My Navy Wife Life: Late Nights and Fights

In my last post I shared with you part one of our crazy Navy adventure, From There to Here.

I left off with a move three hours north for me while Scott was getting serious about finishing school. The first 2 years of our marriage could be summed up with these ten words: late nights, endless essays and studying for the E-6 exam. To say that our time as newlyweds was all gum drops and lollipops would be a crazy bold face lie. We were adjusting to so many things, living together {we had never lived with a significant other}, me moving 3 hours north and looking for a job, and learning what life is like as a married couple.

I moved to Ventura in May of 2009 and Scott was already knee deep in classes to get his bachelor’s degree. Our week day schedule went much like this: Monday –Thursday Scott worked from 7am-5:15pm, class on Mon and Wed nights from 5-10 pm, Tuesday and Thursday nights were for homework and writing papers. He was also waking up at about 430am to study for about an hour for the E6 advancement exam. By the time the weekend rolled around he was exhausted and still had school work to work on. Being that I didn’t have a job I felt like I was there to make him dinner when he got home and sleep next to him at night. He was working his butt off and I was trying to figure out what my next step would be. I was trying to figure out how to be a Navy wife. Growing up in the Navy is super helpful but there was still so much to figure out. There was also the marriage thing we needed to figure out.

In the midst of the madness Scott re-enlisted for another 6 years. When we were given the opportunity to re-enlist we wanted to ensure we had the longest time possible so the idea of 6 years was not hard to swallow. We were unsure of a lot of things but we knew the Navy was where the Lord wanted us to be.

I spent many nights and weekends upset at Scott. I felt like I was the last priority on his 10 mile long list of things to do. This was not a great feeling to have just a few short months into our marriage. He would get frustrated with me because I was getting frustrated with him, talk about a vicious circle. I understood that he was working and going to school but I reminded him he had also got married and I needed to feel like I was important to him.

The thing you need to know about Scott is he is intense, when he decides to do something he is all in and gives 150% ALL of the time. This became a slight issue for me when it was time for him to really buckle down and study for the E6 advancement exam. He had 100s or maybe even 1000s of flash cards made and he always wanted me to quiz him, ALWAYS. In the car, on the couch, before bed, ALWAYS. This isn’t exactly what I would consider quality time. But he was determined to leave this command an E6.

He often times reminded me that going to school full time and working full time was no easy feat. I would then remind him that it wasn’t my fault I went to college straight after high school and he joined the Navy. Like I said before, this was not gum drops and lollipops. We had a lot of growing pains to go through.

I needed to realize and understand that in addition to going to college for himself it was also to allow for greater opportunity for him in the Navy, which would mean a better quality of life for us and our future children. He needed to realize that he needed to pick a Saturday every once in a while and not study so we could spend the day just hanging out with his wife, sleeping in, going to breakfast, walking on the beach all those mushy fun things his wife needed.

These realizations didn’t happen overnight and once the light bulb went off for us it didn’t necessarily mean the light bulb stayed on. We had our good months and our bad months. Fast forward to November of 2010, I think we finally got to a place where we understood what each other needed. Little did we know we would soon have more craziness to add to our schedule. The first half of 2011 Scott would be going to Norfolk, Virginia one week each month. We knew January – March were going to be especially trying as he would be leaving for a week each month, finishing up his last set of classes to graduate, submitting his OCS package and the E6 advancement exam was in March. Looking back on the first few months of 2011 I remember lots of craziness but I also remember the excitement of all the changes.

We survived the first crazy three months of 2011 and now it was time to sit and wait.