what the promise is for

This is not what I signed up for.

This is not the man I married.

I didn't agree to this. 

Those thoughts would creep into my head when I was looking at his blank, zombie stare through the computer screen.

That is what I thought when "they'll all be home by Christmas" turned into "most will be home by Christmas, but yours will stay until July."

That is what I would say to myself when my war weary husband lacked the physical and emotional ability to give me affection from thousands of miles away.

These are the things that went through my head weeks after he was home and I would still see a cold anger flash in his eyes without warning, when in an instant he literally looked like a different person.

But then again...

This is what I signed up for.

This is the man I married.

I did agree to this.

I came up with a lot of superficial things that were positive about deployment, but all of them seemed unimpressive compared to the massive suckage that deployment is. I really wanted to write something positive. I really wanted to encourage my friends getting ready to send off their husbands. It took me a month to figure it out: Deployment helped redefine marriage and put my promises to the test.

While we didn't have the exact words in our vows, we did agree that marriage was "for better or for worse." We promised that our marriage would embody a type of love that "bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things." I didn't feel like bearing, believing, hoping, or enduring, but that is the promise I made to my husband. Deployment presents an opportunity to ask yourself, "did I really mean all those things I said on my wedding day?" I had to look in the mirror and ask myself some hard questions:

When your man is incapable of showing affection because he is so worn out, withdrawn, and going through a tremendous hardship, will you continue to give affection, even if he can't give it in return? 

When his job requires even more sacrifice, will you continue to bear the burden with him? 

Will you continue to love him even if this experience changes him? 

The opportunity that I speak of is a defining, "make or break," moment. Are you going to do it or not?For me, this opportunity was the most positive thing to come out of deployment. It was a blessing that I was forced to solidify my promises so early in our marriage and to put them into action. I chose not to give up during a difficult situation. I chose to believe that it was only temporary. I chose to hope for better days. I chose to bear the weight of war alongside my husband. My vows were no longer a hypothetical romanticized speech. I had to choose to live it out.

And at the end of it all you can say, "We went dancing in the minefields; we went sailing in the storm. It was harder than we dreamed, but I believe that's what the promise is for."