Military husband. (reader forum).

I remember picking up my first copy of The Advocate when I was 17 and crying when I realized there were other people like me out there. Today, at age 25, reading your article "Family Life During Wartime" [April 29], I cried in the same way. My partner, an active-duty submariner, was deployed to the Red Sea February 10, two weeks after proposing to me. Suddenly I was alone in a place that none of my friends could understand, a kind of worry and turmoil that few gay men ever expect to go through. My stress level skyrocketed; I suddenly had sole responsibility of managing our family and business affairs, dealing for the first time with loneliness and separation and watching with irritation as my friends tiptoed around me, at a loss for words. Add to this the added expenses incurred as a result of now-inaccessible base facilities and the constant fear of "that phone call," be it from the Navy or from Jerry's parents, and you have all the makings of a new alcoholic; to this day it shocks me that I am not one.

I remember the day he left and the cool handshake at the base gate that passed between us and the anger I felt knowing that unlike his crewmates, Jerry would not have his spouse holding him and crying with him on the pier. That anger has been a daffy component for me as I watch the news coverage of the "wonderful support" the military offers to families during deployment. The gay partners of service members are the quiet family, hiding our affections between the lines, concealing our love behind a woman's penmanship, communicating in codes reminiscent of World War II. Jerry and I keep a second E-mail address for his "girlfriend," for those moments when we just need to gush.

Thank you for this article and this recognition. I have searched for months for anything mentioning gay military families and came up sorely disappointed. I have looked for other people in similar circumstances and found none. I will mount this issue on the wall of our study, right next to Jerry's medals, because I feel it is a medal of my own.

Josh Kronberg, Providence, R.I.