When my sweet soldier came home, it was a natural progression to move from the topic of deployment to the topic of reintegration in this blog. But writing about my own reintegration proved to be more difficult than I thought. Realistically, I have to live with my sweet soldier, and I don't want him to think that I am airing our "laundry."

This morning, the text traffic went like this:

Him: How's it going?

Me: Just finished.

Him: Cool!

Me: Going to pick up lunch and head to the school. Are you going to swim?

Him: No swim

Me: Wanna pick up something and meet at the school?

Him: I still need to shower.

Me: No worries. Sweet Girl's lunch is 12:20 if you want to meet us.

That is where the conversation ended on text but not in my head. In my head I was continuing the conversation ...

Should I have offered to pick up his lunch?

But what if he didn't show up? Then what?

If I push him on it, will he think that I am trying to force him to do something that he doesn't want to do?

Sigh ... There really is medication for this!

Here is the issue for me. It is not a matter of who can I talk to. I can talk to a chaplain or my Military Family Life Consultant, but he or she doesn't know me or my sweet soldier.

I can go to the chaplain's marriage retreat, but they divide up into small groups. What if I am in a group with a general officer? What if I am in a group with a junior enlisted couple in our section who is looking for us to set the example. Do we want either of those couples knowing for sure that the Youngs are "going off the rails on the crazy train"?

For me, I feel that if I go to a therapist, I am just complaining, and that's not right either. I chose my sweet soldier and therefore, I chose this life.

So who do we talk to? Do we burden our friends, our pastors/chaplains, our MFLCs, our commanders' spouse? We trust that the chaplain and the MFLC will not share our inner most thoughts and feelings, but what about friends or command spouses? What if they let our secrets slip. Everyone loves gossip. Everyone would like confirmation that the Youngs are not perfect.

I can't tell you who to trust, but I can tell you that I have someone that I trust. Our husbands don't work together, and not only are we the same age, but our kids are the same ages too. She knows everything about me and loves me anyway and we can share joys and frustrations without fear of being judged.

But what happens if your "dirty laundry" gets out? What then? I say, embrace it! It is okay to not be perfect. While it may be embarrassing, there will be other wives who will look at you and deep down think, 'I'm glad it is not just me.'

Hang in there, Sweet friends. This is the hard part, but we will get through it together!

Strength and Courage ... sby