I read through the things you have to say several times, and I'm feeling a little uneasy. But i'm not sure why. I think becuase I really feel like you're condemning her for being lonely. You may say you can imagine how it feels to have someone you love thousands of miles away, but the bottom line is, unless it's happened to you before, you can't. Unless it's happened to someone they will enver understand the fear, the lonliness, the uneasy, restless feeling that hits everytime you see the aftermath of a car bomb on CNN and wonder if your husband saw it happen. Or worse yet, was a casulty of it. Or see little kids pointing guns at American soldiers and wonder if your husband would defend him self or take a bullet to keep from shooting a child.

Being the wife of a deployed soldier is a little like being a widow - just without the dead body. From all outward appearances, and for all intents and purposes you are a single woman, you just happen have a commitment to a marriage that you reap no benefits from. From my support group, i learned that spouses of the deployed actually go through the same phases of grief that they would go through if their other half had died - then, about the time we adjust, they come home and we are forced to act like nothing ever happened.

And as a single mom, let me say this regarding dating and remarraige. if a single mom wants to date and go out, then by all means go. Single moms are with their children 24/7 and if they occaisionally need a break, then go for it. If you never do something for yourself, you run the risk of resenting your children for the things you never got to do. That is one of the saddest things in the world to me and i refuse to let it happen.

I'm not negating your advice, and I'm not condemning you. But I do want you to understand where she is coming from. She is 100% committed to her child and husband. Infidelity and divorce are no longer options for her, if they ever were. It's hard for her to come home every night to an empty house. It's difficult to teach a child about their daddy when he's never met his father. Its damned near impossible trying to keep up your husband's spirits when you're breaking down inside and you can't fucking tell him about it becuase you don't want to distract him from the "important service to his country" that he is performing. I understand why she feels this way, although I don't condone it.

I think this has moved into the realm of rambling, so I'll stop now. i just don't want you guys to think badly of her for having these feelings. We are both in a strange and difficult situation, and neither of us are very strong people.

LAW