Marriage in One Year- The Hard Moments

Last week, I shared some of the funny moments from our first year of marriage. This week, it is some of the hard moments.

My grandfather passing away While Chris was at boot camp, my grandfather went into heart surgery. It was almost three months of going in and out of the hospital, and me making the road trip from Tucson to Phoenix on the weekends, before I got the phone call that said I needed to come home right then and there. Chris was in a-school at the time, and I called him crying as I ran around my dorm room trying to get my stuff together. Two days later, Chris surprisingly got approved for emergency leave and flew home just in time for the funeral. Losing my grandfather was so hard on me because he was the father figure in my life, and also because I never got the chance to tell him that I got married. Even though my grandfather liked Chris, he would never have approved of me getting married so young and so quickly, so my mom and I made the decision to not tell him. It was heartbreaking that I had to hide something so important, and that I never got a chance to tell him. I couldn't have been more grateful that my husband was there for me during the funeral.

The day of the funeral

Starting out our marriage as a long distance couple We got married while Chris was in a-school, and I flew home from Chicago after the weekend to go back to school. It was definately not the way I imagined my first few months as a newlywed. What kept me positive was the fact that all I had to do was finish the semester, just two months, and by that time Chris would have gotten his orders, and we could start planning to live together.

Deployment Chris came home for his two week leave in between a-school and his new duty station and then flew to his ship in San Diego. We planned that I would come down there in about two weeks so that he could take house hunting leave and we could go apartment hunting, then after spring two weeks with my family, we could move in. Chris called me the first night he was there and said, "The ship is getting underway tomorrow." I was not ready for this first real experience as a navy wife- we hadn't even gotten a chance to live together! He left for a week, flew home for the weekend, left for a week, and then I flew down to San Diego for five days before he left for three months. During one of his days home, he went and signed a lease for an apartment that I had found online so that I could move in before his ship got home. In our first six months of marriage, we got to spend three weeks together (split between four visits) , and most of our communication happened through email. That first homecoming was definately memorable though.

June 2010, the weekend before RIMPAC

 

Realizing that military life really was going to be as hard as I expected Experiencing a long distance relationship for the first six months of our marriage and dealing with a three month underway definately tested our limits, but at least it prepared me for what life would be like as a military life. Of course, I still struggle with military life three years later, but at least I had some idea of what I was getting into from the beginning.

San Diego Zoo 2010