“Learn to live with him and learn to live without him.” This is was one of the best pieces of advice that I was given when I announced my engagement. It was given to me by a dear friend of my mother’s. Gail was married to a career soldier too. And she knew what I was getting into. At the moment, it didn’t really sink in. But it didn’t take long.
As military wives, our husbands leave not only for deployments, but for training. Sometimes it’s a long weekend and other times it’s a few weeks. But, our men and women in uniform, need to train to be prepared for everything. And that leaves the spouses and children behind more then just the deployments that you see on the news.
Learning to Live With Him –
That’s the easy part. You get married and learn to live with your spouse. You do the laundry and he takes out the trash. He learns to put the toilet seat down and you learn not to leave your make-up all over the counter. It’s all about give and take. You each learn how to live with the other person.
Learning to Live Without Him –
This isn’t that hard either. When he’s gone, you take out the trash. Handle the car problems, the bills, the minor repairs, etc. All the things that he does when he is home.
Now here is the hard part… combining the two of them! It’s that transition from one to the other that can be hard. Having my husband gone for the last year, I am use to being very independent. I recently changed the battery in my husband’s jeep. I can do all the minor repairs now, even if he is home. The trick is, not making him feel as if he is not needed when he comes home.
For us, it happens slowly. First he goes back to taking out the garbage. Then he starts doing his “man” jobs. Like straightening out the garage to his liking and me letting him. Some times it’s just like being newlyweds again. We have to re-learn our jobs. It can be hard on both of us. Any time he is gone for a long period of time, we both change.
The saying “War Changes People” is true. But it doesn’t just apply to the soldiers we send off to war.
