relationships

Relationships, if they are good ones, make us happy. Some of us might want to be stodgy old bugbears and not admit that we want a relationship of sorts, whether with friends or a spouse/partner, or so on. But we do. Relationships make us happier and, being with people who know us, allows us a fuller means of expressing ourselves and testing our strengths.

Relationships, for the veteran and partner, can be a bit tricky. Chances are there are some changes after a deployment, uncertainty, miscommunication, fear, and a changing of identities. I've heard an equal mixture of interest and scoffing at an announced weekend retreat for soldiers and their wives to 'learn marriage skills'. Besides, there isn't a lot of language offered to us in dealing with relationships, emotions, and how to tie it all together without coming across as a granola eating, hippy, touchy feely kinda guy. Add to this our normal inclination to shy away from the murky waters of our emotional landscape (where the lanscape is a minefield) because men don't talk about feelings.

At a later date I want to put chapter 14 on this blog in its entirety. Not now, because I wish to sleep and I need permission to do so. But it uses an ingenious example of our relationship with our rifle. Below is a video of the Marine Rifleman's Creed. Every marine knows this, but every one who's served knows their weapon they were trained on. We must know a rifle's strengths and weaknesses as well as our own body's strengths and weaknesses in relation to the weapon. We must care for it. We must train with it. We must not try to make it something it isn't but see it for what it is. When it is dirty and muddy and we are tired and beat and want to sleep, we must put in the work and clean it and maintain it. For if the rifle goes down, we go down

Learn to see your partner for who that person is. If your perception has changed, adjust your 'dope' (your sight alignment/picture adjustments on the rifle). Put in the work to patch things up. I'll put the chapter up at a later time, it is really good. But if you cannot wait, you can order the book (it is worth it) here.

The Marine Rifleman's Creed

This is my rifle... there are many like it but this one is mine...