Thursday, November 10, 2005

Right Here Waiting

Sorry that posting has been so sporadic this week. I am still getting over being sick. I am however feeling markedly better, so posting should be back up almost to normal. This week, Seven Inches of Service will resume over at Miss Joan's place. All of the posts are up over there, so go read each and every one!!!
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This week's topic is loyalty and faithfulness; an issue pretty close to my heart. Clark and I were only a few weeks into our relationship when he went overseas. Most people thought I was crazy to think that I could really have a long distance relationship with a man I had only known for a few weeks; but I was certain. I knew deep down that not only was I completely in love with Clark, but that I would wait as long as I had to for us to be together.

It feels a bit strange to me that I am even writing this post. It would seem to me that in any relationship, it would be obvious that cheating is verboten. However, I've been around the military enough to know that cheating all too frequently portrayed as inevitable.

I have a difficult time with that idea. The thought of cheating on Clark never occurred to me. Was it difficult to be without him for eleven months? Hell yeah it was!! But he was the one I wanted, so why even consider looking elsewhere?

All the Army girlfriends and wives I surrounded myself with felt the same way. I did know of girls who were screwing around, but they were a minority by far. Most of us were (and still are) fiercely loyal and completely faithful.

Not to say that temptation doesn't exist. I really do thing that guys have this homing beacon that they sense when a girl has a deployed boyfriend. When Clark deployed, it was as if guys just came out of the woodwork. It's as though deployments can turn otherwise nice civilian guys into creeps who are convinced that army girlfriends want nothing more than to leave their soldiers for them.

For me, the extra attention was the last thing I wanted. I wanted Clark, plain and simple...nothing and no one else. One guy told me he could make me really happy. My response: "Great, so you're going to go get my boyfriend from the Sandbox? Because he's the only one who's going to make me that happy right now."

I've been cheated on before and it's not in me to be that girl. I could never cause Clark that kind of pain. No matter how bad things ever got, cheating was never even a consideration. So, while Clark had a lot of things to worry about while he was deployed, my faithfulness and our relationship weren't on that list.