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My husband is a sergeant major in the army and we’ve been doing this for 20 years. Let’s see if I can remember all of the big ones:

Kuwait
Kosovo
Iraq
Iraq
Afghanistan

That’s 25% of the entire time that we’ve been married, he’s been in a war zone. (Wow! When I think about it that way - between the 16 hour days and the training exercises, we’ve barely been married! No wonder we still feel like we’re in our honeymoon! lol!)

The first few deployments were awful. I had the TV turned onto the news 24 hours a day. I fretted. I worried. I immersed myself into every bad story that there was. I jumped at every knock on the door - certain that there would be an officer and a chaplain on my doorstep. I cried every time we went a week without hearing from him.

Then I started listening to my husband. He told me to stop “torturing” myself. He told me to turn off the news. He told me to relax. He reminded me that he was in greater danger driving to work every day than he was in a war zone. “This isn’t world war one, honey.”

He also told me that my worry was hurting HIM. It made him feel like his service was somehow wrong. We wanted to feel good about what he was doing and I was taking that away from him. He told me to “knock it off”.

It wasn’t until the first deployment to Iraq that I finally was able to get through it without stressing myself to death. And the less I stressed, the faster time went.

I hate to say it because it sounds cold, but now a deployment really isn’t a big deal for us. It’s not that we don’t love each other and miss each other, but we’ve finally allowed ourselves to adjust. I feel like I have permission to just *miss* him - and nothing more. I have permission not to worry and to be proud of him. To cheer him on without the negativity. To be happy for him because he’s doing something that he’s really proud of and accomplishing something that he wants to do.

This deployment, I’m practically “zen” about the whole thing. Of course we went through the Fort Hood shootings not so long ago and that kind of put everything into perspective for me.

It’s our job to support our soldiers. We MUST trust in G-d. Bad things can and may happen, but they can happen anywhere and at any time. I know that my soldier won’t be called Home until G-d is ready to do so.

But I sometimes feel like we don’t let ourselves relax and “let go and let G-d” out of a sense of obligation and guilt. We feel like if we don’t fret and stress and cry and worry that we don’t love our soldiers. We feel guilty when we do feel happiness while they’re gone. Like somehow that means that we love them less.

I was the FRG leader during the last deployment and a wife actually called me a “cold bitch” because of my advice to let go and be happy while he was gone. “I love *MY* husband!”

Well, I love my husband, too. And it’s out of that love that I don’t upset HIM with my foolishness. That I do as he needs me to do and live my life with joy while he’s gone. I write him all the time. I send him packages. I am here, waiting for his twice-weekly calls and if he doesn’t call, I don’t think a thing about it. I trust HIM. I trust G-d. I trust his leadership. I trust because he needs me to trust.

After the first deployment, my husband started a tradition. Right before he leaves, he packs up all of his clothes, every photograph, every reminder of HIM. He purges the house of every trace of himself and puts it all in storage. I’m allowed to keep one photo of my choice, but it can’t be kept where I can see it every day. (It’s usually in my purse.) He told me that he was doing this because he wanted me to be able to walk through the house and do my daily tasks without a constant reminder of his absence. “You can’t live well if you hurt every time you enter a room.”

Most people can’t understand this gift he gives me. They think that it’s some horrible rejection of our marriage that I accept this gift. They can’t understand that he’s always with me in everything that I do and that it is nice to be able to forget what we’re going through for a few hours every day.

My husband loves me. He really, really loves me. And the last thing that he wants is for me to be in pain.

And I love him. I love him enough to not hurt him by hurting. (And no, I can’t fool him just by shutting up about it. He knows when something is wrong with me just as I know when he’s upset even when he doesn’t tell me.)

This deployment, I didn’t let him pack up his things. I told him that it was OK. That I’d grown up enough that it wasn’t necessary. He asked me if I was sure and I told him that if I started to be a silly female that I could deal with it on my own. And he trusts me to keep that promise.

It’s OK to love without fear, honey. It’s OK to nourish feelings of pride and to reject the horror show that our imaginations can generate. And it’s what they want and need from us.

I’m not going to lie to you and say that nothing bad will happen to your son. Nobody can make that promise. But I will tell you that your son’s odds are very good. I will tell you that nothing will happen that is not G-d’s will. And I will remind you that you’re doing your son no favors by allowing fear to cloud your life.

So follow in the steps of military wives and mothers who have come before you for thousands of years. Write him. Tell him how much you love him. Tell him how proud you are of what he’s doing and reassure him that you’re alright. Carry him with you, but in a good way.

And remember this: Fear and worry are NOT healthy expressions of love. Those emotions actually cloud true love. You must nurture faith, hope and patience in order to give him the support that he really needs. To actually love him in the way that he needs.

I’m sorry that this was so long and I hope that I didn’t offend you with this post, but that’s my advice and that’s how I’ve survived loving a soldier for 20 years.