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.
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