Deployment fun

I know still talking about my husband’s deployment but you know how these things go ….can’t let it go!

The issue is, I never realized how much influence Uncle Sam had over my marriage until a few days ago when we learned about the Surprise Deployment. This summer was supposed to be a time when my husband wouldn’t, even better couldn’t, deploy because he’s back in training. He told me repeatedly that while things are never really sure in the military, the next three months would certainly, even for military standards, have him home.

Then a few days ago my husband came home from work while I was cooking dinner (a rarity in itself) and furtively looked from me, to the stove, to the kitchen counters and back to me without uttering a syllable.

I think he was assessing my mood on my Italian scale — hot, steaming or burning — hot being my steady state. After a few minutes of feeling his eyes on the back of my neck, I told him to go ahead and tell me what was wrong “for crying out loud!”

“I’m deploying in a few days” was his response.

My mood instantly shot up to burning, but I didn’t say anything. After a few minutes of compulsively stirring a saucepan — a giveaway that I wasn’t pleased — I told him that we would manage just fine, we’ve done it so many times. No big deal.

Truthfully, I can manage most practical issues extremely well. I’m efficient and organized and keep everyone busy. I don’t get overwhelmed by the kids or our day-to-day living. However, the one thing suffers the most in these situations is our relationship. My husband and I have been fighting a lot since he told me the news of his upcoming deployment.

It’s not that simple or straightforward. We don’t consciously decide that we’ll be on each other’s nerves or pick fights about insignificant details – it’s just the way stress comes out.

This stress is directly related to deployments and constantly having the rug pulled from under our feet. Like most marriages, we’ve had our ups and downs but when we spend some time together we get along well. With him home since February, we’ve gone on dates, saw a couple of movies, wrote silly cards to each other, and felt like we were actually getting to know each other all over again.

Then the unexpected deployment comes around and the stress mounts again. I start arguing in my usual Italian manner and my husband retreats into an impenetrable emotional fortress.

I don’t like to think that Uncle Sam is such a big presence in my marriage but he clearly is. Deployments create a lot of problems for us, not unsurpassable ones, but real ones nonetheless.

I know, I know … tough it out and stop complaining, we signed up for this, no one forced us, and so on. I also know that my husband is part of special operations which means more intense and unpredictable rotations. But the deployment stress adds one more layer of pressure on the family.

I don’t have any great suggestions for how to fix the volatile nature of military life. Particularly in a time of war, all of us in the military make sacrifices. I guess I’m just blowing off a little steam, in the hope that maybe my Italian mood level might drop back down to being merely “hot,” and my husband and I can enjoy a short, stress-free time before he heads out the door.