I saw that someone was searching this phrase when they stumbled upon my blog. I don't know if they found what they were looking for, but I hope they found some answer. If not, let me try to address this question here.
Have you ever started watching a dvd and fallen asleep. You wake up, turn off the movie and stumble off to bed. The next night you try to resume the movie, but where you turned it off was certainly not the last part you actually watched. In fact, you're not sure where you left off exactly. You spend ten minutes rewinding search trying to stop when something looks familiar. You find the last scene you remember and press play, but now, you realize you saw this scene, but don't remember exactly what led up to it, so you rewind a bit further and rewatch a few scenes. If you're lucky, you stay awake this time and finish the movie. If not, you get to do this again the next night, just further into the picture.
This analogy is pretty close to part of how a deployment is hard on a marriage. While time passes, and years of your life are eaten away, it feels like a great, big, giant pause button in some ways. You grow and change as an individual, discover new likes, dislikes, hobbies, interests, but your relationship is frozen as it was the day he left. He comes back slightly different too, but the relationship hasn't grown or changed much because of the deployment. Emotionally and romantically, you try to pick up where you left off, but that feels a little off because you're not the same and stuff has actually happened, so you rewind a little bit and try to start there. But by the time you're back to where you left off and starting to work on building new parts to your relationship, he is gearing up for another training school or something and will be gone again. We've been together for almost 7 years, but are still very much newlyweds in many ways.
I think we have a good marriage, not perfect, but very good. But also we have a lot of room to grow as a couple, just not enough time to do the growing. We went to a great marriage retreat for two days a few weeks before he left, but I would have like a more intensive marriage seminar if it was meant to do something important and more time to practice the techniques. Two weeks after the retreat, he was gone. We just haven't had enough time together to get past the excitement of welcome home and get into growing more deeply as a couple before he is gathering his gear for another school, training, field exercise, or deployment.
One deployment is hard on a marriage because you have to learn how to be apart, trust each other, communicate maturely over email and chat which is harder than you might think because a joking comment doesn't have a tone of voice and can sound harsh or angry. You have to learn who you are as an individual but not as a single person. As a couple, you have to divide responsibilities and chores differently for twelve months and find a way to reacclimate towards each other.
I thought the second and third deployments were easier. We had a plan and tried and true techniques for dealing with a lot of the stuff that we knew was coming. We still missed each other, were lonely, had arguments here and there, but easier.
This fourth deployment has been the easiest in terms of logistics of our household stuff and the hardest in terms of being apart and feeling decapitated from each other. We are more than lonely for each other, we are literally drowning in how much apart can we do before we don't know how to be together?!?!? We need to have some good solid together time, but it doesn't look like we will get too much time. We will have five months before he leaves for his next school.
Deployments can make a marriage stronger. If you keep communicating, are extra patient with written communications and with the invariably difficult tasks each faces in his/her roles as soldier/single parent or spouse, you can find your love stronger, more trusting and deeper on the other side, but it is work. Like any marriage, you'll have people who can handle it and those who can't.
So far, we're ok. I just wish we had more time together. I'm so tired of goodbye. Gimme some hello!!
Have you ever started watching a dvd and fallen asleep. You wake up, turn off the movie and stumble off to bed. The next night you try to resume the movie, but where you turned it off was certainly not the last part you actually watched. In fact, you're not sure where you left off exactly. You spend ten minutes rewinding search trying to stop when something looks familiar. You find the last scene you remember and press play, but now, you realize you saw this scene, but don't remember exactly what led up to it, so you rewind a bit further and rewatch a few scenes. If you're lucky, you stay awake this time and finish the movie. If not, you get to do this again the next night, just further into the picture.
This analogy is pretty close to part of how a deployment is hard on a marriage. While time passes, and years of your life are eaten away, it feels like a great, big, giant pause button in some ways. You grow and change as an individual, discover new likes, dislikes, hobbies, interests, but your relationship is frozen as it was the day he left. He comes back slightly different too, but the relationship hasn't grown or changed much because of the deployment. Emotionally and romantically, you try to pick up where you left off, but that feels a little off because you're not the same and stuff has actually happened, so you rewind a little bit and try to start there. But by the time you're back to where you left off and starting to work on building new parts to your relationship, he is gearing up for another training school or something and will be gone again. We've been together for almost 7 years, but are still very much newlyweds in many ways.
I think we have a good marriage, not perfect, but very good. But also we have a lot of room to grow as a couple, just not enough time to do the growing. We went to a great marriage retreat for two days a few weeks before he left, but I would have like a more intensive marriage seminar if it was meant to do something important and more time to practice the techniques. Two weeks after the retreat, he was gone. We just haven't had enough time together to get past the excitement of welcome home and get into growing more deeply as a couple before he is gathering his gear for another school, training, field exercise, or deployment.
One deployment is hard on a marriage because you have to learn how to be apart, trust each other, communicate maturely over email and chat which is harder than you might think because a joking comment doesn't have a tone of voice and can sound harsh or angry. You have to learn who you are as an individual but not as a single person. As a couple, you have to divide responsibilities and chores differently for twelve months and find a way to reacclimate towards each other.
I thought the second and third deployments were easier. We had a plan and tried and true techniques for dealing with a lot of the stuff that we knew was coming. We still missed each other, were lonely, had arguments here and there, but easier.
This fourth deployment has been the easiest in terms of logistics of our household stuff and the hardest in terms of being apart and feeling decapitated from each other. We are more than lonely for each other, we are literally drowning in how much apart can we do before we don't know how to be together?!?!? We need to have some good solid together time, but it doesn't look like we will get too much time. We will have five months before he leaves for his next school.
Deployments can make a marriage stronger. If you keep communicating, are extra patient with written communications and with the invariably difficult tasks each faces in his/her roles as soldier/single parent or spouse, you can find your love stronger, more trusting and deeper on the other side, but it is work. Like any marriage, you'll have people who can handle it and those who can't.
So far, we're ok. I just wish we had more time together. I'm so tired of goodbye. Gimme some hello!!
Great analogy. It seems there are quite a few "adjustment periods" when you're a military spouse. Once you get used to one thing, you've got to change gears ;)
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