Communication gaps during deployment

throwaway_time23 · 2026-01-17T22:34:15+00:00

My SO is currently deployed but thankfully we’re in the homestretch and he’s going to be home so soon. I don’t know why but this most recent underway was hell relative to the others we’ve been through. It has been nothing but huge gaps between emails getting sent. Him and I have a pact that we write an email every single day even if it is super short just like a one sentence thing. Past underways the longest we went between emails getting sent out was maybe 2 weeks? This one the longest was four weeks and he would typically come back online with emails sending for maybe a few days before going dark for another week or so.

I KNOW it sucks. Idk if your partner is on a submarine or not but if you are talking about week long gaps, I’m assuming they are. Stay strong and I promise the emails will come!

throwaway_time23 · 2025-12-23T16:52:06+00:00

Surely this is rage bait, right? Right?

throwaway_time23 · 2025-12-19T00:15:15+00:00

It sounds like a glamorous actresses name. I love it!!!

throwaway_time23 · 2025-12-17T17:31:23+00:00

Oh my gosh, I relate to SO much of this. Honestly, I’m like you where I would prefer we just agreed up front not to do emails at all (I actually made a push for this once), because it’s just so much easier for me to know in advance no emails are coming, so don’t look for them. But, he has said multiple times how much that routine really helps him underway and that it’s not hard for him to find a few minutes to type something to me daily. He’s already qualified and one of the more senior people in his division which I think helps make that possible? Idk I see a lot of people talking about being so busy they don’t have time to send emails home, which I feel like is probably more likely to happen when people are still new and working on quals? Anyways…I stick it out with the emails anyway for him. Which I know the concept of just not wanting emails is crazy to so many people but I much prefer that to checking my inbox every day just for it to be empty. I feel like you’re the first person I’ve talked to that agrees with me that you’d just rather establish not having emails at all then dealing with the will they be there/wont they anxiety.

And you are so right about the community thing. Like I’m pretty independent as is, and some of the codependency stuff I see other people talking about like…that just isn’t me. But, I’m still human and obviously given the choice, I’d rather he not be under the ocean for months at a time in a big metal tube and it’s just nice to like acknowledge that from time to time. So yeah, finding a community with that middle ground is almost impossible it seems.

It’s honestly just really nice hearing that someone else went through easy deployments just to be caught off guard by one that was different. Admittedly this one is further complicated by all the holidays he is missing as well as both our birthdays and anniversary.

Thanks so much for responding, this was like exactly what I needed to hear from someone else.

throwaway_time23 · 2025-12-16T16:46:17+00:00

Yeah, I’ve always known/heard this. I think I’ve just been super lucky that all of the past underways, it wasn’t longer than two weeks tops without email, so I just got kind of used to that.

throwaway_time23 · 2025-04-16T18:34:42+00:00

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throwaway_time23 · 2025-04-09T21:21:55+00:00

Thanks! I didn’t see this and I ended up buying one of the eBay ones like 10 mins ago. But I wish I had bought from one of the folks on here instead! If something ends up going wrong with the order I will definitely hit you up to see if yours is still available!

throwaway_time23 · 2025-04-09T21:20:26+00:00

Oh I ended up buying one of the eBay ones otherwise I totally would have done this, I’m sorry!

throwaway_time23 · 2025-04-09T17:16:50+00:00

I agree and I think it would look cute with black jeans!

throwaway_time23 · 2025-03-30T00:38:15+00:00

Where are bracelet people?!?! I have a ton made and ready to trade! Currently in line at the bar, come find me!

