I promise I don’t pay that much attention to celebrity news (no, really!) but when I saw an article today saying Ashton Kutcher has relationship advice to share, I had to read it.
What could a mid-divorce celebrity possibly say that could be called “advice?”
Here it is:
"I think it's all about working on the relationship and making it better... when it's good. Don't wait for a problem to work on things.”
Even though that is kind of a no-brainer, I think there is something deeper there for Military Spouses to ponder, especially as the drawdowns continue and our servicemembers get ready to spend a ton of time at home. With us. Driving us crazy.
While I cant say for sure that our military leaders back Kutcher on his advice, I do know that they have voiced similar wisdom when it comes to how military families are going to handle having their servicemembers around more and more. All of that emotional stuff we’ve pushed under the rug for so long is going to come up and bite us, they warn. Are we ready?
The most recent leader I’ve heard on this subject is Army Reserve chief Gen. Jack Stultz, who I spent some time chatting with last month.
The frequent absences brought by ten years of deployments have allowed Reserve families to avoid facing major relationship issues, Stultz said, creating a backlog of unresolved emotional problems that will need to be reconciled at some point."When you're going off to war you'll tolerate a lot of things on both sides," he said. "Spouses [say] ‘well I can't live with him or her but they're going to be leaving in six months anyway.' We're going to have to come back and adjust."
According to Kutcher, then, it’s all about maintenance. And when maintenance has failed, Stultz adds, you have to be mentally prepared to see the problem and fix it, instead of using deployments as an excuse to ignore the whole thing.
All relationships are about work and compromise -- if no one else could get us the message, the Kardashians definitely did. Are we ready to maintain the good we have while working through the pains of war?
And that, my friends, is all Kutcher has to offer us.
