REVIEW: Camouflage: How I Emerged from the Shadows of a Military Marriage by Heather Sweeney

Reviewed by Karen DeBonis

Camouflage: How I Emerged from the Shadows of a Military Marriage (Knox Press; October 2025) by Heather Sweeney is an eye-opening primer on the complexities of military life and the indignities of military divorce, told in an engrossing story of personal growth. Reading it felt both foreign and personal. Foreign in that I’m not divorced, and I lack ties to the military community. Personal in that I saw myself in the author’s Herculean efforts to support her man and make her marriage work. Personal in that, many decades ago, I also existed in the shadowy expectations of a newlywed. Many women, I imagine, know all too well that murky space.

That this trope of a subservient wife or partner still exists both saddens and angers me. What is it in women that makes us so desperate to be agreeable? For me, the answer was, in large part, people-pleasing. For Sweeney, the Navy gave her little choice.

The book opens with a short prologue, a scene in which the author drags a mattress up the stairwell of her new home after her marriage has ended. Despite her husband having slowly disappeared into the rigors of military life to the point that Sweeney no longer recognizes him, she blames herself. “What have I done?” She wonders. “How could I have just blown up our lives?’’ Her single-mother life is too new, the scars of her divorce too recent, for her to rise above the blame and self-doubt that weave through the story line.

Camouflage then proceeds largely chronologically in compelling and relatable prose. Early in Part 1: The Beginning of the End, a crack forms in the author’s glass bubble before it is even fully formed. One evening less than two months before their wedding, her fiancé announces, “I want to join the military.”  Sweeney quickly shakes off her shock and decides to “follow him anywhere.”

“So I put my hopes of earning a master’s degree and embarking on a teaching career temporarily on hold. I loved Tristan for his charm, his contagious energy, his drive, and I admired his ability to map out options for us and our future together.”

Yet while Tristan crams for the Navy application and physical fitness test, Sweeney wanders alone through a department store, drowning in the dizzying selection of wedding registry items. The crack deepens as “the seed of resentment [takes] root.”

The next ominous fissure occurs on Sweeney’s wedding day. As she walks down the aisle on the arm of her father, a thought pops into her head: “We’re not meant to grow old together.” She chalks it up to nerves and continues walking. But the thought, like mushrooms in a soggy lawn, reappears with every marital storm over the subsequent thirteen years.

Then, a transaction occurs that both defines the author’s marriage and provides the script for its dismantling. A few months after the wedding, with Tristan a newly commissioned officer in the Navy, he buys Heather a book called The Navy Spouse’s Guide. Sweeney’s brief description of the contents made me cringe. It reminded me of a crinkly, aged photo that periodically makes the round of social media. The photo is supposedly a page taken from either “How to Be a Good Wife,” a 1950s-era home economics textbook, or “The Good Wife’s Guide,” from the May 13, 1955, issue of Housekeeping Monthly. An example of the archaic admonishments is, “You have no right to question [your husband]. A good wife always knows her place.”

There’s more, but I have to stop before I throw something.

According to The Navy Spouse’s Guide, one of the greatest challenges of military life is the frequent separations. The author dreads being apart from her “other half.” Soon, however, she learns to despise the hurry-up-and-wait nature of postponed or cancelled deployments. Even worse are the last-minute orders when Tristan has to be packed and out the door on a moment’s notice, requiring Heather to frantically race through the house while her husband barks orders at her as if she is “one of his subordinates.” Then there are the endless relocations. Sweeney must drop everything—routines, friendships, career plans— and become a reluctant pro at packing and unpacking. Through it all, she soldiers on.

The theme of military life in Camouflage seems to be “country over marriage.” I hate it, but I also get it. To keep America’s fighting forces in top shape, service men and women are trained to jump or move or deploy on command. To hesitate or question is to invite disaster. The training must extend to home life, I assume, otherwise the “jump” reflex may get rusty. But the model is not conducive to healthy relationships and may reduce vulnerable stay-at-home spouses to second class citizen status, Sweeney being a prime example.

With dogged determination after every argument with her husband, the author recommits to her assumed role. But she can’t change what is happening outside of herself. Military life slowly consumes more and more of Tristan’s time, focus, and energy. The Navy chisels away at the very essence of the man Sweeney married, leaving behind an imposter. He is loyal to his oath. Steadfast in his commitment. Noble in serving his country, serving several tours in Afghanistan and the Middle East. But he is not the man Heather loved and not a man, perhaps, who still loves Heather.

Despite the bitterness, the fighting, the lack of appreciation, Sweeney doesn’t paint Tristan with a broad “bad guy” brush, the sign of an adept memoirist. Yes, Tristan acts like a jerk at times. Who doesn’t? Sweeney holds herself accountable as well, and her transparency is more evidence of her skill as a writer.

Part 2: The End of the Beginning opens with the family back in the States after a three-year stint in Japan where Tristan had served Heather divorce papers. Refusing to believe their marriage is over, Sweeney never opens the envelope. The couple never speak of it again, and it becomes the elephant in the room. In fact, she once again vows to save her marriage, pledging to “Prosper where you are planted,” an oft-repeated maxim of military wives.

The couple holds at least seven “Divorce Talks” over several years. Each time, they fail to pull the plug. Until, in Part 3: The Beginning of the Rest, they do. Then Sweeney must rediscover herself, both peeling back layers to see who she is after thirteen years of unhappiness and taking on new responsibilities and challenges required of a single mother.

Much of Camouflage chronicles Sweeney’s on-again, off-again hopes for her marriage. The author pushed that narrative to the brink of tedium without sending me over the edge. In so doing, she put me right there with her, my chest heavy with exhaustion, desperation, and the futility of her situation. I wanted to pluck her out of her misery and deposit her in a better place. In that emotionally invested state, I couldn’t stop turning the pages. Well done, author.

Sweeney largely blamed the frequent physical separations for the demise of her marriage. But her final couples counselor –one of three she engaged–thought otherwise. He theorized “that the Navy had actually kept us holding on longer than we might have if Tristan were home all the time.”

Sweeney concludes:

“Maybe if we hadn’t spent so much of our marriage apart, we would have discovered we weren’t meant to be married years earlier…If Tristan and I had a solid foundation like other couples who survived military life, we would have overcome the scenarios the Navy threw at us. We didn’t have a strong foundation. In fact, I’m not sure we ever had a foundation at all.

“I still held a grudge for all the sacrifices I had to make personally, but I couldn’t blame the Navy for our failures as a couple.”

It’s an example of the insights the author gleans and the personal growth she achieves by the end of this important book. Her transformation is remarkable. It makes me proud to be a woman.

Camouflage is a must-read cautionary tale for members or spouses in the military who are considering divorce. In fact, any individual contemplating military life in any capacity would do well to learn from Sweeney’s experience.

Even for readers like me—introduced through this candid story to a world I didn’t know–Camouflage is a powerful reminder of our own resiliency, a testament to finding one’s self when it is lost, and a tribute to women who show the world their true worth.