New Navy Wife, approaching our first deployment.

My husband and I have had a whirlwind of a romance. We met January 2011, when I moved in with him, we were engaged by March, married in April, and we love eachother more than I ever thought possible. God made him especially for me. I realized, however, his career in the Navy hinders us from seeing eachother as much as I'd like. Navy wives have to keep strong, hold the fort down until their husbands come back. I had no clue how strong I had to become, until pushed into the situation. Not only do our husbands deploy, but they leave anywhere from a week to a month every month or so to test run their ships. The only saving grace is Shore Duty. I love Shore Duty years.

He deploys in Feberuary. Between now and that date in February, he will be gone for more than half of the 90 day period. In that time, we are moving me into a new place, I'm starting college, work, getting my driver's license (I live at the beach where everything is within a 5 mile radius, geting my license was not a high priority until i became a Navy Wife) and when I'm not stressing out about these four huge factors, I find myself feeling depressed and anxious over my husband's deployment. I try to be strong infront of him, and I accidentally broke down when we were laying in bed one night and he jokingly mentioned how he bets that I won't miss having to wake him up at 3:45 a.m. when he's gone... I know he didn't mean to make me sad, he was trying to make light out of a situation, but he also doesn't realize how hard this is going to be, mostly because I'm not letting him realize it.

I spend every possible waking minute with my husband, and we do everything together. Even if he's going to get a haircut, picking something up at Rite-Aid, getting his car looked at, I always tag along, and I enjoy doing so. I love being around him every chance I can get, and he feels the same. He's been gone for a few days and will be coming back in about a week. Everytime his ship calls for him for longer than a day, I feel that I am more depressed than the last time he went out to sea. I do believe it's just because I'm also thinking about how he'll be going on deployment, and I feel like it's unfair he has to keep goign out to sea week after week when hes already going to be leaving for 8 months. That's the selfish, immature Brittany speaking, however. The mature, strong, and level-headed side of me also sees that his ships needs to run these tests and makes sure the ship is up to par prior to sailing away for an extended time.

I have no friends that have gone through this, are going through this, or even comprehends what I'm going through, mostly because marriage is way different than boyfriend-girlfriend relationships. I'm not demeaning Military girlfriends, not at all, because the emotions are real, and they are always there. But when marriage is thrown in the mix, I also have to deal with bills, housing arrangements, take care of his stuff as well as mine (whih I am glad to do so) and there's just nothing that screams "FOREVER" more than a wedding band and a strong commitment, in my opinion. Point blank, marriage is way different.

Since I have no friends who are married (obviously, I don't know many married girls at the age of 18.) to a navy man, I hardly bother talking to them about this struggle because they just don't understand.

They don't understand the meaning of giving your life, heart and soul to someone, and trusting them with it forever.

They don't understand what love after "I do." means. It changes everything, so beautifully.

They don't even understand the complications of marriage, where they think that once they fight with whoever they're dating, "It's so over." They can go back to their respective homes and call the next person that will buy them a drink. Well, in a marriage, it's not over. It's a great deal of comprimising, self-evaluation, and acceptance.

They don't understand what it is to want you're other half to come home so badly, and know he can't. Not that he won't, but he CAN'T. He isn't a phone call and a simple drive away, he's thousands of miles away, in a vague part of the world, in any measure of danger of enemy attack. The reality that I have to go to bed every night without his arms wrapped around me, talking about our future and telling eacother how important we are to one another, it's emotionally debilitating to me.

A woman in her 70's once told me, "I get so sick of these new military wives. They're so wishy-washy and weak." (Note, she was never a military wife, so she doesn't understand.) She was reffering to how I was almost in tears about my husband leaving for a few weeks, for one, I was PMSing, and I can cry over watching "Bringing Home Baby" on TLC, and two, I had worked 50 hours that week AND taking care of our house and my dog sent me over the edge, I was frustrated, tired, ultimately drained. Anyway, so in response to her rather rude and unneeded comment, I stopped telling people around me that I was hurting inside. I didn't know how to quite put it, but it's that aching feeling in your heart when you're bawling your eyes out, that's what I feel when he's gone.

I almost feel stupid for being so mopey. My husband and I have been connected at the hip since we MET. We are literally by eachother's side from the time he comes home to the time he has to go back to his ship. I've grown such an attachment to him and I feel like this deployment is like taking candy away from a baby. an 18 year old, married, crying baby.

I just don't know how to cope, and this is the first time that I've admitted that I just feel like I'm a mess. And trying to cope alone is such a terrible way of coping,in my opinion.