How much times does it take to really get to know your partner?

The other day, I had a very interesting conversation with my best friend about how long it takes to really get to know somebody.  Things are now getting serious with her relationship of a month and as expected, some of her friends and family are worried!  Her mother told her that a friend of hers, who is a couples therapist, says you have to be with someone for 9 months in order to really know who they are.

I 100% disagree.  I believe that there is NO such thing as a timeline as to how much time it takes to get to know someone.  It takes many different situations and events in order to see every side of your partner -- good and bad life events. 

Here is where my issue is.  Chuck and I have been together for a year now - that's excluding the multiple months that we communicated through emails while first getting to know each other.  And if you had asked me a couple months ago if I truly know him, I would've said yes.  I've seen him sick, tired, happy, excited, angry, sad, and many other emotions throughout the past year.  But I was wrong.

Now, we have experienced a tragic event in which I believe these events change who people are.  If you were to have asked me three weeks ago if I knew who Chuck truly was, I would have said no.  He was a completely different person then I had known before because he was the one experiencing this life altering tragic event of loss.  In a sense, I had to relearn to love the new man in front of me.  And let me tell you, I fell hard.   

As Chuck was going through his changes (and he still is), I was mourning the loss of my old Chuck. This new Chuck was different which upset me, but I now see that he was just enduring the hardships that have transformed him into his new self. 

Although his new self is very new and we still don't really see the details of him yet.... is amazing.  At the funeral, I looked at Chuck with awe.  For the past three weeks, I've been trying to describe it in my journal, but I absolutely CAN NOT come up with words to describe how I was feeling about him!!!  It was a mixture of feelings of adoring, prideful, and so impressed - I sat there thinking.... How could this be my man!!  How could I find a man that was so strong and stepped up to the plate to do the hardest thing anyone could ever imagine.  The vivid images of him and his powerful actions will never be forgotten.  And wow, he did it with such pride and strength.  And watching him that weekend, I fell in love with him so deeply.  I've seen his dark, and I've seen him at his worst... and to see him fight through it and now shedding a little light... I want all of it!!  

I believe that the time it takes to get to truly know someone depends on the time it takes to remove the masks and see the real dark in that person...

 if you can love that dark, then you're set for life.  No matter what our future holds, I will always think the absolute world of him.  He showed me that even his dark side is so lovely.  

 

Expectations of a military partner - Am I suppose to be a housewife who waits deligently at home?

Let's see... I actually started this post two months ago, the week Chuck left for school.  Reading over this now..... Is VERY interesting how my thought process has changed!  The reason I didn't post this was because I want never want to air our dirty laundry or have a fight through blogging.  This blog is suppose to share our experiences - after we have learned the lessons - in order to help others.  Therefore, this blog has been on pause for a couple months.

Being with a military solider is asking for a lot more then just looking pretty while standing next to him in his dress uniform.

I feel like I've been a little naive in it all... Here's my back and forth that I'm going through.

For the first ten months of our relationship... Let's just say our relationship has been very non-military based.  There have been no moves, no balls, no training schools, no deployments, no uniforms, no military hair cuts... In almost a full year, I saw Chuck in his dress uniform once for a memorial service.  I saw Chuck in his daily uniform less then a handful of times.  There were a handful of mornings that I would wake up early to see him leave in his PT uniform, but that was it! 

My first real experience with the military was noted in one of our blogs for our New Years of 2013.  We were planning a super fun New Years party, but had to cancel last minute because he was quickly dragged away somewhere in order to train, then dissapeared overseas for about three weeks for an emergency mission.  I remember having slight worries in my mind that I would always come second to his Army because they could snatch him away at any second. 

That's it!  Again, in almost a year... this is the extent of the military life I have experienced with Chuck.

Now he's left to his first BNOC school since we've been together.  He'll be gone for two months and I will visit him in the middle for a long weekend.  He had to cut his hair in the military fashion (which I really love).  He is now in a community of all his fellow soldiers.  Talking only to soldiers, eating with soldiers, sleeping with soldiers, all on a base with a ton of other soldiers.  I have NO idea what he is learning, nor what he is doing.  He is not able to text or call me whenever, and the service is so terrible...there will be no facetiming.  He is so exhausted by the time he can call me, that he falls asleep on the phone, and all I want is for him to rest and get sleep so we usually hang up. 

Here is where I messed up, AND realized a very important lesson.  After a week or so of feeling miserable, I realized that once the person that my happiness existed from left me... I was completely unhappy.  DING DING DING!! Red flag.  My happiness solely exsisted on Chuck and him being there with me.... that once he was gone, I was miserable.  I would sit and think... "He left me.  The army comes first.  He left for school so he should try extra hard to pay more attention to me.  He should reassure me of his love since he is so far away.  He should send me extra emails to make up for the time not being spent together."  I would get upset at him on WHY he was not paying more attention to the relationships and working on it as hard as I was.  I went a bit nuts and forwarded ten emails that he used to write me in the beginning of our relationship and complain that he never wrote me anything anymore.

Talk about a big mistake.

When I first created this post,it was to complain about how I was being left behind, and coming second.  BOY was I wrong.  

I was "THAT" girl that poked fun at the "diligent army house wifes."  I would think "UGH... the way these women SERVE their men is just embarrassing"... NOW!!  I am not saying that I completely take those things back either... but here is where my eye opener happened to make me see why I shouldn't have been so demanding.

Here is my eye opener broken down:

I love Chuck - as a man, as an individual, and as my man.  

Two people should not depend on each other for their happiness. 

People are happy as individual as they work on their passions in life.

Chuck's passion and pride is his career as a solider.

I now respect that passion and pride.

I realized I need to have my own passion and pride as an individual for myself.

Therefore, I need to support Chuck as an individual as a man, including MY man with his dreams and passions.

Therefore, he will support me as an individual woman, including HIS woman with my own dreams and passions.

END RESULT - I should have left him alone and supported him through his school versus making it all about me and how he left me.  

There are a ton of other aspects of myself that I have realized in the past two months while Chuck has been away at school.  My deep down darkest fear is that Chuck will leave me.  In fact, I think that's been my fear ever since I was a little girl.  The man I loved would leave me.  Therefore, my instinctual reaction is to CLING tighter.  Which is interesting when thinking about how independent I considered myself. So in this situation, Chuck left me and I clinged tighter.  Giving him more pressure while he really needed to focus on school while chasing his passion.  This was the result of many fights between us, but I won't say I regret anything because I really learned life long lessons in this past two months... I think it happened right on time, and exactly how it was suppose to happen.