Here’s a nice post from a wife going through her husband’s 6 month Air Force Deployment.
You can read her blog here.

Dear Me,

There is something I am afraid of… I am terribly afraid that I will get use to living without Daniel. I am scared that the sting of being apart will lessen and I will adjust my way of thinking and living to not include Daniel.

I understand coping and I understand adjusting to not having a partner in the home. If I didn’t we’d be living in a sea of garbage because Daniel always takes it out. Or our clean dishes would be falling off of the counter because he always puts them away for me. Or, or, or.

I am coping and I am taking care of business… but what a hole Daniel has left. A hole that I do not want filled. Though I have been using movies, at night after the kids are in bed, as a band aid. I just don’t like the silence of the dark evening. I feel his absence most then because night time is/was our time. We take our nightly walk, we talk, we do dishes together, we fold laundry, we download pictures off of my camera and look at them together, we make popcorn and watch a show. It was like we had a date, every night.

Now, after the kids are in bed I watch a movie and wait for his quick Skype call before he heads into work. It’s amazing how I always sleep better after I have seen his face.

Life is changed. Deployments are far-reaching. The effects will be felt forever. It’s not six months gone and then life resumes it’s normal pace. No. There is pre-deployment, deployment, and post-deployment. There is forever the six months (or whatever length the separation is) of lives being lived separately. Memories being made but not being jointly shared. Communication and the overall upkeep of a marriage during all of those deployment stages takes a lot more hard work.

But, I am happy to do the hard work. Because Daniel coming home and our life together resuming, however altered, is all I desire.