Rough patch with my sailor =( Any advice?

[Tiffany51908]

I should start by saying my sailor and i very rarely fight. We have no trust issues, I support him 100%. We have been together for almost four years and are actually planning to be married soon. I'm not sure what is going on but there has been a lot of tension between us this last week. He is almost done with a school and is getting really anxious to come home. I won't lie and say i'm not getting anxious too but this "anxiety" is starting to cause problems and i'm beginning to fear it will always be this way. We also just found out he will be deploying almost as soon as he gets to his base. We're new to the navy family and i feel like everything is moving so incredibly fast. Has anyone else gone through this? Should i be alarmed? I feel very strongly that i should stand by him no matter what but does that mean i have to give up that part of me that needs him to care about my feelings too? I really just need some advice!!

Tiffany

[sailorwifenmom]

I agree that reunions can be very stressful times.  In fact, there's something called the emotional spiral of deployment (and it can be applied to boot camp / A school as well).  We all go through them differently (and sometimes we can sort of skip over some of them), and they can also overlap.  It sounds like  you all have the triple whammy going on of being in one cycle for homecoming from school, and another cycle (with some overlap) because of the upcoming deployment. 

The stages are: 

1) Anticipation of Loss

2) Separation and Withdrawal

3) Emotional Disorganization

4) Recovery and Stabilization

5) Anticipation of Homecoming

6) Renegotiation of the marriage contract (personally, I think this could also be called renegotiation of the family contract, since if you have kids, the parent child relationship also has adjustments)

7) Re-integration and Stabilization

Homecoming can be stressful as well as exciting, because you've been apart a long time, you're nervous about the changes in each other, having to re-adjust, all that stuff, and that can be stressful.  Also, because you know another separation (the deployment) is coming up, it sounds like you all are also experiencing some Anticipation of Loss (basically you know he's going to be leaving, and you know it's going to suck, you aren't happy about it, and it stresses  you).  Add to that, when you go through the Separation and Withdrawal phase, it's like, ok, I know this is going to suck, and I don't like it, so I'm going to get mad, or I'm going to withdraw, or we're going to be irritated with each other and fight more (because, after all, it's easier to leave / be left by someone we're irritated with, kwim...) .

It sounds like right now, you all are getting slammed with two spirals at once, and that's hard.. :-(  BUT - it's normal, and you CAN get through it.  It doesn't mean that you all are going to break up or anything like that - almost all of us experience these things at some point or another.  

It will get easier when he's out of school and at his first command and things balance out for you all, because for one thing, you'll only have one "spiral" at a time :-)

[Tiffany51908]

WOW. I feel like your watching my life! lol. Thank you so much for taking your time out to enlighten me on all of this. It helped A LOT and i spoke to him about it which was hard but after reading this it gave me a way to start the conversation. I feel like we are "back on track". Yea i feel like i keep getting hit with all of these obstacles and what makes it harder is that we will be apart but like you said, one spiral at a time =) Thank you so much!!!!

[sailorwifenmom]

:-)

I'm glad it was able to help.  It doesn't make it suck any less when you're going through it, but I do think it helps if we understand what it is that we're going through, kwim?  :-) 

[tylerslynne]

So wise! It's easier to calm yourself down when you can rationalize what you're feeling. That list alone, I can tell, is going to help many of the ladies on this site keep their cools, especially me!

SO glad my future MIL introduced me to this site, y'all really are a godsend. It's strange when other people can make sense of my life before I even know what I'm going through, but I am so SO grateful!

[Tiffany51908]

tylerslynne i am right behind you. There is soooooooo much to learn about being with a military man!! Sometimes i feel like my head is going to explode if i have to memorize one more thing but so glad i found people who "get me" or can talk me through a situation lol

[Tiffany51908]

It helped sooo much that list was awesome, i saved it for future reference!! lol Thanks!