My Confusing MLC Navy W

[SteveLW]

Life is 10% what happens to you, and 90% your attitude towards it (and thus how you react). It seems your attitude to this hiccup is upbeat! I love it. Good job.

Huge plate of caution: "So, I guess it wasn't clear that her PA is over. The OM is on the other side of the country and she just left on a deployment."

Yeah, that isn't a PA being "over". That is a PA being paused due to circumstance out of both APs' control. Please do not kid yourself. I had a friend whose husband was a drug addict. He went into the military and got clean. While he was enlisted they got married, and had two kids. I cautioned her that if he hadn't dealt with his demons, once he was discharged and came back to our area that the old contacts and could cause him to relapse. Within a year of being discharged he relapsed. Their marriage ended after he got physically abusive, when she took the kids and left, he chased her in their 2nd vehicle and ended up rear-ending her to get her to stop and physically assaulted her in front of witnesses. (She later came to me and said "Well, Steve, you were right." I responded: "X, I am sorry and I really wish I hadn't been.")

I just want you to be realistic about this. This deployment and distance likely will cause them to miss each other and the PA could reignite once they are back together with more fervor than ever before. I do not say that to hurt you, but to prepare you. One of the reasons PAs are so addictive is that the people are limited to times they can meet. Sometimes they cannot meet again for days, even weeks. That distance builds up anticipation, it builds up frustration at not being able to have more access to the AP, and it builds up a passion. All of that comes out in the eventual meetings and it enhances the romanticism of meetings, PA, the AP, everything.

I can kind of relate. When I met my W we lived an hour apart. Every weekend one of us would drive after work on Friday to stay with the other person (we both lived alone) for the weekend. That continued for the first 8 months of our R. After 8 months she took a new job in the same area I lived, and moved into a new place in the same apartment complex. (Both of us are old-fashioned and so we didn't even consider moving in together prior to marriage.) The next 13 months of our R was much more work and we almost broke up about 6 months into that 13 months. I think a lot of that had to do with the transition from the limited time together, to spending a lot more time together. We started to lose that passion, and had to work at it as a couple. Which after that rough patch 6 months in, we did and within another year were married.

So please gird up your loins, the PA may be paused, not over.