Of Emotional Turmoil

Ryan and I have been fighting a lot lately. It always starts over something stupid and escalates into some really nasty threats and remarks that cause the entire thing to end in tears and promises of being better. I'm sure you all know the ones. We've always had our arguments, but they were never as frequent as they are right now. We mostly chalk it up to the stress of not being able to really live together and therefore trying to cling to each other every moment we are together - and there are really only so many things to do here in 29 Palms to entertain us as a couple - which results in frustration at being bored but not wanting to do anything separately. It's a vicious cycle.

The stress of all of his final tests don't help, and neither does having no knowledge of when we'll see each other again after he graduates and I fly back to Tennessee. We're hoping it'll be a week, maybe two at the maximum. But we honestly don't know, and it's aggravating because we don't know what to prepare ourselves for. And as I've already said, we're both the clingy types so not having an exact date for when being apart ends is driving us both over the edge on a frequent basis.

But we've also done a lot of serious talking and thinking about what some of the other factors are. My bipolar tendencies being one of them, obviously. And Ryan has his own behavior issues that really need to be worked on, as he himself has admitted on more than one occasion. Neither one of us came into adulthood unscathed by things that happened to us during childhood and adolescence. And they are things we really need to talk out and resolve, a resolution we've both made for this year as much for ourselves as for each other.

We've also decided to put a delay on the talk of having a child. We both know we could make it work once we're settled in North Carolina, but we'd much rather get some of this emotional junk we've brought to the table cleared away first. So we've decided to revisit the discussion and decision next January. It will give us a good year to work on things separately and together and get settled into our first duty station a little more comfortably. We'll also have most likely gotten through Ryan's first deployment and figured out how best to approach the issues that will arise from that. We'll also both have a better handle on being done with our college degrees and settled into whatever work we're doing. Not to mention we can save a little more money for some traveling and such that we'd really like to do first. That being the case, we're open for up to 2 or 3 years of waiting, but we've decided to re-evaluate on a yearly basis just in case the baby bug bites us too hard for us to say no before 2012. Heh.

Ryan was open to discuss it more frequently, but I know I'm the weak link and need a solid date for when it's open for a decision again or I'll change my mind twice a day. So there it is. I know some people who will be happy with this decision, but I'd appreciate none of the, "I told you so," comments. I also know some people who might be disappointed as I have been all about this for a while now. But we've made our decision, and it's our decision to make; we stand by it...until next January. Then all bets are off.