Marraige Enrichment Seminar

Oh, hey...you're back! That's awesome! In this particular post I will be sharing with you an experience that I had with my husband over the weekend. Don't worry, it's PG so you don't have to send your kids (that can read) out of the room or hide the monitor when they walk by repeatedly asking you for something.

My husband is an officer in the United States Navy and I couldn't be prouder of him, but let's face it we've been married for almost 6 years and we've spent over 18-months of that away from each other. This is where it gets hard to keep marraiges strong in the face of being separated for months at a time.

When we came here to Monterey, they gave a New Spouse Orientation. I couldn't believe it. I've never heard of this before. Then again, it made me nervous. What were they going to talk about? This wasn't a typical indoc as I have been a Navy spouse now for several years. I guess I shouldn't say that it was typical because in many ways it wasn't "typical." During the 2 hours that we spoke with different vendors, offices at NPS, spouses' groups, medical, etc. I was intrigued by something that the Chaplain who was running the show had said in the beginning. Within the first 5 minutes of officially starting this meeting he told us all that he offers a Marraige Enrichment Seminar to couples who want to strengthen their marraiges. He was quick to explain that just because he's the Chaplain didn't mean that this so called Marraige Enrichment Seminar was anything about religion. He said that it was more based on spirituality and getting a better grasp on who your spouse really is.

This is where he had caught my attention. I began to think and realize that after 3 back to back deployments in 3 years that I might not know who my spouse even is anymore. So, I thought about it during the entire indoc. After the last speaker of the night, the Chaplain moved back to the front of the room and proceeded to tell us more about this Marraige Enrichment Seminar. I was definitely interested in finding out more. He told us that we could sign-up at his table at the back of the room as we were heading out for the night. At that moment it was like an avalanche of people racing to the table to sign up for this seminar. I was in pure and utter shock, not because everyone else thought it was a cool idea, but because so many of us felt that we needed it in order to reconnect with our spouses.

On the day that we were to be at the seminar my hubby and I were not seeing eye to eye several issues. He's a great guy, but as we would find out later in the seminar we are about as different as it gets. I'm an extreme extrovert and he's an extreme introvert. Over the course of the day we learned how to better communicate with one another, we learned why our spouses do the things they do and think the way they do. It was simply an AMAZING experience. My husband and I walked out of this seminar hand in hand and with a better understanding of each other.

This time I'll send my Thank You's not only to the Chaplain that lead this seminar, but also to the Navy who made him available to us. What a great experience. I'm thankful for having had this opportunity. So many times we chalk our differences up to being apart so much, but that's not always true. Sometimes we just need to learn how to read each other again. Deployments not only change those that are deployed, but it also changes those back at home. Spouses become more independent and involved, while those deployed see things that we will never hear about much less understand. This and so much more can lead to a bad ending for some. I'm just glad it lead me to my happy ending.

I encourage those of you who are military and military spouses to contact the Chaplain at NPS and see when your next opportunity is to be a part of this great experience. For those of you who are not military, I encourage you to find a couples retreat or take a mini vacation together. Even if it's just for the weekend. Even if it just means that you drop the kids off at Grandma and Grandpa's and you stay home together. I encourage you to make that time for one another. In the words of the late Michael Jackson, "if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change."

Until next time...