Feel Again

"I hate him. I sincerely, undoubtedly hate him." I thought to myself as I stared down at my cellphone in my lap. To think that I once was head over heels in love with the man sitting across the table from me literally causes bile to rise in the back my throat. What happened? We were young and stupid when we decided to get married. Reckless, immature, spontaneous...all of those things described our relationship from the beginning. Now, after nearly 6 years of marriage and even though we're both in our mid-20's, we feel as though we might as well be in our mid-60's. He was in the military for 5 of those years, with deployments coming every few months. I didn't complain about the lifestyle of the military, I knew what I was getting into once I married him, to a degree. What I didn't know would happen was the massive change that took place in him after those deployments. He didn't have a great childhood. A drunk for a dad, his mom passed at a young age...things that no child or human being should have to suffer through. Then, add to the mix repeated deployments to hostile environments overseas, seeing some of your best friends killed right in front of you, and nearly getting killed yourself. Again, things nobody should have to experience. So, he was never one to open up to me and tell me all of his woes. He kept them compressed and built upon them until something flipped the switch, and when the switch flipped, you'd better run for cover because he would take it all out on the one nearest to him...which usually happened to be me.