Alright, so as everyone knows, I’m getting married. At least that is what it appears to be, and this is the plan, so its a good thing for me, and while being a service member of the United States, marrying a foreigner, they require that you take certian steps, and follow some rules and guidelines. So much that they created a little Order ( MCO 1752.1B ) on it. Well, so now I am in the path to getting married and making sure its all legit in the all mighty goverment’s eyes and in doing so, I had to go to this Marriage Seminar and let me tell you, it really opens your eyes and gives you great tools and tips on how to deal with problems that will arise once your married.

I want to go ahead and talk about on thing that did get my attention because its also been an issue in my current relationship and I want to know feedback from what few readers I do have. So let me explain what the issue is. Old flames. You know, previous partners, or someone who you once had feelings for, whether you got somewhere with them or not. Do you think it is right that your partner keeps his/her old flames around as social friends? Now, alot of discussion can come into play, like, they are business partners, and…the “well, I’m going out with them with a group” and “you can come too if you want, unless you feel uncorfortable” and so on. Hiromi and I had this discussion before and it really hasn’t dawned on me how much damage or rather, how much emotion this can cause. Here is my take on the situation, now, after the class and learning the ins and outs of marriage life. This is also after I’ve taken a long hard look at what I am getting myself into.

Well, I love Hiromi. I can’t lie. She is the first real, real girlfriend I’ve ever had too. I’ve had friends that turned to something else, and girls that I’ve liked, and sometimes loved, but with her, I know everything is right and everything is fair. No easy ways in, no scape goats, no nothing. Its just straight love. So now I have this girl that I am crazy about and she is crazy about me. We’ve been together for almost 2 years now and in this time, we’ve build alot of trust. I mean, when you get serious with someone, and then are told to do a 9 month deployment and leave them behind, you have to learn to trust them and vise versa. We worked through our tough times and I am happy to say it went well, the Iraq deployment didn’t severely affect the predicted outcome of our relationship. Anyway, that was side info, but really, we have good trust in our relationship and that is the key point; we are working on the big foundations now, so we have it better in the future.

So, lets to to the real juicy stuff. I still talk to my old flames. Not really all of them, but a few. And the stuff we talk about, really isn’t meant to be private, but it is SEEN that way by my partner. I never understood why it was that after she finds out that I’m talking to an old flame over the net, that once she knows who it is and what our past relationship was like, she gets upset, even when I offer to let her see what we were talking about. I don’t hide anything from Hiromi and I don’t plan to, so showing her our log was me basicly saying, “hey look, this is what we talked about, see, nothing bad” but she didn’t even want to see that. It wasn’t until I finally figured out something. Doubt. The seed of doubt is a terrible little seed. See, this is part of an anology…

“In the beginning of marriage, you have seeds. You plant them, and they grow to shrubs, good and bad ones. These shurbs, grow with time and become trees. They drop their seed pods and more trees spawn from that one. Soon, you have a orchid and then soon you have a forest. You don’t want to plant bad seeds in the beginning because they will cause more problems down the road. Instead, have a forest of healthy, good trees and your marriage will never burn down.”

So, back to the doubt thing. What I learned is that, even though I ain’t talking about anything bad, there is still doubt. Doubt is something I don’t want to have in my marriage. I want to be doubt-free. By her having doubt, that means something to me, and it means ALOT now. I want to make it so that she doesn’t have any doubt about me, that she can totally be satisfied with what I do, or what I am going to do. I’ve been told this is going to be a hard task, but I am prepared to change my ways for it. In the long run, its going to help us both.

So, it comes down to two different things, trust and doubt. She trust me, but doubt is something different. Doubt is not something you give to someone else, its something that is inside of you. For example, I trust her going to a dance with her friends as a group with and old flame she had from high school, but I am doubting or having ideas about it because its a close dance in a very subductive club. This isn’t a real example, but is kind of shady in making my point.

Well, that is the best I can do for right now about the subject matter, but give me your two cents, or at least, one cent. Its been a late night, I haven’t been able to see my Hiromi because of “Marine” issues, and I am tired because I just RE-cleaned my room. Ugh, and now I have to wake up to a Saturday where I am stuck on base and my Hiromi has one of her few days off. So she is alone that day, when I should be with her…lame. But, soon….soon, ( March 2007 ) I will be with her FOREVER!