Kinda like a mid-life crisis..but not.
I've been going through another mid-deployment crisis recently and this time I went drastic. The first time I simply cut my hair. The second time I bleached it white. Now the third time I've gone to the complete opposite side of the spectrum.
I dryed my hair black.
Mhm yup. Black. (well...sorta)
Here's a before/after picture:
Seriously...I want to know...
so that I can grind his face into the concrete and see how he likes it. Because that's what R&R is doing to me.
What genius thought that if you give a Marine an abnoral, extra-long, 12 month deployment, that 2 weeks in the middle will somehow make it all better.
Now, before you snap at me with something about how R&R "boosts troop morale", just hear me out.
With hubby's impending (and yes, I used the word IMPENDING) R&R, I've started to really contemplate the subject. R&R is like a fake reunion. Hell, you go through the STAGES of reunion and reintegration, just to have it end 2 weeks later. You go through the MOTIONS of preparing for a homecoming (getting dolled up, cleaning and redecorating the house, shopping for 2, baking cakes, making plans), but then you're just going to have to go through the goodbyes all over again.
But the one thing that R&R has done for me, is it has given DH "leverage" to use against me. If I fuck up I'm more likely to hear something like "You're going to hear about this when I get back for R&R" than I am to hear something like "well let's talk about it." If I piss him off, I'm more likely to hear "Well great, I don't even want to come home for R&R" than I am to hear him actually start a discussion.
In fact, yesterday he told me that if I want to talk to him anymore I'm going to just have to "wait for his R&R" (and not in a teasing, playful sense).
If it is THAT big of a deal that the Marines give him R&R 6 months into a 12 month deployment then why the hell don't they just give him a fucking NORMAL 7 MONTH DEPLOYMENT to begin with. Then all I have to do is wait 1 more month and he'd be home for good, not deal with this fucking drama R&R bullshit. And they wouldn't have to fly a hundred something Marines home and back.
And yes, I realize this post sounds very bitter, but that's because I AM bitter. So many people over the past few months have "pledged" their support to me like I'm a damn PBS special, only to bail out on me when I actually need it.
Last night, after talking to, fighting with, screaming at, being screamed at by, and crying over my husband and the fact that he is showing possible PTSD symptoms and told me he didn't want to come home, I got on my phone and texted a few of those "pledgers" asking for help. 24 hours later not a damn one of them has responded.
I don't really know what I'm supposed to do. I can't exactly "respond" to what's going on over there if he doesn't tell me about it. Yet he still expects me to know everything he's been through and react accordingly. So then when I don't react like he wants me to and I instead do trivial things like go shopping and eat cheesecake, I get ACCUSED. Accused of cheating, accused of "going rogue", accused of forgetting him, accused of changing too much.
So I guess I'm going to spend the next however long it takes for him to get here for his R&R cowering in my apartment like a damn hermit.
I got a letter from DH today (an actual paper letter). He was worried about me, not because I was losing it, but because I WASN'T losing it. I was actually surviving without him, and even though that's what he wanted me to do, I guess finding out I was actually doing it made him feel a bit neglected.
I thought about it and realized I'm actually getting by quite fine. There are many many many moments were I want my husband back, and I miss him every single day, but as far as "losing it" goes, I got over that months ago.
The first 2 months I was borderline psychotic, having meltdown after meltdown. And even now, my house is in complete disarray. That's actually the biggest change this deployment has done to me. Without anyone to appreciate my clean house, I've completely given up on even trying to make it presentable.
But I'm not psychotic anymore. I wake up feeling content, go to bed feeling content. I'm a bit more lethargic, certainly, and struggle on a daily basis to do menial tasks (like turn on the dishwasher), but I'm no longer losing it. I've come to terms with what I describe as the "single, but married" lifestyle.
