Military wives

Me! I'm married to a Seabee :)

Just Married

I go to fort gordon for my AIT, perhaps I'll see you there heh.

Do you go to the meets? I'm going to be moving to that area right before WriMo begins (meaning I won't make any early ones), but I'm facing my soon-to-be husband going on 6+ months of back-to-back detachments starting after Christmas. It would be great to get some advice on the area and on ways to deal with the madness of here again/gone away from someone who's been through it.

I was in a similar situation last year, and I joined this thread. (My boyfriend, now soon-to-be husband, was just coming back from a detachment in early November.) I wish you guys the best of luck.

Technically, shouldn't it be "spouses" instead? Better yet "partners." There are, after all military husbands, girlfriends, boyfriends, and now out same-sex partners of varying legal statuses depending on the state.

Pattie, I gave in and decided to NaNo this year!

The rest of you, HELLO! I'm an Army wife, and we're stationed in Hawaii.

You keep keeping busy, basically. I'm assuming BCT is the Marine version of basic training. Writing letters helps a lot; when my husband was in BMT I wrote him a letter every day starting from when I got his address. Also spending time with friends, picking up a new hobby, writing a novel (lol).

When he's out of training, it gets a lot easier since you can talk to him more (assuming he's not deployed; I honestly have no experience with deployments at all). But you just kind of adjust after a while, and for the most part don't even think about the fact that he's not there.

My fiance and I come from the same town, and went to the same high school. We started dating after that, though, and he was already in the Navy. He's stationed 500 miles from our home town, so it's been a long-distance relationship. For those, you just keep in contact. You have the conversations that normal couples have in person over the phone or online. (Things like saying goodnight, asking how each others' day went, listening to the cat telling you about his day in meows, etc.) My fiance hasn't been on a deployment, but he's been on perpetual back-to-back detachments, both on land and at sea, since a few months after we started dating. Those are a bit harder than general long-distance.

-You're not legally next-of-kin, but as long as his family knows you and doesn't hate you, they'd probably tell you if something happened to him and they were notified. So don't watch the news. Just...don't do it. You'll only stress yourself out if they mention the place where he is or someone in the same branch getting injured or killed.
-Don't keep a calendar and count down the days 'til he gets back either. That only makes it longer, and they can't tell you which exact day they're coming home anyway. They can usually only give you a ballpark estimate, such as "November-December" or "some time before Christmas."
-And keep busy. My man's going to be gone on back-to-back detachments on sea and land for at least the first six months of next year, and I'll be alone in a city where I have no family and don't know anybody. I'm doing WriYe (a year-long version of NaNoWriMo) to keep myself busy through that. Find something that works for you.

Although I'm on the 'military' side of the military relationship, I too know how hard this is... I started dating my boyfriend shortly before I left for BMT and as hard as the distance was on me, my boyfriend was much more miserable.. Now, I'm stationed on the opposite side of the US and I feel the distance more keenly.

What advice I can give:
-Write him every day. Even though he won't be able to write every day (or even once a week, in some cases) don't think that he doesn't appreciate them. I can't stress how much those letters mean. They keep you sane and give you something to hold onto when things are overwhelming. I have every single one of the letters that my boyfriend sent me while I was in BMT and read them whenever I can, even though I can talk to him on the phone pretty much anytime I want to.
-Find something to keep yourself busy. You've heard this before, but its true. Find somewhere to volunteer and spend as much time there as possible. Tackle outdoor problems or learn how to fix things around the house (he'll appreciate not always having to be the handyman too ;D). Write a novel. (November is darn convienient for that, that distraction alone can save your sanity.) Spend time with family and friends that you wouldn't spend as much time with if he were there.
-Find other significant others of military and support them as much as possible in any way you can. This is especially true if you two (you and your boyfriend, that is) end up getting married and living on base. You'll find that that support can be a life-saver to both you and that other person, even if its just chatting for a few minutes every once in a while.

On a side note, something that a lot of military couples struggle with: Do realize that he's going to come out of BCT almost a completely different person than he was before, not that that's entirely a bad thing. I've seen tons of people that start a relationship prior to basic and have a hard time adjusting afterward because they don't realize that the person now in the military has an entirely new perspective on life and different focuses and goals. It takes a LOT of understanding, unconditional support, and sacrafice to maintain a relationship of this sort (which I've been very blessed with, Thank God. I couldn't get through half of this if I didn't know that my boyfriend supports me completely, even though we have to put off any hope of a life together for a few years...)

If you think of anything else to ask, feel free to friend me and send a PM. (Or just PM me, either way.) Best of luck to you and your boyfriend.

Let me guess, he is Security Forces! :D

We are here at F.E. Warren as well. My hubby is an FM for one of the off sites so I understand the rotten schedules. We are stationed here for a special duty, but originally he is a helicopter crew chief. I did one enlistment in the Air Force as Security Forces, but now I stay home for my kids and train horses for a living. Economy is slow in the horse world so I am pursuing novel writing. Here is hoping I meet my goal of getting published this year.

Point Magoo? My fiance dreads ever ending up at Point Magoo, home of the Sun Kings, aka Drug Kings.

He also dreads Japan, but that's mostly because we own cats, and we would have to either find a relative to take them or put them to sleep (which, to us, is unimaginable, since those kitties are our babies) if he got stationed there because it's almost impossible to take them with you. Thankfully, they try to avoid sending married men to Japan.