There is a movie, based off a book, loosely based off my life called "The Time Traveler's Wife." If you haven't seen it, basically it's about a man who can't control when he comes or goes in time and the relationship strain that it causes with his wife. If you've seen it, and your married to a submariner, then you will get the parallel immediately.
In the movie, it's Christmas eve, and the wife is in the middle of setting the table for dinner and BOOM! he's gone, left a big mess, she doesn't know where he's gone off to this time, nor how long he'll be gone for and just has to do life for a while. Then, as instantly as he's left, he's back and in the middle of a routine that he'd already been written out of. He doesn't know how long he's been gone for, what has happened since he left or remember which is his sock drawer. It's devastating for him; frustrating and lonely for her. In a nutshell, that is a submariner's life. Luckily, in the case of the submariner, he always gets sucked back to the same place with the same 1980's technology and, though sporadically, he does get a chance to e-mail the future to keep in touch. The wife of the submariner writes daily and in real-time answers e-mails that take weeks to travel through the time vortex. Life for her is "business as usual." She manages to change diapers, feed babies, change clothes at least twice every morning and still be on time for appointments, meet social obligations, and keep both sides of the family updated on how the kids are doing. Both wives have difficulty explaining the frequent absence of their spouse and neither can change their phone numbers for fear of whenever their husbands surface somewhere they won't know how to call them to come pick them up.
While real life isn't quite as romantic as Hollywood dreams, it is more beautiful than they could ever capture on camera. We have been very blessed with our time in the Navy. My husband was right beside me for the birth of both of our beautiful children and that alone is worth more than every missed birthday and anniversary. We may grow as people while we are apart and find new things we like and dislike, but our mutual love and trust in Jesus Christ keeps us growing in the same general direction, together. Marriage is by no means easy, it takes some effort, but we have a lot more good days than we do bad. True love is a choice to stick it out together through the tough until it gets good again, and that's the moral of the story.
