Deployment Correspondence/or lack thereof 101
OK Ladies. School as begun. I am going to give you some "Echo Education" re: surviving the responses / or lack thereof, you receive from your guys while they are deployed.
#1: Emotional Detachment: A survival skill and necessity, not just an attitude.
There are going to be many many many times when your loved one seems like he's being distant with you, as if he has closed off emotionally. This is not only normal, but necessary. There are many times when these guys are going non stop and running on empty. To survive they must go into "robot/zombie" mode. They have to detach emotionally, making emotional super fast decisions while they are on a mission could be deadly. This is not a YOU thing. This does not mean he doesn't still care about you. This means its difficult to switch gears between being emotionally vested and being emotionally detached, i.e. safe.
#2: There are these long silences, like we can't talk anymore:
You may not know this, but your guy may be living off of 3 hours of sleep a day, going non stop, and may be absolutely depleted by the time he gets to talk to you. This does not mean he no longer has any interest in you. He is exhausted, he is thinking about the next phase of the mission he needs to be prepared for, he is coping with what he's just experienced on the mission he was just on, he is coping with stories he's heard of other missions that have not gone well. He is overwhelmed and over loaded.
#3: He doesn't write me mushy emails or say mushy things like he used to:
*see number one* He is in "hyper guy mode", he is not in a happy, emotional, soft fuzzy place right now. Again, this is not a YOU thing, it is the environment in which he lives daily right now.
#4: I write him tons of wonderful letters and I got a 2 line, short response:
*see number one and two* In addition to #1 and #2, your guy may have gone without any decent sleep for days/weeks, etc. His thought is "let her know I'm still here". You may at times receive very short, cool, businesslike responses from him. This again is not a YOU thing. He is exhausted, he probably wrote that short response to you about 90 seconds before he passed out from sheer exhaustion. He may very well have absolutely gone out of his way to send you that short, business like, non mushy two line email. That in and of itself says "I'm thinking about you, I care about you , I miss you, you are important to me".
#5: I sent him 50 emails and I only got 1 email from him:
If they are in survival mode, robot mode and zombie mode, they are thinking "touch base with her ASAP", not thinking "what sweet thing can I say so she knows I care and she's important". That one email may have taken the equivelant amount of effort on his part that your 50 emails took on your part. Guys aren't like girls, they don't think "I need to send a response to every email I just got so they know I care". Guys think "ok, I've read them all, let me respond to this last one"
#6: Your emails and letters and packages mean the WORLD to him:
Though you may get your feelings hurt because he doesn't go on and on and on about how wonderful it is to receive your emails, know this: Your emails are keeping him going. When they come back exhausted, dirty, feeling like they can't go on another day, and they see 50 million emails in their mailbox, trust me....they appreciate it. They need them. Unless your guy has told you other wise, keep sending them. Don't send them because you expect accolades and praise, or a big parade for you because you sent him a bunch of emails. Send them knowing that you may only get 1 email in response, but that those emails you sent to him made the difference between feeling depressed or hopeless, and feeling like he could make it another day. Those emails let him know he is not forgotten, even though he may very well feel absolutely alone and forgotten while he is living in the bowels of hell right now.
Class dismissed
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Written by: Echo