Military: Is all this stress the deployment or just incompatibility?

[Hot Tea]

Oh, where do I begin? My boyfriend and I have been dating since October 2002. We met during training and were able to spend about ten months together before being faced with the decision to break it off or try for a long distance relationship. The possibility of deployment for either of us was there but I don't know if either of us really, truly considered knew how hard it would be.

 

So, cut to - late August 2003, my boyfriend deploys. October 2003, I deploy. We are in separate parts of the world but we try to make things work. Unfortunately I don't see the relationship having what it takes to last so I decide to be pro-active and break it off in January 2004. It was hard to do it because I still loved him, but I didn't want to deal with so much of the long distance stress not to mention military related issues.

 

February 2004 - He returns to the States.

June 2004 - I return and within two days fly to Florida from California to visit him for a week. We still don't get back together but it was heaven seeing him and being with him.

 

Then he has to go to school in the D.C. area and invites me along. The course lasts about a month and so we live in a hotel room together for about 3 1/2 weeks. It was good, but the fact that we still hadn't decided to get back with one another started to weigh heavily upon him. I was wary because I knew that he would be deploying again and I didn't know what was in store for me. I decided that I loved him enough to give it another go. We get back together.

 

He deploys again and I move to Chicago and begin living alone. Being away from my family and in a new place was not the ideal happy environment but it was okay. He comes back from deployment after about five months and we are still together, still going good. About twice a month I fly to TN from Chicago or vice versa so we can spend some time together. It is very difficult but still we are together.

 

His unit tells the soldiers they will probably not deploy again for at least another year and a half, after which my bf has only another six months in the Army and he plans on getting out. Everything seems like it is about to fall into place. We make plans for me to move down to TN and we'll live together while he serves out the remainder of his time in the Army. I'm just about to move down there when he gets news he'll be deploying again. By this time it is April 2005. He pretty much falls into a deep depression and I'm in shock. I felt numb more than anything.

 

He is worried that I'm going to end it because he knows that this is not the life I want. I don't end it, even though this will be an eight month long deployment, about the equivalent of the time that we were apart for our first deployments. I decide to move down to TN anyway so that I'll be there able to watch his stuff and we can get a place together when he comes home.

 

May 2005 - He leaves. After he's been gone a few months and things aren't going well I tell him that if he gets deployed again after this I don't know if I have enough strenth to go on. He doesn't take this news well and tells me that I'm threatening him. I try to explain to him that I'm just afraid and I'm letting him know of my concerns. He still thinks that I'm threatening him and that I would leave to punish him even though it isn't his fault. This is where things start to get bad.

 

He starts to call every day, sometimes 2-3 times a day. We get in fights about little things and he's constantly pointing out financial things that he does for me which pisses me off to no end because if you give someone a gift you're not really supposed to comment on it all the time. He lacks those kind of manners.

 

Anyway, we are fighting about all sorts of little things that we've always fought about but these fights are getting bigger and bigger. There is less and less to diffuse them. I can't hug him or go see a movie with him to calm us down. He accuses me of not supporting him enough and making him insecure because if he gets deployed again I'm going to leave him. He says he lives in fear and it's causing him to go crazy. We start to forget what it is like to be with one another. Then comes deployment month six:

 

November 2005 - After a particularly big fight with both of us egging one another on, he ends it. He breaks up with me. I've thought about doing it myself but I know that this might not be an incompatibility issue but more of a deployment issue and I want to see how things work out when he gets home. I still wonder - I'm not happy with him right now, but I don't know if that will change in two months when he comes home.

 

So, in summary, he ended it yesteday. This is the e-mail he wrote after our phone conversation:

 

i didn't hang up on you. i said "i think we should break up" you said "well, ok" and then the phone went dead. i thought about calling you back but then maybe its fate saying "finally". i don't know what to do. as much as i don't want to end things it really seems to be the only way to come out of this with some sanity and hope for the future. i won't call you. that is going to be hard but i really will try. we can write email though but if we start arguing then we have to take a break. although i hate the way you have been, i don't hate you. this isn't a bad break up or an angry one. it is an exhausted one. i am tired. i am not asking anything of you. my stuff is your stuff until i get home unless you choose otherwise. all i ask is that you treat it with respect. I will always love you, atleast a little bit.

 

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This is my reply:

 

Well, you've reduced to me a blubbering mess.

 

I feel like I've lost my best friend, the one person in the world who I've ever felt comfortable enough to be myself around. I don't even know why I'm writing you this e-mail because all you're probably going to think is, "Oh well, too late" but, well - there is no but. I don't know why I'm writing this e-mail. I suppose just to vent my feelings to the one person I always used to vent my feelings too because that is what feels right. I don't want to lose you when it feels like we're entering the last stage of what has plagued us, but I guess I already have.

 

I love you - and not just a little bit.

 

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Then he writes:

 

well then what do you suggest? i mean, i don't want to break up with you either but things with you are getting ridiculous. i can't even be human when i talk to you, i have to act like i am walking on broken glass. i can't slip up and be selfish, i can't take control of anything without seeming rude. i can't take it any more. you need to look around you and see how relationships work. one person drives the train the other person makes sure the train is running well. you and me are fighting for control of the train so much that no one is noticing that the train is falling apart. we can continue to blame everything on distance but that is just turning in to an excuse. i can wait till i get home to see how things work out with you but i do agree that we should make our communication as sparse as possible and we aren't going to share the car. we are worse off than two people who never met and are starting to date. because we are going to have to act like we are just st

arting to date but we already know we can fall apart.

 

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I haven't responded yet. I don't really know what to do. I don't know whether to just deal with the break up and move because I feel as if I barely know him now, or stay and wait and get a place by myself and spend a huge amount of money I wasn't planning on spending on the off chance he still maybe wants to give it another go. He doesn't seem to keen on the idea of staying together in the e-mail. I don't want to be with someone who doesn't want to be with me, but it all boils down to.... - is it us, or is it the deployment?

 

Any insight would be greatly appreciated. Thanks everyone who read this whole long post.