Phyllis, it was a amazing couple of days. Like you, I'll never forget it. I only shared a few of the hundreds, I'm sure, of the pics we took. This is all new to us as he made this choice last minute. What I know now is he will be at Pendleton for the next 3 months for training and then assigined to a base for additional training for six months from what he has told us. A year more or less??? Grace, welcome to the forum! I've been very busy and haven't had much time here. Man, four boys...you have your hands full. Ellen, not sure you know what your asking for....these guys eat like there is no tomorrow...lol! Terri, MOS...from what he told me it is Military Occupational Specialty. He went for supply and demand to take advantage of his accountting. He did very well in H.S. and was in college courses his final year. Also, won a couple of scholarships in a national compition with his team. As it stands now he changed his mind and decided he wanted to go into infantry. He made this change with several others once they arrived in SD. Not sure why he did this...he just said it was what he wanted and felt he needed to do??? Claims he can make a lat change in a couple of years??? DS and I are meeting with his recruiter on Friday to get more info. Reguardless, I will stand behind him and support him and his decisions even though I might not be happy with them. I'm thinking it has something to do with older friends in the army who are now serving????. Pickle Lady, you are one of many who's names are the norm in my group. It may be your proper name or forum name....the members of this forum have become a part of my groups everyday lives....your ears should be burning. : ) Thanks again for all of your posts, support, and general good will.....my group and I love all y'all!! David

Sue, Your response reminded me more of myself! I was constantly at odds with my parents - they thought I spent way too much time in front of the mirror working on my hair and only wanted to be with my friends. (Hey this was 1979, remember Farrah hair). I'll never forget the day they took me to college. My younger brother had a peewee football game and we couldn't leave until it was over. I was so pissed because I wasn't going to get there till very late afternoon - well after everyone else had moved into the dorm and I was furious that my parents just couldn't see how important this was to me - who cares about DB's football game? Geez! By the time we got there and they unpacked me, we weren't even speaking. It didn't help that all my roommates were sitting around smoking cigarettes and I hadn't told my parents I had signed up for the smoking dorm. I thought I would be insured of rooming with some cool girls if they smoked!! (remember this was 1979, and yes, they were right in my mind it was all about me, but my roomies were very cool and we had lots of fun :-) Long story short, our relationship improved dramatically with a little distance and me having a little more control over my life. So, look upon your kids' attitudes as their excitement of getting out on their own, not that they don't love or appreciate you. My senior is really looking forward to going off to college, and quite honestly, while I'll miss him, I'm looking forward to it too! My laundry, mess, crap laying around etc. went down dramatically with the exit of DS1, I'm almost giddy at only having to cleanup after one remaining DS once DS2 goes off to school. Of course, I have to admit, my kids don't go far to school - they live on campus but it's at Ohio State which is in Columbus - 5 miles from where we live. So while they're out of my hair, they still stop by or come home frequently. So I guess that's why I'm not too sad to have one gone and one out the door - they're just across town! :-)

Popi, I think you missed the point in a big way. Scarlett didn't say her gran lived without affection, he just didn't talk about it. A lot of men are uncomfortable talking about it. If your partner SHOWS you affection, is considerate and makes you happy, do the words matter? I'm not talking about 'comfortable housemates' here, but real love and understanding, without words. I know a lot of people want/need to hear it, unfortunately a lot of women, through what, insecurity, hard-wiring/genetics whatever will paint a man into a corner wanting to hear what he may feel but is uncomfortable saying. That can cause some people to react negatively, when cornered. Some people just don't like to verbalise. It is learned behaviour to some extent and if it extends to other things (communication is, after all, important) then it's an issue, but don't expect everyone to respond in exactly the way you want them to. They are not clones of you, but individuals. Don't try to remake them in your image. Trust your gut feelings. Do they make you happy? Are they demonstrative? Considerate? Loving in deeds? Then maybe the words are not always so important. On the other hand if one of you is feeling uncomfortable or unhappy or unloved, then it's a problem for both of you. My second wife and I express our love for each other pretty much every day, and mean it, and demonstrate it in gestures also. We are tactile and don't just touch/get physical when we're going to have sex. That I think is kind of key, if that's the only time there's a hug, then it's a problem. My ex was a lot like that, when I gave her a hug most of the time her arms were folded. When I was leaving her my eldest daughter and I had a long talk, and I asked her if she'd ever seen her mother and I do the things together other mums and dads do, holding hands etc, and she thought about it and answered no, she hadn't. A big light bulb moment for her and a huge help in her accepting her stepmother. It took a few false starts but even early on, she told her that she was ok because she could see that she made me happy. That meant a lot to all of us, and now they get along very well. At times I think daughter can see the night and day difference, and at times I think wishes her mother was more like her stepmother, not to be nasty but she has deep emotional issues that she will never address. I thoroughly recommend therapy, individually and as couples, to pretty much everyone. I think there would be very few people who wouldn't benefit.

