[amanda6035]

I'm cynacle when it comes to men and the military, I guess it comes from being active duty and seeing it first hand. Commitments are good, the townhouse thing sounds like a step in the right direction...but even still. Deployments blow, and you gotta be able to trust your man, and I can tell ya, that's hard. Not necessarily because you feel you cant trust him, but because deployments are long, and time away from home is hard, and the light at the end of the tunnel never seems to close in, etc etc. I only endured one deployment from the "significant other" side of things, and it was by far the hardest, most difficult thing I had EVER been through in my life. I got weekly phone calls that always got cut off because of the satellite, email would be down for days or weeks on end, and mail was slow. Thank god for technology, because before the days of email, I dont know if I could have been one of those perfect little girlfriends waiting patiently at home.

Here'c the cynacle part of it - you mentioned that deployment may be a test for you....in my eyes, thats unfair. Because to me, that says he can go tromping around overseas, doing whatever the hell he wants, and could ultimately decide, "Nah, she's not for me" and then, you've just wasted 6 months, a year, whatever - waiting patiently on him to come home, only to find out he's a bastard who's going to say goodbye. I dont blame you for wanting to be engaged first either - thats what I told my then-boyfriend, when we started having "the talk." It was summer 2005, he was leaving in May 2006 for deployment. I told him I honestly didnt think I could be "just a girlfriend" while he was on deployment. I told him I wasnt going to waste my time for something that wasnt a sure thing. Sure, engagements can break up too, but I guess I'm just one of those people that feel like if you're engaged, you're going to work a little bit harder at keeping things together, rather than just saying "screw you, I want to break up."