By Jen Heisel
My husband and I have been together for three-and-a-half years and in that time, he’s been on two deployments, multiple exercises, training across the country, night flights, overnight trips, etc. We had to learn very quickly how to not only make our relationship survive but also thrive, in the midst of time apart.
A month into our first deployment together, I was feeling totally lost. This person who had been so easily accessible was now 17 hours ahead, and thousands of miles away. At this point, we had only been dating for a year. How do we continue to grow as a couple? How do I get what I need out of this relationship and still be a caring and compassionate partner with him gone?
At the suggestion of a friend, I turned to The Five Love Languages. Each of us took the test and it turned out that our love languages were both Acts of Service and Quality Time.
Since having quality time during a deployment isn’t possible, we looked to other avenues. On that first deployment, we were able to video chat pretty frequently and would watch episodes of our favorite shows together. We’d also text as much as we could, and share photos with each other of everyday things: my dinner, his view, the weather in our respective locations, etc. That worked for us and by the time he returned home, our relationship was definitely stronger than it was before he deployed.
Exactly a year and two months after he returned from that first deployment, he left again. My husband has been on a ship for the last eight months and in that time, communication has been anything but reliable. Between River City, the time difference (which has seemed to change every week) and his busy schedule, we have had to work hard to communicate.
Going into this deployment, we knew communication was going to be a struggle. Months of work-ups prepared us for that. So, we were honest with each other. We talked about our needs, expectations and what would make each of us feel satisfied if we weren’t able to message on something like Google Hangouts or Facebook Messenger. We know that we are both people who need to talk frequently to feel connected; We need that quality time with each other to both feel secure and seen. As a result, we became really great emailers, sending each other pages-long emails about whatever popped into our heads. My husband knows I love cards so before the deployment, he hid four hand-written cards around the house and every couple of months, told me to look in this place or that place. Seeing his handwriting helped me feel connected to him in a way an email just can’t.
The key to staying connected is to always be honest. There have been points during this deployment that I’ve forgotten what our relationship is like when we’re physically together because we’ve been apart for so long. Those moments are bound to crop up. When they do, I tell him how I feel. I let him know I’m feeling disconnected and chances are, he is, too. We take the time to have an open dialogue without judgment. We let each other express our feelings without immediately going on the defensive. And above all, we treat each other how we want to be treated.
No relationship, especially during deployment, is perfect. But by being honest about our needs, we try to make sure our relationship is doing more than surviving.