Last-minute scramble over pay takes a toll on military families during the shutdown

is exacting a heavy mental toll on the , leaving them not knowing from week to week whether their paychecks will arrive.

Alicia Blevins, whose husband is a Marine, said she’s going to see a therapist in large part because of the grinding uncertainty.

“I don’t feel like I have the tools to deal with this,” said Blevins, 33, who lives at Camp Lejeune, a Marine base near North Carolina’s coast. “I don’t want to dump all this on my husband. He’s got men that he’s in charge of. He’s got enough to deal with.”

Alicia Belevins and her husband, who is a Marine, shown in an undated photo at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Va. (Alicia Blevins via AP)

Even though the Trump administration has twice since the shutdown began on Oct. 1, the process has been fraught with anxiety for many Americans in un