[Anonymous]

my fiance is prgenant for about 6 weeks and im deployed in Afghanistan when i was home on leave we decided to get pregnant and we did. But recently she has been really stressed out and so am I….we are both depressed because im not home and the fact that im not there to help her with her pregnancy is killing me and i know its not helping her. i posted a autism awareness thing on facebook and she asked if i posted it for her son and then i asked. he has autism? her 5 year old son has autism and i never really noticed it becuase to me he doesnt show the signs. she hs told me before that he has been to several schools and has been to lots of therapy and has even been to a place for autism. Since i have been seeing her he has attended a regular school with is sister and has acted like a normal 5 year old boy. she is really angry with me becuase she thinks i forgot that she told me these things but i tried telling her that becuase he was going to a regular school and i never seen any signs of autism that i thought it wasnt that bad if he even had autism at all. she hung up the phone and ddnt want me calling her. well, i did and i left messages explaining this asking her to talk to me. she is really mad that i called her and she is now telling me that im not the man that she thought i was, she said “i hate you” and she said “f you” to me and she says that all the stress im putting on her is not good for the baby. she said im killing my baby. this is hurting me so bad and i dont know how to make this right. yes i will admit that i am a huge idiot for asking in the first place knowing that she has told methis before but with all the stress i go through on a day to day basis being in afghanistan i tend to forget things time to time. she is really mad at me and doesnt want me to put anymore stress on her and she says she doesnt even know why she is even talking to me becuase she cant find words to say she is so upset and stressed. i told her that i would be here to talk to her when she is ready and then she told me that she doesnt know if she will ever be ready to talk to me. i told her that i will always be here waiting. she told me she loved me and then signed off skype. What do i do to make this right without adding stress to her. without getting her more upset and angry with me. she is the love of my life and she is carrying my baby i just want to make this right what do i do?

[April Masini, your AskApril]

Okay, take a breath…. You are BOTH doing immensely important things. You are protecting and representing our country and all the people in it, and she is creating a new life. You both have stress, and a lot of it. And you both react to it differently. She is acting out, and what she is doing and saying is normal under the circumstances.

Her hormones are on high octane, and she is scared and lonely. If it makes you feel any better, she’d probably be railing on you if you weren’t deployed! Pregnant women have a tendency to sometimes be dramatic and express their fear as anger. So it’s nothing you did. Forgetting or not knowing her five year old is autistic was just the trigger for her expression of fear as anger. It could have been not taking out the trash.

Here’s the good news — if she didn’t care about you and if she didn’t love you, she wouldn’t be so angry. She’d be indifferent. I know it may not make you feel great, but the measure of her outburst is actually a measure of her love for you and her fear and loneliness.

My advice is to write her an old fashioned love letter. The beauty of love letters is that you get to be thoughtful and romantic and you get to express your thoughts without interruption or reacting to her overreaction. The other benefit is that she gets to read your letter over and over and sometimes the time lag that letters employ is a good thing. People make tons of “flash mistakes” with skype, video conferencing, and texting because it’s easy to speak and type without thinking. Spend a few days writing to make sure you have your thoughts clear and expressed well in your letter.

Start off by telling her how much you value her and why. Focus on wooing her. Then tell her how lucky you are that she is the woman you’ve chosen to carry your child and that she’s accepted. Tell her how undervalued her job is, and that you understand that creating and nurturing life is so important and how lucky your unborn child is to have her as it’s mother.

Then tell her about your feelings (second). Tell her your frustrations with the distance, but also your loyalty and commitment to your country and to her, too. Tell her your hopes, dreams and plans for the future and what kind of father and step-father you want to be.

Lastly, tell her it breaks your heart when she is upset and that she is in your prayers and heart every minute of every day, just as you hope you are in hers and that you’re counting the minutes until you’re together, a family, and can look in the rearview mirror of your lives and see this stressful time that you will get through, as history.

I hope that helps — please let me know how it goes.

See you @AskAprilcom on Twitter and on Facebook at this link: [url][/url]. 😀

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