I didn't do it to be dishonest or trick him. Before we were married an incident happened that is still a thorn in my side 24 years later. He was living on a base 8 hours away, we were getting married in December and he was only going to be able to get one weekend off the month of November. He asked if I minded if he spent that weekend at deer camp. I told him I didn't mind, I did add that if he'd rather spend that weekend with his father, uncles and cousins than with me that was fine (should have been a clue there). I was SURE that he could tell that I did mind. My body language and tone of voice should have screamed it. As the weekend approached I as SURE that he was going to surprise me and come see me. When he didn't I made a compromise (in my mind that I didn't verbalize to him) that he'd hunt during the day and come see me at night; you can't hunt at night! He called me that Saturday night from a store/bar that was the same distance from deer camp as my house. I was LIVID. He couldn't come to see me, but he was able to go to the store to pick up bread.

His point of view: I risked teasing and ridicule and made up an excuse to go into town to call you to let you know I loved you and was thinking about you. (Deer camp is all men, no women allowed).

My point of view: If I was important to you, you would have come to see me rather than call me.

I thought that by not coming to see me he was sending a message to me that I wasn't very important to him at all. His thought process was much simpler, this was a family tradition. ALL males from the age of 14 up go to this deer camp in his family. He knew that it would be (and it was) the last chance he'd have to participate in this tradition. We'd be going overseas and he wasn't going to waste his leave coming home in November when there were more important times to come home. In his mind we'd have the rest of our lives together, he had only that weekend for his family.