While I was a “perfect military wife,” I was lacking to understand the most important words in that phrase: wife. I wasn’t acting as a wife, or friend should. I didn’t allow him in, I didn’t allow him to be present for me.
Understand, I am not absolving him of his responsibilities in any of this. Through counseling we are working on areas that have deteriorated. I am working on all of the ways that I have failed, and he is allowing me to grieve; I am grieving the relationship we had, even if it wasn’t good.
I am so pissed off at myself, at him, and at his mistress (she knew he was married), and he allows me to be vocally angry. I am hurt. I question many things about me, am I not loving enough, pretty enough, am I not supposed to be a wife? I am disappointed. It went on for nearly a year and I was so disengaged in my marriage that I didn’t see the signs – because there were signs.
I am sharing this with you because I don’t want you, my friend, in the same position I am in now. Communicate with your spouse, be a good “military spouse,” but moreover be a good spouse.
Don’t let the stresses of this life divide you.
Don’t cry yourself to sleep at night.
Don’t question all you are and all you had.
Do be one half of your marriage and love your spouse sacrificially as you vowed to do from the very beginning. Together, you can rebuild what you’ve lost.
