The title probably threw you off, right?! You see tons of marriages fall apart because of deployments, relationships unravel before the deployed person comes home and since we live in such a heavily populated military city, we see it far too often to believe deployments could ever make a marriage strong. But, the truth is, they do. Deployments either make or break a marriage. We chose to let it make us.

When Kyle deployed for the first time ever, we knew it would suck, but we also knew our marriage was SO very strong, there was nothing that could sway us. We spoke every day, I prayed for him daily, and God was in the center of our marriage. I put our marriage in God’s hands and allowed Him to guide us. Just like I put my life in His hands when I was determined I’d never find the right person for me. I prayed a simple prayer, asking Him to put my life in His hands and do what He wanted with it. To put me where I needed to be, and to choose my soulmate for me — I told Him I didn’t want to choose my own, because apparently I didn’t choose very well for myself, LOL!

Temptation is everywhere, but only the weak give into it. When Kyle was deployed last year, he told me about a guy he was deployed with that confided in him about his marriage. He mentioned to Kyle he was very nervous to leave because his wife had been acting funny and even warned him she may not stick around for when he comes home. That’s an awful thing to do to a man before he leaves to defend our country. While they were deployed, she wrote him a Dear John letter (an email, really) explaining she was in love with somebody else and was leaving him. All of her things would be gone by the time he got back and they would probably never see each other again. I can’t even imagine what this poor guy was going through. To be on the other side of the world and not be able to do anything about this awful thing happening to him…to just have to deal with it from afar and not even be able to talk to her. Kyle told me this story with such a heaviness. He was sad for his friend… I was sad for him. But we knew one thing, that would never happen to us. Neither of us would give into any kind of temptation. Not just other people, but other things. 

This is when deployments either make or break marriages. I think if you have a rock solid marriage to start with, deployments only make it stronger. Open lines of communication to be able to talk about everything while he’s still away, keeping him in the loop as if he’s still here (he gets a million pictures a day from us and FaceTime is a daily occurrence), not making decisions without him, and just keeping your marriage your number one priority (aside from your children of course). You have to truly love your spouse in a way you never thought love worked before. And truly, absence does make the heart grow fonder, as cliche as that is!

In all honesty, deployments are awful, but they make our marriage one of the strongest marriages we’ve both ever known any 2 people to have before. We love and respect each other in a way we’ve never seen others love and respect their partners. We have our arguments but they never last long — we make up and apologize in a matter of minutes. We don’t go to bed mad at each other. We give into each other easily. We don’t pick fights. I’m feisty, he’s calm — its the perfect balance to our marriage. We love on each other non stop and PDA is a regular occurrence because we know we have to go a few months out of the year, every year without those sweet kisses in the Target check out line. We value every second spent together. We trust each other with our lives, we just love and respect each other the way God intended a married couple to. Our marriage is rock solid and the time away each year only makes us love and appreciate each other more. 

Deployments are hard. But I know they each have an ending. The countdowns exist on the refrigerator door and on my phone to each day know we’re one day closer to seeing each other and having our family whole again.

If you’re anticipating your first deployment with your husband, fiancé or boyfriend, don’t fret. Be strong for him. Let him know how much you love and adore him and let him know you’ll be here waiting for him. Military life isn’t for the weak, its your turn to be strong for him and for yourself as well. These guys make a huge sacrifice, and while we make one too, ours isn’t nearly as big as theirs — keep that in mind. Know that every day is one day closer to seeing and touching him again. Keep God in the center of your relationship. You WILL be okay, I promise. Deployments always have an end date, my dear.

Until next time, cheers to the Independent Dependents! Remember, you’re doing a wonderful job! xoxo!