ReginaNova:
PBWU–You started your original post stating that you have been “blissfully married for 10 years”. Yet in subsequent posts you indicate that all is not blissful. Of course, that is completely understandable after 10 years of marriage and the related stresses that come with life and kids. You seem to be a very intelligent woman and in touch with your own feelings. Could it be that you are struggling especially with the issues related to your husband’s military career and with the drift in your marriage? .
You are right. A marriage relationship is a complex thing with lots of intricate details. We are extremely happy* with each other*. Our personalities blend well together, we enjoy the same things in life, same values. usually the same parenting approach. It is the situation we are in and the outside stresses that are having an affect. Since 9/11 he has been going on missions on average every two weeks, but sometimes there will be a longer lull or other times he is gone for three weeks, home for 24 hrs. out for two weeks home for 2 days back out for 3 weeks. Even if he was home for a several week stretch he had local missions that are nearly as exhausting for him. It’s hard on the family, no matter how well we deal with it. After two years of that nonstop flying + one 120 day deployment to Spain, he did what he could to get more office (squadron) responsibilities which kept him home all summer with office work and local training missions. By the end of the summer he was the worst version of himself on a bad day, only it was all day every day for months. I realized it was because he wasn’t doing what he loves, flying around the world, the risk, the adventure and experiencing new foods, cultures and the high pressure, high importance job. So I decided to just give him the permission he thought he needed to go back to the previous mission level.
I put all my effort into making a happy homelife for my children, their education and aside from a few responsibilites with the squadron wives group and teaching 5th grade RE on base, I have very little time to do anything, except fool around at CA, read or scrapbook,while they are sitting at their desks working. I have to stay in the room or they start to play and goof off, so I either read or post on CA.
The quality of housing has been a constant issue. For 5 yrs we were in the middle of a 5 unit row house. At first our neighbors were great, but with the housing boom, everyone bought and so they started letting single airmen and young couples without children move in around us. They were loud, wild, foul mouthed, which I could stay away from, but it was the unkept dogs that were a problem. The couple we shared a wall and backyard with were 17 and 18yo newlyweds who adopted 3 dogs from the pound right away. One was a German shepherd mix who wanted to tear us apart, a beagle who ran in our house everytime we opened the back door and some other dog. The smell from the walls was horrible, especially in my daughter’s room. After a yr of trying to work it out with them, we got housing involved. They had a rabbit and cat in the room with my daughter’s wall, a guinea pig living “free range” in teh mstr. bath, the back yard was piled so high with dog poo that DH finally cleaned it up adn filled two trashbags! My children were bitten twice over 5 yrs of living there, There were also alot of unstable neighbors, one a voodoo preistess, another had two of her miscarried fetus’s in her kitchen freezer next to her kid’ spopsicles. I took dinner over once because she was ill, just being a good neighbor, when she said “do you want to see my sweet babies?” I thought she was going to show pictures, but she opened her freezer to show mason jars with babies in them, with a little frozen liquid. Nighmarish! :bigyikes: It was a horrid place to live with many more stories! We moved to an NCO duplex as ASA he made rank. The base said it would be at least 3yrs before they demolish it, but this fall they gave us notice for summer, then a few weeks ago they said we needed to move out by April. So we are hoping we receive orders that will coincide with the move from this house, or we will need to rent a house for a few months between the two.
Put all that stress with my health and pending surgery (we don’t have a date yet) the base just informed DH that he has to to to the NCO academy in April away from home for two months (same time as move/ surgery) and 3 of the women I know here are going through divorces/ unfaithful husbands, and call / visit me to be their supportive friend…
OH my gosh, yes, this long thread continues…
**
