Endowment and Duke Endowment, and Duke Divinity School, and to the team behind everything happening at Everything Happens. Jess Richie, Harriet Putman, Keith Weston, Baiz Hoen, Gwen Heginbotham, Brenda Thompson, Iris Greene, Hailie Durrett, Anne Herring, Hope Anderson, Kristen Balzer, Elia Zario, Katherine Smith, and Megan Crunkleton. Thank you. This is Everything Happens with me, Kate Bowler.