If your husband is gone, but will be returning very soon, and you have friends who have husbands that are still gone and will be for awhile, do you tend to tone down the reunion excitement? I may be selfish, but my best friend just got her hubby back from A-School, and I know she was really excited to be getting him back, but she seemed to not really talk about it a lot around me, and to be honest, I really appreciated it. Her husband left about 2 weeks before mine, but mine will be gone much longer than hers was!

not really... because everyone in the mil knows what it's like to have loved ones coming and going, and the shared excitement and there's the shared "bond" in knowing what a homecoming or a deployment feels like. i wouldn't want anyone to hold back their excitement because i know when i had an impending homecoming, i wouldn't have wanted to hold back mine.

i've learned that deployments and homecomings, no matter the length, impact different people differently so even if a friend had a hubby gone only 2 months and mine was gone 10 months, i'd want them to share the excitement. deploys are a hard part of the navy life, and thus the happy part, the homecoming, should be a shared joy :)

i guess what i'm saying is i wouldn't want to lessen their excitement simply due to my own jealousy/bitterness :D

I would be thrilled, and my friends would know it, just cos they can empathize, but I wouldn't gloat.
She sounds like a nice friend :)

I do tend to downplay mine a little because usually Eddie is only gone a few weeks at a time. I was super excited last year when he got home from Iraq but I toned it down around my friend whose husband was also in Iraq but a lot longer because of his branch of military (my DH is Air Guard and goes on 4 month rotations whereas her husband is Army and gone a year at a time usually). I like people to share my excitement when DH is having a homecoming but I know it can make other people miss their DHs even more so it's a nice gesture to be thoughtful of your friends who still have deployed hubbies.

Even better that you both have dh's coming home at different times. You can be excited together and then set up a baby swap so that shortly after the family is back together you can give eachother a couples night out.

not really... because everyone in the mil knows what it's like to have loved ones coming and going, and the shared excitement and there's the shared "bond" in knowing what a homecoming or a deployment feels like. i wouldn't want anyone to hold back their excitement because i know when i had an impending homecoming, i wouldn't have wanted to hold back mine.

i've learned that deployments and homecomings, no matter the length, impact different people differently so even if a friend had a hubby gone only 2 months and mine was gone 10 months, i'd want them to share the excitement. deploys are a hard part of the navy life, and thus the happy part, the homecoming, should be a shared joy :)

i guess what i'm saying is i wouldn't want to lessen their excitement simply due to my own jealousy/bitterness :D

:agree My husband just left but if a friend had a husband just coming home I would want her to talk about it as much as she wanted and I would be equally happy for her and her family.

I dont tone it down and I certainly dont want others too either. Everytime one makes it home safely...I feel like another part of the family is home.
They're really not home until they are all home. So yes I am very excited when someone elses SO comes home.