now what

so now that you know he's going and you have a general idea of when, which can and probably will change a few times, what are you suppose to do with what time you have left together?

hubby was in germany and i was stateside so i went and visited for a long weekend. we aren't your typical scenario at all though. i did make him a photo book to take with him and we enjoyed what time we did have together, like a mini vacation.
jenann
army
1 deployment

with it being our second deployment, i was trying to look for all the little freedoms that came with it. it sounds selfish, but it will be only be in the house for a year. so, i kept thinking about having the whole bed to myself, eating what i wanted to when i wanted to, not having to check his schedule to make plans, less laundry, don't have to listen to him snore or chew.

we knew six months before he was deploying so we really didn't change anything. as we approached the final three months until he leaves, we started to care more about spending time together. we played the wii together after work, we planned a vacation to take before he went.
shelley
army
2 deployments

we were apart before the deployment for too long due to the rumors of another deployment looming and my anxiety over leaving my job and being some place new without any support. don't do this!

i wish more than anything i would have just moved up there, got settled and had my own life instead of being at home and being half-way in between married life and life before marriage. it's not a very fun place to be in and it also is making things more difficult in the long run because now i'm moving by myself without any help and will still be up there awhile alone before he comes home.

it also had made the whole thing terribly long. our 12 month deployment will be at least two years by the time it's all said and done and mostly because i was hanging on to what i knew as long as i could.

i also spend way too much time stressing over things that really did not matter before deployment. i was fretting over who will be there and not getting enough time with my hubby when in the end it all worked out. i definitely learned that usually anticipation of everything is 100 times worse than when it actually happens.
smailey
army
2 deployments

when my hubby found out, it was something we knew pretty soon after he got back from iraq the first time. he was stateside for about 10 months and we spent a lot of time together. the days approaching were really blurry, i don't remember much because he was packing and doing the final preparations. we also had only been married for three weeks when he left for his assignment for south korea.
sgt s wifey
army
1 deployment

we knew during the last deployment that they would be leaving again. we had a year between deployments but he also had a ton of training where he was gone for weeks at a time. we just tried to do as much as a family as we could. we didn't really do anything we would have done anyways though. we knew we would be in germany longer due to the deployment.

he left a few days after thanksgiving. we were going to have a small dinner with just the four of us but decided to invite some of the single guys so they didn't spend their last holiday before deployment alone. it was great that they all had fun hanging out one last time before deploying. with him leaving december 4th, we opted not to do christmas early because hubby wanted to keep things as normal as possible for them. he didn't want the christmas tree up either before he left. this made me mad, but he later explained he just didn't want to see all the christmas stuff up and know that he was going to miss christmas with me and the kids.

i always just try and cherish the time we have before he leaves. i try not to let the little things get to me the few weeks before he leaves. those last few weeks can be kind of awkward for us. we both just get stressed and everything. i hate watching him pack.
jamie renee
2 deployments

for our first deployment there wasn't much time between him receiving his orders and him actually deploying. and i was way busy with starting my new teaching job and he was super busy getting things together for his deployment (he had just come of a deployment earlier in the year). however, we did go away for the weekend prior to his deployment for some 'us' time. i tried so hard to enjoy myself and my time with him, but all i could think about was that tuesday morning i would drop him off and get my very last kiss for who knows how long.

for our second deployment, the initial orders were canceled while we were on our honeymoon (we had to move up our wedding and honeymoon in case he really was going in mid-april) which was a blessing and a curse. now we had to go through the whole 'wait and wonder' for orders. at the same time i was pregnant with our son. when the orders finally came, they were cut for a few weeks after my due date. it made my entire pregnancy a hellish emotional roller coaster. as if the hormones of pregnancy weren't enough, we knew that as soon as our son was born, my hubby would be leaving for 15 months. however, we promised ourselves to put it in the backs of our minds and make the most of our time together.

as the days of my delivery approached, hubby sat down and made a build-a-bear with a special voice recording for our son. he also recorded bedtime stories for our son. in the long run, i think they helped me more through the deployment. i worked on the scrapbook i sent in his duffel and i was sneaky about all the little love notes i hid in his gear and his duffels. as stressful as all the paperwork was and such, we made the most of the time. we had thanksgiving as normal, the three of us and set up our tree like we always did after thanksgiving dinner. knowing that hubby would miss the next two christmases, i promised him the tree would be up when he got home, as if he never left. i think this helped all of us (i did take it down in between).
aaron's wifey
army
2 deployments