There are times when you will only have yourself.

People won’t always understand the life you live. They won’t understand why some of us chose to marry early, or they’ll say “I’ll never let my boyfriend join the military” (as if it was actually our choice anyway). With this being said, since we know not everyone fully gets our lifestyle, we end up keeping a lot of things to ourselves, so you learn to be your best support system.

Time is EVERYTHING.

Whether it be a 5 minute Facetime call, a weekend trip to visit them at their MOS school or their base, or if it’s a quick overnight stop before they move on to their next duty station... EVERY SECOND COUNTS. You value your text messages that come few and far in between, you screenshot every Snapchat because you never know when the next one will come. I can’t stress enough how precious every second, minute, hour and if you’re lucky, days are. Nothing is guaranteed, so eat up all the time you are blessed with.

You meet some life long friends online.

There are support groups through social media that are full of girls in the same position as you and automatically it becomes a safe place for you. And it’s like you’re screaming “FINALLY” on the inside because you learn that you aren’t alone. Other girls are feeling the same emotions as you, have the same arguments with their SO as you, have to go to proms, formals, graduations without them by their side and it opens your eyes to the fact that you’re not the first and you won’t be the last person to feel as if you’re almost doing life alone. Soon you comment on a girls post about how her boyfriend just left for bootcamp and you’re in Phase 2 so you tell her that it’s okay to message you whenever she needs to talk. Before you know it, you are texting each other everyday, calling each other, helping each other with homework and you just gained a lifelong friend.

Military relationships are NOTHING like the movies or books.

Everyone’s first thought is “Oh my gosh you’re dating a Marine?! Does he have any hot friends? I would love to date a Marine”. Well yes, the uniform does everyone wonders, but it’s not always romantic homecomings along with letters and flowers sent to your door. The good stuff is also mixed with a lot of goodbyes, dangerous situations and heartbreak. I wouldn’t trade my relationship with my Marine for anything and I love and support him more than words could justify, but everyone has those days where you’re selfish and wish they could drop everything and come home to you.

You learn just how strong you really are.

You learn that your life is about having plan, a backup plan, a backup for your backup plan and having NONE of them work out. You learn how to go with the flow and it teaches you there’s nothing that is too much for you to handle when it comes to your relationship. You endure what feels like endless deployments, limited communications and even rules about when you can hold their hand in uniform and you make it out alive. You learn that it takes a lot more to break you than you originally thought and people look at you like you’re made of steel and you almost feel like you are, once all of the hardships are said and done. You learn to be proud of yourself because you know that you have gone through the insane roller coaster ride of dating a military man and you had days where you felt like you were scraping the ground, but here you are, with your arms around the person you love and for that moment in time you feel invincible.

Military relationships are nothing short of empowering, you are strong and your relationship is 100% worth it.