Well this is a first for me and here I am writing probably on a predominantly female forum, so I hope you all could help ease my pain. Let me begin by giving some background to my predicament, my wife and I were married in April 07 and shortly after our marriage found out that she was deploying to Iraq, (she is a reservist USAF) so knowing that the deployment was immanent we decided to do what we wanted so we traveled and partied and went out alot.

She has been gone two months and from the moment when she left to now there has been a big change in her attitude and she only talks of negative things in out relationship and her life, and says she has experienced things that she can’t explain. And that I dont know what it is like over there. She also mentions how she now wants to do things in life that she felt she could not do before and it seems like that I am holding her back. I tell her and reassure her that she should do whatever she wants and I support her and love her, but lately when we do talk she has soo much resentment towards me and she is just not herself.

It is breaking my heart to see her like this, this is not the person that I saw go at the airport. To top it of she comes home Jan 08 and wants to go visit a GF that she met and bonded with there w/o me soon after getting home. I feel absolutely crushed, this is not the wife I feel in love with, she is second guessing a bunch of things she has not done in life yet, and even our marriage. What should I do, I need help.

-J

It's so hard to give advice on stuff like this because every situation is different, and i'm not married so that's a whole different animal. I guess i can kinda relate because my boyfriend acted like this before he left for iraq, just shutting me out and doing his own thing. My mom gave me some good advice to just love on him from a distance because he's hurting and right now he just needs to know that you support him... I guess that's all you can do... there's only so much you can do, you can't force that person to act a certain way or tell you whats going on.. it will come out in time though. I wish i could get into her head for you and tell you what's going on, but i have no idea. I just hope that whatevers going on, she figures it out soon, because it's not your fault, it's something personal with her. YOu just gotta love her however you can.

welcome to SOS...really nice to have more men!!

and i'm sorry for all your confusion and heartache...i'm not sure what to say. War/deployments affect everyone so differently, its hard to say how to fix it. You're doing the right thing by supporting her and reminding her how much you love her and want to be with her...she needs to hear that. Talking it out is the only thing i can suggest...communicate all your feelings and thoughts to her, and hopefully you can work this out. We're all here to help :hugs

ive never gone through a deployment BUT i know the people around here always have great advice
:welcome
and :hugs

First off, welcome!! Second of all, I'm so sorry she's shutting you out... you do not deserve that especially since you're doing all you can do from a distance :hugs. Tell her how you're feeling. If it's too hard to do over the phone, send her an email or letter. Tell her again that you support her and all. Also, tell her how she's making you feel. It's important for her to know that she's upsetting you. I hope things get better and let me know if you need anything.

Thank you all for the support and warm welcome, hopefully she calls tonight!

hey man,

I can tell you from th point of view from the deployed SO that things over there just suck. when I first got home all I wanted to do was to just crawl into my bed and not have to worry about incomming fire, it will take a little bit to adjust to life back home, but just be there for her all you can and things will get better.

Welcome to SOS

Hey! Welcome to SOS

I'm so sorry for the situation you guys are in. It is very hard for her being a woman over there. I remember hearing stories from a female Maintenance Officer who was in charge of something in Bahrain (which is supposed to be FAR more tolerant) and the person she was supposed to be liasing with refused to talk to her because she was a woman.

I know it doesn't condone what she's doing, but it does make it even harder for her than many of the men over there. Plus she's got to "prove" herself a lot. I hate that it's like that, but it is.

She is changing. An experience like that is going to change a person. My husband was totally different even coming back from a survival school.

Many SO's push their counterpart back home away because it's easier to deal with what they're going through if they shut off all emotion. It sounds like she might be doing that. I know I am a lot more emotional than my husband, I don't know about her, but I'm sure it must be affecting her.

I guess all I can suggest is to support her as much as you can. It's possible there's something that's happened recently that she can't talk about to you, but that has really affected her. I am assuming she's on a 12 month deployment, so she's still got 10 months to change her mind again.

Just be there supporting her, try to keep her grounded in the every day. And be as positive as you can be for her. Don't let her get into a negative spiral.

I think deployments are harder on reservists than on any active-duty simply because most active duty haven't got a civilian life to go back to. This IS what they do. So she's probably having a harder time on that score too.

I hope it all works out for you. Please keep us posted and stick around! It's great to see men on here!!

communication is the key in any relationship but you need to have a lot of it in a military relationship esspecially when they are deployed. tell how you feel tell your sorry you don't know what she is going through, the fact is you can't change it but you can help her see what your going through and accept that she can't change that. i am all about being open and honest with my husband. sometimes its not what he wants to hear from me. but he needs to. welcome to SOS and good luck

Welcome to the site! First off, don't give up! Just keep loving your wife and continue to be supportive of her. I know (first hand) how much it hurts to be pushed away by someone you love. Just don't give up. She's going through something right now that us "civilians" just don't understand. Don't pretend to, just ask her to share how she feels. I'm sure she knows how much you love her but continue to remind her. Good luck!

It is normal for some people to become distant from their spouses while deployed, communication and understanding is the way to go. I hope things get better for you.

Hey there. I really feel you. I am struggling with a similar situation in reverse. My BF has changed really dramatically sincehe deployed (8 mths in Afghanistan now), he is very upfront about having shut down emotionally and being very affected by what he's seen and done. He is telling me he doesn't know whether he wants to be with me when he comes back, its all very confusing and upsetting. In the civilian world I would have walked a long time ago. But those that have been in Iraq even as humanitarians say its just such an extreme despairing experience and so bleak and damanging that its not a surprising reaction and that I need to be steady fast and patient.

Its breaking my heart, but I am trying to keep my head at least until he gets home and we can see in person what is going on. I won't pretend its easy and I cry a lot, and wonder what I've done to deserve this. But I don't see what other choice there is. I can't change his experience out there, and I can't just give up on what we had because he's currently in hell. KWIM?