A friend in North Carolina introduced me to “standing for your marriage” as a concept and movement. I had always known there were those who refused to give up on their dying or dead marriage—but I had never heard it called “standing”. Since then I have paid close attention to articles, books, websites, testimonies, and seminars about standing. I know in the military community the stresses on a marriage can cause either the husband or wife—sometimes both—to say, “Enough! I’m done!”

Disagreements are a natural part of marriage. We should always try to resolve them gently and quickly, but it is also very human of us to let things go on for longer than they should. And if we leave it too long, the strong desire to blame the other person for all our problems can become a habit–and then a constant part of our relationship. This entrenched and hostile blaming is bitterness.

In just about every artistic rendering of a soldier’s homecoming, be it a song, a movie or a television commercial, we are left with an emotional high that tells us all is well again. But if military wives assume their reunion with their husbands is a fairytale ending to their separation, disappointment is almost sure to set in. “I have seen way too many military wives build up a fantasy in their minds about what life will be like once their husbands are home—and then be destroyed when this fantasy was not a reality,” says National Guard wife

Growing up the daughter of a submariner, I was always fascinated by the raw beauty and power of the sea. Its proximity was partly to blame; until I went off to college, I had never lived in a land-locked place. The other reality that inspired my awe, however, was that the ocean was my father’s livelihood. Even as he knew how to navigate and operate within it, he lived constantly at its mercy.