Today I’m happy to continue my blog series, Military Lives, Real Love Stories. My guest is Lauren Gueret, a Navy wife and aspiring author.

Me: First, tell me a little bit about yourself and your writing.

Lauren: My mother had a son who died in 1998 and my father wrote and published a novella (Twenty Minutes in Eternity) about the experience. I was only 8 at the time, but I was so proud of my father doing that and wanted to do the same. I have been writing faithfully since I was twelve, trying to follow in my father’s footsteps. I focus primarily in the paranormal romance genre, my favorite authors being Christine Feehan, Keri Arthur, and Kresley Cole, among numerous others. I am, however, currently putting a compilation together of military short-stories inspired by my own situations, friends’, and injured war veterans’ at the VA hospital here in Hampton Roads.

Me: How long have you been married and how did you meet your husband?

Lauren: My husband, Jonathan, and I will be married for a year as of March 20. We actually met online while I was at UVA, through a dating site called True. I had a profile as a past-time away from school work. I was not looking for anybody, just to have fun looking at the guys who tried to contact me. My husband-to-be contacted me, and I thought, “What the heck” and wrote him back. We became friends, though I didn’t want a relationship because I was interested in another guy. Despite everything, Jonathan would not stop pursuing me, and helped me through a very traumatic experience. We obviously ended up together after that. =)

Me: The old adage is that opposites attract, but in my novels, my heroes and heroines are usually drawn together because they find that they share some common experience of loss. For example, in my forthcoming novel POISONED KISSES, my hero and heroine both lost their mothers to mental illness. What pain or loss or maybe even joyful past experiences did you and your husband have in common?

Lauren: As cliche as it sounds, we were both drawn to each other by loneliness. I had had several horrible relationships, some abusive, and I needed a lot of healing from the experiences. I needed a man who was willing to be patient and help me through what I was dealing with. My husband needed a woman to do just that for. His father worked out of state all throughout his adolescent years so he was without a manly figure in his life. Because of that, he had always been dubbed, ‘the nice, safe guy’ and he needed to affirm his role as a nurturing man. Cliche, like I said. haha

Me: Did you know that your husband would be going into the military when you married him? If so, did you think it would be as difficult as it has been?

Lauren: He was already in the Navy, and it didn’t bother me. He was away in AZ for school for the first 10 weeks of our relationship. I spent 2 weeks with him for Christmas break, and then I went back to school and he went back to work. We lived 3 hours apart, so we saw each other twice a month for a day and a half at a time. I didn’t think it would be difficult since I was already used to hardly seeing him, and so far, it hasn’t really been.

Me: You’ve said that you gave birth while your husband was still in Iraq…how did you cope?

Lauren: I realized early on that I had to get myself on a routine so that I wouldn’t become depressed. I went to the gym every single day in the morning, and afterward, I would go to the library and check out 10-12 books. I read all day, every day. Jonathan called me every few days, and emailed often, so that helped. His not being present was not too difficult. What saddened me was that he was not able to feel the baby kick or be present for doctor appointments. During my labor and delivery, the hospital allowed me to set up a webcam, so he watched the whole 12 hour process from Iraq. It was nice at least seeing and hearing him, but it was very sad when I was holding Andrew and Jonathan wasn’t there to do the same.

Me: Many military spouses have told me that their loved one returned from war and sometimes seemed like a different person, or several different people, which is why I adapted the chimera myth to explore the issue of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome in my novella, WILD, TETHERED, BOUND. Do you or your husband have any experience with PTSD and if so, does this resonate with you?

Lauren: Jonathan does/did not have PTSD, but it has been very difficult for me to transition back to having him around. When you’re on your own for 6 months, you have to block out emotion and sexual longings so that you can cope. I also had to take care of a newborn on my own for 6 weeks, so I kept Andrew first before everything. Now that he’s back, it’s been taking me some time to get used to having him around again. I still haven’t found that healthy medium between balancing being a mom to Andrew and a wife to Jonathan.

Me: Given your experiences as a military spouse, what advice would you give other military wives?

Lauren: Be sure that you can handle raising a family on your own. That is the best advice I can give. Whether you like it or not, the US gov’t owns your husband, and he must do what they say. He won’t be around for important holidays and for a lot of the children’s lives. I know I am capable of doing this, but a good friend of mine is now realizing what being a military wife entails, and she’s not sure she can handle it. They may be throwing a 6-year relationship and 3-year marriage away, one that has an 18-month old son. I always say it takes a different breed of woman to do what I do, and I stand by it. You have to be independent and strong-willed, or you will not get through the deployments and schools they must attend.

Me: What’s the single most annoying thing about your husband and how do you make the relationship work anyway?

Lauren: My husband is a video game enthusiast, and I HATE video games. I am a bookworm through and through. When he first came back from Iraq, he continued playing them all day every day as he did when he was single. In a military marriage, you MUST communicate. I talked with him and asked that he simply learn when it is appropriate to play video games and when he must take care of his responsibilities. He has made a great effort and only plays when he has free time.

Me: What are your most romantic memories with your husband?