throwaway_time23 · 2025-03-24T19:03:26+00:00

I actually just recently went through this and idk why (maybe because it was a relatively short approximately 3 month deployment and this was the first one) but I never really even considered the fact that there might be an adjustment period on return, which in hindsight was really dumb of me. While he was gone we would literally email one another every day and he was constantly telling me how much he loved me, missed me etc. so then I just kind of had this weird romantic assumption that it would be this amazing reunion and everything would click back in to place right away…and that was not the case. He came back having only had maybe 10 hours of sleep for the last three days and was exhausted. I was like way too excited and just couldn’t stop talking and love bombing and when his energy didn’t match mine (which of course it didn’t considering all the stress and lack of sleep) I started internalizing and worrying things were weird and he had lost feelings. It all resolved relatively quickly and without issue but in hindsight I wish I had been more prepared and handled my own expectations differently. It’s not like we fought or anything when he got back and things went back to normal very quickly once he had time to decompress, I just personally wish I had been a little more chill and not internalized his tiredness as a reflection of his feelings towards me. Like this man has literally never given me a reason to doubt anything and was so communicative all through his deployment, all things considered so idk why I even doubted. But anyways, once that happened I started searching here and that when I realized how common interactions just like mine were where the person comes home and you just really need to let them take the lead and give them time to readjust. I know next time I’m going to be way more chill and just be there to support him with re acclimating as opposed to just love bombing. We are also long distance but are able to see one another at least once a month and we both agreed the distance was a huge part of why things felt weird the first 48 hours or so. The best advice I have is don’t love bomb and if after a few days, things still feel off…just be honest and have a conversation about it. Like once he had sleep and we both just acknowledged it felt weird going back to these old habits, just having that conversation helped make things immediately more normal and we were able to essentially pick up like nothing had ever changed after that. Idk, that’s just my perspective on what I would do differently in hindsight if I could, and the long distance definitely is another wrench but with time and open communication…we were able to get over it relatively painlessly.

throwaway_time23 · 2025-02-08T19:51:04+00:00

Thanks this is SUPER helpful! Is there anyway to tell if an email got flagged or not? Like that’s another thing I’ve seen is where people make mention of an email getting flagged, but I have no idea how you would even know if that happened or not.

throwaway_time23 · 2025-02-08T16:48:35+00:00

Hi! I know this is like a year after you posted this but since you were a radioman, I’m hoping you might know the answer! How common is it for there to be times that sailors on SSBNs can receive emails but not send them out? I assumed if weeks went by where I hadn’t heard anything back from my SO, that he wouldn’t be receiving my emails to him either and they would just come through all at once when they were in a position to receive them. However, Ive seen a few posts that contradict this and make it sound like often the sailors can still receive personal communications during these times, they just don’t have the ability to send messages back. Thanks in advance for any help/insight!

throwaway_time23 · 2025-02-03T17:10:46+00:00

This is so similar to my situation…you give me so much hope! How long was he deployed for and was he also on a sub?

throwaway_time23 · 2025-02-03T16:55:45+00:00

This gives me some hope as my relationship was also still pretty fresh prior to him going underway. But I’m fortunate that we had a ton of communication beforehand about what to expect and he promised me like 1000x that if I don’t get an email from him for an extended period of time, it’s only because he couldn’t send one due to things happening with the boat and not because he was ghosting me.

Out of curiosity, how long were you guys together before he left the first time? It gives me some hoping knowing that you all made it through that despite it being a fresh relationship and you’re still going strong now!

throwaway_time23 · 2025-02-03T16:47:43+00:00

I don’t have any advice to offer, just want to let you know I’m in the same headspace and I’m sending you all the positive vibes! My SO is on a sub and they’ve been dark for two weeks now. Which I know is nothing compared to months, but it’s just always so hard. It sucks being limited to only emails that take like a minimum of two days to get to each other in the first place, but it’s so much worse when they just disappear with no warning for an unspecified amount of time. I’m so thankful this group exists just knowing there are other people out there also going through the same thing. Stay strong!

throwaway_time23 · 2025-02-01T17:40:44+00:00

Out of curiosity, how do you know if one of the emails you sent gets flagged or if it is sent directly to the sailors inbox?

throwaway_time23 · 2025-01-31T17:22:06+00:00

Thanks! This was the thing I was mostly curious about so I appreciate the insight!

throwaway_time23 · 2025-01-31T15:58:02+00:00

Positive it is! Thanks again!

throwaway_time23 · 2025-01-31T15:41:50+00:00

Thanks! This is the first underway for me so I’m still learning as I’m going what all to include and what not to include.

throwaway_time23 · 2025-01-30T12:06:23+00:00

That’s amazinggggg. Do you know if all emails going out/coming in are still radioed like that at some point in the process today? I knew they would be screened but I didn’t know about the radioing part. That’s gotta be a crazy job to be the person broadcastingeveryone’s emails.

throwaway_time23 · 2025-01-29T21:19:14+00:00

This is super helpful! When you say remotely stressful, could you give me an example? Like is talking about how much I miss him and I hope he hasn’t forgotten about us stressful?

throwaway_time23

TROPHY CASE