While Mary Schmich's primary piece of living advice is to "wear sunscreen", my main bit of advice for couples heading down the road towards boot camp is to start early in planning on things to do before he leaves. This includes both parties and activities to partake of before he ships out, and also putting together something to keep her company in his absence (specifics forthcoming).
Let me reiterate my main point: Plan Early
If your delayed entry process is more than two or three months this is especially important. Despite knowing since July that my DH would be leaving near the end of the year, I let myself ignore the passing of the days until there were only two weeks left. All my ideas and plans that started with "I'd love to...." went out the window and I had to slash my expectations.
Also, it is inevitable that things will come up at the last minute and the final week before he ships will get jammed up with appointments with people he doesn't see often enough, or family BBQs. These are sometimes events out of your control (especially the family BBQs), so be proactive when you can, such as a get-together with friends.
In our situation, where military service is far outside the norm for my family and moderately outside the norm for DH's, we tried to be as accommodating as possible when other people asked for our time. Despite DH not expressing interest in a going-away party with his friends the first few times I mentioned it, I regret letting it go as easily as I did. Less than two weeks before he was scheduled to leave, DH started calling his friends from school to meet up with them. While it was out of my hands, it still saddened me when those plans fell through.
In summary, start planning early, but remember to block out time for the two of you to spend time alone together.
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Photo credit: Joe Lanman
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