If you quickly open a soda, there is some chance the contents will foam up and spill over the top. Shake that bottle for thirty seconds before removing the top and you'll have a much more intense experience. Talking with people about relationships with loved ones in the military is like opening a bottle that has been violently shaken. The pressure inside is so great that the questions and experiences come out fast and strong, and they spew in every direction.
Here are some of the comments I have received about deployment and its impact on relationships.
Anonymous wrote: Guys usually don't communicate the way women do. I know my husband loves me and missed me on deployments. Did he ever write that in a letter? No. The best I would get was a "miss you Babe" on a phone call.
Fadeintoyou82 wrote: My boyfriend is deployed. We had been together for 7 months before he left. Everything was going great the first half of the deployment, then out of nowhere, he starts to become distant and disconnected. Then he tells me that he doesn't know if he has the same feelings for me anymore.
HappyLittleGirl wrote: I am experiencing my first deployment away from the most fantastic man I've ever met besides my father. We've been dating for 8 months and love each other. He's in the Navy and deployed somewhere in the Middle East... I love him dearly and I know he loves me... but I worry that he doesn't miss me.
nicolem28 wrote: I'm engaged to an AF guy and he's been gone 50% of our relationship. This trip he's on now has been awful since he has minimal communication opportunities, so I understand how the doubt can creep in.
Lyndsey wrote: Military relationships are special. if they make it through the training and first deployment, they can make it through anything.
Your Relationship Can Survive Military Deployment
I've asked one of our partners, Mike Jones, to talk about loved ones on deployment. Mike is a former US Army Captain with two tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mike shares openly about some of the struggles and how to overcome them when your loved one is deployed.
Coping with Lack of Communication
Dawson: It seems that with a lot of our callers the lack of communication with a deployed spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend is what puts a lot of pressure on relationships.
Mike: Communication with those back home is difficult for several reasons. A lot of time soldiers are in isolated situations with limited or command-only communications. If you're front line like infantry soldiers, you are busy 24-7-365-360 (every hour, every day of the year, all around you). You're either on patrol, on guard duty, or crashing. There's very little downtime, but even then, the enemy may decide it's time to lob a few mortars or attack the compound. A lot of that downtime is focused on getting ready to go again.
Dawson: Perhaps it's more than just the number of emails or the amount of talk-time. If couples really don't understand or feel what the other is going through, they'll still have a disconnect whether they communicate a lot or a little.
Importance of Situational Awareness
Mike: It's really important for those at home to try to gain some situational awareness regarding their deployed soldier. Talking to other experienced military spouses helps. One of the things to understand is that a soldier needs to stay completely focused on the assignment at hand... not home, not family, not kids, not you... their assignment. If their heads are not intensely focused and in the game, someone can get hurt. Even when a unit is just walking down a road everyone is looking in a prescribed direction for particular things. If one soldier loses intense mental focus and is not looking the right way, you have a sector uncovered. Soldiers are trained to switch off everything else when the mission is on.
Struggles in Switching Modes
Mike: Also, there are times when soldiers don't seem to have much to say. Spouses need to understand that it's hard sometimes to switch back from being warrior to being relational. And sometimes they can't talk about what's going on because it's either too hard on them or they fear it will be too hard on you.
Dawson: Do deployed soldiers typically feel guilty about being away from home and family?
Mike: Mostly they are so engaged with what they're doing that they don't have time for that. But in some cases; yes. If you've got a deployed soldier feeling guilty about being away, the last thing they need to hear is complaining about problems at home.
Focusing on Home can be Difficult
Dawson: While it's difficult for loved ones to understand what their deployed soldier is going through, by comparison, is it much easier for soldiers to understand what it is like at home?
Mike: No, not true at all. Some soldiers have no clue about how difficult it is for those at home. Like I said before, some soldiers have a harder time flipping the mental switch from combat focus to home-life focus. Their life in a combat zone is so intense, fear mixed with exhilaration, a sense of mission accomplishment mixed with the pain of losing a comrade. Problems at home that are huge to their loved ones may seem trivial compared to the combat zone. Again, the more loved ones can gain some situation awareness about these things, the easier deployments will become, particularly combat deployments.
A Suggested Conversation with a Deployed Loved One
Dawson: Do you have suggestions for how loved ones should approach those rare, unscheduled, middle-of-the-night phone calls?
Mike: Maybe something along these lines: Honey, we're okay here. We've had a problem with _____, but we've got it under control. Mom and dad are helping, and so is my brother. The FRG (Family Resource Group) is there when I need to talk about Army stuff. We're all good. I love you (i.e. don't be concerned about me being unfaithful). Be safe, stay focused, we're all going to get through this! (NOTE: TheHopeLine partners with Centerstone Military Services for additional resources for military personnel and their families.)
Strong Spouses and Loved Ones
Dawson: It sounds like the soldiers and their loved ones all have their individual battles to fight.
Mike: Very true. Spouses, parents, children, girlfriends or boyfriends all have different types of battles to fight, but you all go to war together as a team. If you can hang onto that kind of perspective, things are going to be a lot easier. The worst thing is fighting the battle of deployment and fighting one another at the same time.
Check out Nicole's 7 Great Ideas to help your relationship survive military deployment:
"I am in a relationship with a man who his spending the next six months deployed. This is our first deployment as a couple. It is also his last deployment, as he will be retiring following this trip. He has been very open with me about the fact that this will be hard, but we are a strong couple, and not getting through this was never even mentioned as an option. I am very sad, because I hate that we are separated, and I worry about his safety. However, I have been keeping myself busy with ways to cope and it is helping.
