FLTC I am suprised the Major was given leave. Since your tour is longer than mine I definitely am not passing any judgement. If I went home on my tour it would not made any difference. I kept my head in the game but it was a struggle. I surely hope he saves his marriage.
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Once we get married, as men, we sometimes forget about making our wives feel special, and just search for that next promotion, that next degree....and we forget that our spouse is a "life mate". I'll never make that mistake again.
Absolutely. One of the reasons I have not entered into a relationship is what you say takes considerable effort I am not willing to give and will not raise anyones expectations.
I read in a book (still doing the discovery thing) each area of our consious is segmented in rooms. In every room in a woman's head all decisions are filtered through relationships and validation and it's directed toward the person they are or wish to connect with. (husband, dad, friend, kids, ect. ) Hense they are always consious of these relationships and working in one direction or another along with their other tasks (work, logistics, and so on)
Men on the other hand have a specific room for relationships thus can must manually switch to that room prior to connecting with the other person. Otherwise we are working on cars, weapons, politics, jobs and so on. (Love October since all the Major sports are playing)
This is why when our partners will bring up a subject that troubles them we go into fix it mode instead of just listening and validating. Our wiring prevents us to make this jump easily and it is a learned art reguardless if it's our Mothers, daughters, sisters, wives, girlfriends, or female buddies or coworkers.
Though we may intellectually know this can we internalize and make that path to the relationship room easily? I found even after researching and some attempts it is not. One cause for me is my goals are simply to hang out not a deep committed relationship. However I believe if I enter into one I would probably let the path to the relationship room grow weeds and become more work to get there out of lazyness and a bit of selfishness. At this time it is a consious choice. When I was married I just denied the reality and was eaten by the phrase "I'll work on it tomorrow" thus when tomorrow came I reaped that harvest. I hope you do not.
Currently There are too many things I would like to do while I still am still physically able thus that path to the relationship room is not currently maintained well. Surfs up today on the coast.
May your soldiers netrualize all bad guys and deliver the goods with 0 friendly casualities. No purple hearts.
"All I want is a weeks pay for a day's work" Steve Martin
Thanks, Hill. After all the books and authors, etc., I see a lot of women who require a lot less than my W, and so many guys who try a lot less than I did, and things seem to work out right. Without getting too far into the weeds, maybe it has more to do with acceptance, loyalty, commitment, and not having, perhaps, unrealistice expectations not be met. I don't know. I wish you luck. Any news about coming back in to the Reserves?
I don't know about that FLTC. Women are complicated creatures, at least the ones who are worthwhile! Some may seem like less maintenance than others but every R can come with complications after the honeymoon phase. I also read that it is very beneficial to work harder on the primary R than to start over in a seemingly easier newer R. Keep reading. Soon we will be experts on Rs like Dr. Phil!!!
Me:38 H:39 MLC M:10 R:23 years D6 S3 Bomb: Easter, 2007 "Every day may not be good, but there's something good in every day."
FLTC As of today Columbus Day I'm looking to fax some info to our HQ on my Divorce. I spoke with a member of my former USMC unit who states they need a full time staff Hospital Corpsman for a few months to get ready for an inspection. Done this work with another unit and will contact the unit CO Tomorrow. Stateside duty fullfills one requirement (PT like a dog and get paid)
Otherwise my plan is to join a hospital unit, become the Lead Petty Officer and send young HMs Hospitalmans to the USMC unit. I saw several hiding out when I got my physical. I could provide more value that way instead of delivering a 51yr old with bad knees send over a few 22yr olds that eat coal, drink lighter fluid and poop fire. Kinda like what I did at the tender age of 35 when I enlisted. So I am not authorized to break things just yet but I am bighting at the bit. The paperwork is supposed to be finalized this week. The Navy moves slow but it does move. Just real slow.
On the subject of why we are here The things I heard from many women and my X who was good at verbalizing these things is not to become like them (sensitive people do not do well in the Middle East) but to understand and respond in a positive manner to provide them validation. However that takes a ton of work for guys like us.
