A Risk That Paid Off Essay

One of the biggest risks that paid off was my husband and I agreeing for him to join the Marine Corps. It required us to up and move our family from Utah to California with no friends or family around for support in times of hardship, which tends to come a lot with being a military family. I had to learn to take control of everything from paying the bills to taking care of the house and vehicles because of his training, field ops, and deployments which required him to be gone for weeks or months at a time. When he deploys I have to raise the kids on my own which is a challenge in itself. It creates chaos for the kids emotionally and they begin to act out at home and at school. They lose respect for both of us when he is gone. Having family time and alone time with each other becomes very limited because of his work schedule. We never know when our family time will be or even if there will be family time. With that being said you can only imagine how hard it is to get alone time together. I believe this all has and continues to pay off because I have created a whole new family within the Corps, I have made new friends that can never be replaced and only they can truly understand the struggles I go through better than any of my friends and family from home ever could. I have learned to be more self-reliant maintaining our household on my own. As far as our marriage it continues to get stronger with communication and we cherish each and every moment more than we ever have before as a family and as a couple.