"The Club"

Why is it that Army (or Navy, or whatever) wives are so uppity about girlfriends? Why is there this club that they think that are better than us because they have more rings than I do?

Granted, I have not walked down the aisle- but there are some very specific, very good reasons for that. My man doesn't want me to screw up school just to be closer to him (which is a wish that is very hard to comply with sometimes!), and my school and his job just never seem to be in the same place at the same time. At this point, we don't see a need to say "I do" and then get on separate planes and fly to separate parts of the country for months at a time so that his career can proceed and I can get my MA in something I feel is worthwhile. He told me the other day, "Babe, you're getting As on graduate level papers- I'm not your first priority right now, and that's okay." I don't honestly know if that is true, I mean yes - I did choose to go to school on an Island, but I also chose to be with the man that will always treat me the way I deserve to be treated, and I do everything in hopes of one day having a life together that is not only together, but mutually fulfilling. If I am miserable because I can't get a job that is decent because I didn't finish school, what kind of a relationship would we have? Same thing with him, if I had stayed, and not come here, I would not have wanted him to give up where he is right now in order to be around me a little more- that just doesn't make sense to me.

So I go through the deployments, and there are many for Ranger-Men... and I do everything that they do, only I don't actually get to say goodbye right before he gets on the plane. I have to do it over the phone. I don't get the support of an FRG, and I do it with the knowledge that I might hear about it on the news first if something bad happens to him. I do it without Health Insurance, and he does it without BAH. I don't think it matters as much to him- being married or single is just a box to check for him, but for me it is so much different. It is being ostracized, and looked down upon by people that were once in my very same position. If that's the way you have to act to be in "the club," I don't know that I want it.