Since all higher forms of life is born and nurtured by women their sense of creativitity, time, count of records, and so on is vastly different than ours and difficult for us to translate on the fly.
We live by accomplishments they live by relationships. In the US it is no longer survival of the fittest but the smartest and frankly the smoothest since you and Soldiers and my Marines handle the strong and few & proud part. Smooth means gathering and the harder part, keeping a woman's interest. I know how to set a woman's soul on fire but keeping the coals warm is beyond my desire to extend the work. It's my loss but also my choice.
We are both smart guys, with degrees, years of military and US Corporate experience and have a hightened sense of adventure with the tag adventure with purpose. That and $1.75 will get you a house coffee at Starbucks.
Couple of suggestions (I'm never short of those) One thing to your advantage of being in theater is a heightened sense of awareness. Along with this comes the ability to convey feelings to your spouse long distance. Instead of the direct approach look up some Sonnets on the internet, change a few words, handwrite it and mail to the wife. Send a few fatherly ones the the Daughters. When I was courting my X she remarked have Shakespere read to her. Poets are the kings when it comes to wooing the ladies.
Coming back beefed up from pounding benches and preacher curls is not bad but is probably 10% of the package. That means the 90% is new territory for guys like us. We have more in common with Mongo in Blazing Saddles than Zorro.
Keep the supplies moving.
"All I want is a weeks pay for a day's work" Steve Martin
You're right about that I guess. I'm not sure I can ever get past the walls that my w. has built up. She's an injustice collector and has brought up stuff from 1987! I have my faults. I'll admit that. We all come with frailties. She has said that. I know a lot of stuff I got wrong, but if a spouse is unwilling to forgive and move on??? I've got three kids, and they are at such a bad age for this to occur, it infuriates me. she has someone who loves her and loves the kids. I do believe it's easier to work on the primary R., and I want nothing more than that. Thanks for the female perspective. I really like hearing from you. I think also, that Hill is right. We are wired differently, doesn't mean bad, means different. I look around at a lot of the guys here, and they talk a lot about wives. I don't think I've been half as bad as a lot of these guys, but.....
Good luck Hill. It sounds like the "call" is pulling you back in again.
I haven't writtne W. very much, so sending emails might be tricky. It will seem like pursuit, but I've been away for 10 months. When does the "don't pursue" thing have a Staute of Limitations? :-) Any suggestions? I wrote to her yesterday and said that I would like to have the kids meet me in FLA during my 2 week R&R, and go to Universal and Disney. They would love that. No response as of yet. With D17's school for troubled kids costing 8K/month, money may be tight, but I have sent it all home..tax free O5 pay with hostile fire pay, etc!!! I may just end up pulling out the charge card!
Tomorrow will be our 22 yr wedding anniversary. I probably won't email. Thoughts? Also, got an email from W. D16 has been lving at an alternative school in UT for 8 months now and will graduate from HS in a couple of months. W. suggested we could get separate presents or we could get her one together. First offer to do anything like that in a while......whatever.....Any thought?
Hey FLTC, now that's interesting that she asked about separate or singular gifts. If you think of pursuit then jumping on the singular gift idea would not be a good action. But she offered this up first which could be a very small sign.
So thinking out loud here, maybe you tell your wife you had been contemplating a gift for your daughter already. Be sure to have some solid ideas to back this up. Then say that a gift from the two of you would be a nice gesture to your daughter to show the you both are proud of her and love her. But you would like to get a gift just from you as well because of the special bond between fathers and daughters.
If we really want to love, we must learn how to forgive. - Mother Theresa
Thanks. Good idea. I'm at a total loss what to suggest to my W. for a single present from both of us. I need to seize this momnet, because one of her issues was "i don't take initiative". Of course, if I mention a nice pair of diamond earrings, She'll say: Do you really think so?"
