It’s a rainy, dreary day here in Georgia…the kind of weather that somehow seems to make you feel down and out. It’s like all the sad and depressing things you have on your mind decide that TODAY they should seep out and wreak havoc.
I’m an Army Girlfriend. I met my boyfriend while he was over in Iraq; a mutual friend got us together, mainly so he would have someone to connect him with reality back in the states. Our relationship, via email, quickly developed into the kind out of a fairy tale. When we finally met, it was love at first sight 
) While he finished his last four months, he asked me to move in with him.
I have never lived with a boyfriend before; the closest would have to be spending nights over in my college boyfriend’s dorm room. But that’s it. Now, after living with my guy for about four months, I see the challenges it displays. Sharing a bathroom – living space, nonetheless – keeping home, cleaning, doing laundry, maintaining life together…it’s all more difficult than I ever thought. I’ve never fought with any guy I’ve dated…my boyfriend and I are sort of constantly bickering about one thing or another. But that’s not the half of it…
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about my future with him. In the beginning, him and I were so into each other; we were already sure we wanted to spend forever with eachother by the first month! Now, while I still love him to pieces and want to marry him, I don’t know if I want to spend forever with the Army. He works 12-14 hour workdays starting at 5 a.m., he longs to spend weekends doing nothing; the moving every couple of years, the 12-month deployments that will inevitably change him, and the fact that the Army will always have to come first. It’s so much to think about…
So my question to all of you Army Wives is, how do you do it? How do you deal with a man who will constantly change, a man who is often anti-social, a man who can’t put his wife or children first, a man who thinks he is the only one in the Army – when his family does suffer too. How can you have a family? A normal life?
In my 25 years on this earth, I haven’t had the easiest of times… (Well, lets face it: Life isn’t easy.) My father is sick with MS, a disease that has taken his ability to walk and control his body and comprehend normal conversation and interaction. My mother died from a sudden and fatal stroke almost 5 years ago – a life-altering devastation that also pulled apart her family. In addition, my sister and brother live a thousand miles away from me in California.
…I love my guy, and want to be with him forever…but I cry just thinking about being alone when he’s gone – and being alone even when he’s home. I’m afraid to start a family with him because I don’t want to do it all alone. My mother pretty much served as both mom and dad for most of my adolescence and I believe that stress killed her. I don’t want to suffer like that.
The easy decision here would be to break it off with my guy…and, while it’s scary to admit, I’ve thought of it. He’s said to me, “I’ll understand if you want to leave,” and gosh that’s tough to hear. It’s not what I want to hear. I guess the Army trains its soldiers to expect the worst all the time.
I just don’t know what to do, I have no one to talk to, and I’m confused about everything. I don’t know if I should expect any kind of definitive answer out of all of this… but I’m desperate.