I am not my husband but I can tell you why he would not consider the sex and times I offered> He felt that i was using sex as a blackmail to get him to wait on things he did not want to wait for in the community. He said we were trying to Ransom his life and he was not paying the ransom when The sex did happen it was in no way the way i wanted in 2013> He had just come home from three years of rehab after MRSA in his spine and its complications. Had been in a stress center for two weeks. because of an incident that happened in the Rebab in 2012 when his father told him he again thought he was going to have his way when what he was really going to do was shut his face and just accept what was decided for him and that did not include a vacation ever, He flattened his father with a stainless steel bed pan to his face and he threw a full urinal at me telling me i had nothing ever to say about holidays and vacations. HE was done and would kill the first person that got in the way of his rights when he was out of rehab. When He got out of the stress center it was on the worst possible evening, I was getting ready to go to an Awards dinner as a promise to his mother, father, and his fathers best friend. I started out of my room and ran right into his chest and His first comment home was good i was ready to go out, He had not been out in 31 years. Where were we going!. He Knew full well we did not expect him home that day. I broke down Crying telling him I had promised that evening six months before and I could not add him to the table at that late hour. He just said well it looked like His parents and his fathers friend may as well get used to broken promises just as he had the last 31 year. Back off this or that and i promised him we would have the sex life and vacation as well as the holidays he earned and wanted and then when i came time to keep my promise where did he end up again. Filling for someone else taking his time and I would make the same stupid promise again expecting him to fall for it. He said Now the Bill was due and I was keeping 31 years of promises to him before I even thought was keeping any to any one else.. I was trying to hand him a 100 and get him to meet us anywhere he choose after the event. I just wanted a Civil discourse why things had happened as they had> He was not going to permit it and ripped my outfit to shreds and had his way about sex. Then he went after his fathers friend when he arrived and called my husband a crip and told him to get out of his way he was entering our home< He Through the man over the rail on our deck landing him face first in the Drive right in front of his fathers car. We think he was intending the man land in his mother and fathers lap. Over the years for everytime he w3as interfered with from @001 to 2009 he made sure somebody hurt over it even if he had to ambush some body. I Never understood why when his father and others used weapons to force him to work the holidays, Or when His father put his passport in his safe deposit to make him stay and work vacations Why he could not just Do as was requested and Take the times offered in exchange Instead of wait until the incident was finished and he worked then he would show up with a machinist sledge and break parts of people for daring to hold a weapon on him. I saw what he did to one man who thought drawing a pistol when he appeared at his home was going to stop his pain, My husband shattered the right hand, his arm up to the shoulder bad enough he lost his arm, all because he had wanted a holiday off and they forced him in at shotgun point. IN 2014 On Memorial day his father offered him 200 to stay away until we called him home. Before the end of the day he's taking a reservation my name was on away from another friend and telling his father he did not care if he was invited where I was invited he was to His father slapped him and called him stupid, His father flew over the kitchen island with the full force of a full fisted backhand breaking his jaw. He Had To be stopped from making the doorman at the club from getting his face ground into the pavement after pushing him to a public sidewalk and into the street. On the fourth of July that year they used Ketamine in a drink he had and Dumped him 30 miles out of Tow intending tio go back and get him later, HE Did Nor wait to embarrass everyone sending state police in To Search for the drug after they pumped his stomach. Two Friends were arrested in front of their families wives and children. They called it a joke, The police called it abduction with intent to do bodily harm and not a joke dumping a man in the middle of a county road and leaving him there drugged not with his consent. If My husband would have just talked to us then those men would be home with their kids instead of paying in prison for a joke. IN 2015 We were going on a cruise to Cancun My Husband Did Not care he was again not invited withy his rule if i was then he was.. It Made his father so angry he intended to use a ball bat to send him back home and stop hi9s defiance. His Father was hit so hard with an Upper cut before he took his swing it broke his neck. Latter in 2015I was offering the First Christmas dinner as a married man in 33 years, at home, To keep tensions down I gave him his plate and told him to go out to the barn and eat out there and if he wanted more I would get it at the back door He hit me in the face with the full plate yelling at me he was not some dam hand to e given charity. It Was his table , the food he had supplied and he was not eating in the cold barn.. He made everyone leave under the barrel of a 30 30 and I just stood and cried thinking why did it always have to be so hard to gain just a little cooperation. IF just one year we could have gone without defiance about sex, his work, and time out of the plant I think something that he wanted could have been worked out. I know after we ran into the problems within two years of his return home about vacation time, We had come back from ROME with a plan to Find A vacation starting after the New Year in 1988. I was thinking a nice beach and hotel for the same two weeks off in time it was just six months away. He Wanted me to keep the two promises i had made the last two years About sex And The mos5rt recent was any time, any where and any way he wanted, I Would Be both a Willing sex partner and travel companion if he stayed behind for that girl and her lazy fiancé to marry in ROME. I was not expecting him to want to drop everyone else at his fathers house and want to point the nose of the Van to Wyoming and His Grandfathers where he was from 1239 miles to the west. He had been hounded to go out there with me to introduce me. I just did not want a three week road trip after traveling all night from Rome, Every suggestion we mad for six months away was shot down. He Said did we realize he had not even seen the3 sun in seven years, What would he look like on a beach, probably a lobster. He got in the sun the first time In 2014 and he burned within five minutes so bad he blistered. I had no idea years ago when he left the Boats that sun was now a allergy for him.