Your entire life is about to change—it will be a wonderful change, but still a drastic change.

The day Ron came home was a dream come true after being gone for 11 years. A dream with a lot of challenges, but a dream nonetheless. We had to learn to live together as different people than we had been more than a decade before. Our children were no longer small, they were now teenagers. We took each challenge, one at a time, and found creative ways to make those challenges our strength.

It was not easy, but it was so much easier than learning to live without him had been. We approached his reentry together as a team. I never thought of it as his experience, it was our experience. We were on the same side and committed to making sure we resolved problems, talked about issues, and shared our feelings with each other.

This is a super exciting season as you get to know each other again. My best advice: Do not let the little things destroy what you have built over all of this time. Work it out together and grow stronger every day.

He is coming home!! Congratulations! A whole new chapter is about to begin—write it together.

I am rooting for you!

Cathy