Deployment Worries: Share Them with Your Soldier

When my husband left for his/our first deployment in November 2005, I was still a new Army Wife. I wasn't new to the Army life, I'd already spent some time in the military myself, so I thought I had a slightly better understanding of how things worked with the Army. But what I found out while he was gone, was completely different from what I had expected. It is an experience that you really cannot fully understand until you've been through it. The following is a response of mine to another wife on a message board, ArmyWives.com. She and her family are getting ready for her husband's second deployment to Iraq. What she said is something I have heard many times. She didn't want to tell him about her fears and worries that were coming as part of the deployment.

"I guess I just don't understand the whole thought process that I've heard several times."I don't want to tell him how I'm really feeling about this because it will stress him out." Or usually something like that. When you got married, you became a team through whatever life brings you. You share your ups and downs, happiness, sadness, fears, etc.

Before my husband left in '05; we had a long talk about things. How we would handle things while he was gone, what we wanted to do with the extra money and yes, our feelings about the deployment, etc. I didn't want to be upset and waste our last few days of him being home upset over the fact that he was going. Something neither of us could change. But when we talked about it, he told me that he would rather see me upset over him leaving than not see it and think I didn't really care.