Lauren: Since we haven’t really had much time together, and having a 4 month old son, we haven’t had much opportunity to be romantic. haha As terrible as that sounds. I will never forget, however, last year’s Valentine’s Day. Jonathan had strep throat worse than I can describe, yet he went out and ordered me purple roses (in honor of my favorite color) and surprised me. I hadn’t thought we were going to celebrate at all. I still have a few of those roses in the pages of my dictionary.

I want to thank Lauren for stopping by! If you or anyone you know has a real life military love story that they’d like to share, please let me know.

Stephanie: With your husband, was it love at first sight?

Meggon: It was love at first sight. In an unusual way, being as he let his fellow co-worker date me first before we actually dated.

Stephanie: Oh dear! What’s the most romantic memory you have of your husband?

Meggon: The most romantic memory I have of my husband–which I can hardly say is that romantic, because thinking back on it, it’s funny as well–is when he proposed to me after a night out at the country bar where I met him. We stood outside my house and he tells me that he’s been carrying around this ring for two weeks. He felt the right time to ask would be now. So standing there looking at me as I was looking at him, he asked if I would marry him.

Stephanie: So he’s the real pragmatic sort. Here honey, marry me so I don’t have to keep carrying around this rock!

Meggon: Exactly. He’s not the type who likes surprises.

Stephanie: What made you fall in love with him?

Meggon: His sense of humor, and his spontaneity, as well as the gentlemen he was. Opening the doors, letting me order first… you get the idea.

Stephanie: And how long have you been married now? Did you know what you were getting into being married to a military man at the time?

Meggon: We have been married for four years. I kinda knew what I was getting into when I got married to him, but never expected the extra emotional baggage that Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) has brought into our lives.

Stephanie: What made you decide to create the Facebook group for military wives?

Meggon: I made the facebook group because you can never have enough resources or support group when the husband leave for deployment whether its Iraq or Afghanistan. Not only for that, but also for the post war symptoms which follow after the deployment such as PTSD.

Stephanie: I’m told that PTSD is just as difficult on the spouses as it is on the soldiers. Do you have any experience with that?

Meggon: PTSD is definitely as difficult on us, as spouses, as it is on soldiers. You deal with a lot of depression, anxiety, anger issues and lack of feelings from it. Its ten times harder then civilian marriage in my opinion because the military spouse deals with it all. Its like walking on eggs shells. There’ve been countless times when I, as a military spouse, wanted to just throw my hands up in the air and say, “I can’t do this anymore.” It is easier said than done in most cases.

Stephanie: How does it impact your daughter? Does she notice?

Meggon: She has no idea what is wrong with daddy. She knows when mommy is not having a great day, and by doing so, she acts out. If I were to tell my daughter anything. It would be to just love her father regardless of the illness’s he may have.

Stephanie: In my research for my latest novella, WILD, TETHERED, BOUND, I was surprised at the variety of ways that I was told PTSD could manifest. My imagination was particularly captured by one woman’s description that the illness made it as if her husband had become two, or even three different people inside one body. Does that read true to you, and if so can you elaborate on what that person might have meant?

Meggon: That is true. It feels like you don’t even know your own husband–this same man you married. The soldiers have symptoms so much like multiple personalities that it makes you believe it, in a sense. They get angry easier, their anxiety level is alot higher, and they have a lack of feeling emotion…or even the need to have feelings.

Stephanie: Are there coping mechanisms you develop to deal with it?

Meggon: There aren’t many coping mechanisms you can develop unless you both go to a family counselor who specializes in helping families with PTSD. It’s more the soldier himself who has the coping mechanisms. I seem to vent to my frustrations to my friends who are military spouses. Usually I just take a deep breath and tell myself that this isn’t the person I married. He will break free from this illness and I will have my husband back.

Stephanie: Is there anything you’d like people to know about being a military spouse, or reaching out to others like your Facebook group?

Meggon: Don’t be hesitant to seek out someone to vent your frustrations especially if you’re in a group such as Military Wives. There will always be someone out there willing to just listen. I am one who is willing to listen to anyone vent there frustrations.

Stephanie: I understand that military families fight for our country, but it sounds like you have to fight for your relationships too. Romance readers believe in happy endings. Do you?

Meggon: I do believe in happy endings but there are times where happy endings only come to those who choose to make the ending happy as well.

I’m currently writing a war-themed modern mythology series for Sihouette Nocturne. When writing WILD, TETHERED, BOUND my research led me to several very open-hearted soldiers who were willing to tell me about the traumas they experienced. I was honored to hear their stories and what they told me remained at the forefront of my mind, the whole time I was writing.

Paranormal romance is a genre that allows my imagination to run wild and in WILD, TETHERED, BOUND, I was able to portray Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the context of a soldier who turned into a chimera. My dryad and her magical bonds represented the healing power of a soldier’s loved ones.

But that’s fantasy. Reality isn’t quite as neat and tidy as the steamy love stories I write for my characters.

Military spouses have to fight for their relationships and the road isn’t smooth. In the romance world we’re all about helping to bring about happy endings–to that end, I’m starting a series of interviews. On Wednesdays, I’ll present a real life love story about those who serve our country. It’ll also give me a chance to promote the causes that are near and dear to their hearts…and my own.

The first interview will be with Meggon McMullen, the founder of the popular Facebook group, Military Wives. I can’t wait to introduce her!