Some of the things I did are:"
- I wrote him thirty letters to take with him, made myself a copy of each, and I open one a day also so I remember what I wrote to him.
- I started a journal. It is a great place to vent and talk about/work through my fears.
- I made an awesome Deployment countdown poster and I am crossing off the days.
- I made a list of things I want to do while he is gone.
- I am planning/researching the trip we want to take when he gets home.
- I am keeping a mason jar and popsicle sticks, and every time I think of something I want us to do together, I write it on a popsicle stick and pop it into the jar.
- I plan out care packages with themes, and I will send them over the course of the upcoming months.
"Soooooo, I guess I am hoping this will help those of you who are struggling like me. This sucks, but six or seven months of sadness is a small price to pay for a lifetime of wonderful.
Strength to all!"
Thanks, Nicole, for sharing your ideas!
Military - TheHopeLine.com
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hello to everyone out there!! i need some adovice. I been dating my boyfriend of 3 years and know we live together for about 1 year. Once i met him Jerry is his name he told me he was in the Army and at that time i was ok with it. But know beinging with him and leaving with him i thought he would want to get out of the army and spend time with me but wrong. He just told me today that he is going to be deployed and i do not like this idea. I am scared that i would lose him or he well find someone else. I am 28 years old and my boyfriend is 43. I would like to know what should i do wait for him or move on with my life. I would appricate a womans addivce. Thank you
I was dating my guy for about 5-6 months before he got accepted in the Australian Air Force. He'll be in training for almost 18 months and he didn't want to go down with a commitment. He's been hurt by LDR in the past and since communication on base is horrible he didn't think we could last the distance. I love this guy. I love him so much and I would support him until the end because I am so proud of him taking the first steps to achieve his dreams. And everything just sucks because we would talk about having this future together and we had so many plans before all this. He knows I want to start again when he (hopefully) gets stationed close to home. Yet I worry about him. Not because of the girls there on base - if he meets someone what can I do? We are technically broken up. - but I worry because he's cut off so many ties back home to those who will support him. Basically everyone but his best friend and his family. I don't want him to do this. Everyone I talk to said that this is a horrible idea. Yet I can't do anything to change his mind. Hopefully he'll reply to my messages and maybe send a letter or an email once in awhile. I don't know. I kind of feel stupid. Like I shouldn't be holding on to him. He doesn't want me to just hold on for that long. But I do love him and I think he's worth it. I just hope he wants to try again with me...
Hey Ela, our situation is kind of similar. I met a Canadian guy who is in the forces while he was doing some training at a company i was working for at the time. We connected straight away, and had a really nice time together before he left Europe to go back to Canada. We kept in touch using email. At the beginning, it was pretty much constant emailing, all day, everyday for about 3 months, and then the emails started to get less and less. He would tell me it was because he didn't have much time, and was busy because of work. The messages that he would send me were still the same though, saying that he missed me, and couldn't wait until we saw each other again, so i wasn't worried. I haven't heard from him since the end of November last year, and after a few weeks, i thought he's probably not interested any more. It wasn't until a work colleague who had visited Canada in October to train the unit of the guy i was emailing told me that they had been sent to the middle east. I was really confused to as why he hadn't told me he was going away. Now i'm just waiting for him to get in contact with me, even if i have no idea how long he's gone away for. Sometimes i get really sad and feel totally hopeless. Other days, i just focus on how happy i'll be when he gets in contact, and we can finally see each other again.
I am currently in the situation where my boyfriend is on base. We met two years ago and we started something I guess a flame started we talked for a bit while he was in the army his first year. Then out of nowhere we just lost contact. We saw each other this year again and wow was it a burst of emotions for me. When I saw him he had a girlfriend and well things started to happen between me and him and basically he broke up with his girlfriend we spent another two days together and well we talked about starting a relationship but I had to leave back home and he said he didnt want to ask me through the phone . We didn't know what to do he asked me I said yes and then he said once he saw me again he would ask me personally. So he had to take a bus back to base and we didn't know it had a stop at Dallas! He called me and told me I had to meet him at the bus station! I met him downtown and we went to a park and sat there talked and talked about our future plans . He then pulled me in for a kiss and then asked me if I officially wanted to be his girlfriend. He said he wanted to see my expression and see if it was sincere and explained to me it was hard and it was going to be a big adjustment. I told him I didn't care and I was ready for it as long as he still wanted me through it all. The rest is history. I haven't seem him in what it feels like forever . It's been two months since that day and at first I thought "this isn't that bad you can handle it , dont let it get to you" after the first month I was like "okay this shit sucks I hate being apart from him" . The only thing that was helping me through it was his nightly phone calls. The phone calls are now becoming less and less . I get texts in the morning when he wakes up a good morning text thats what im holding on to. Sometimes Ifeel like he's just drifting away and he doesn't feel the same way about me. I am going to El Paso this weekend coming up to visit him it was his idea . I am excited yet soo worried about it . I know this doesn't compare to most of you ladies stories and you all have been farther away but any advice would be great.
Thank you so much.
Hi Aqua, how are you. Has he contacted you since your last email here?
This is so normal not being in touch for 2 weeks. Sometimes it takes longer. Drop him a line saying you are worried. Not to strong and hard. He will eventually get it. Everything will just fine believe me. Write back if you like. Ela