Fighting for Your Marriage While A Spouse is Away
I worked in a doctor’s office as a young high school girl and I remember hearing women describe their excitement over their husband’s upcoming work trip. “When he’s away, I get to play.” “I won’t have anyone barking out orders at me for four whole days” “It’s like a vacation when he leaves.” This never sat well with me, and it made such an impression that I still think about it to this day.
Until that point, I hadn’t seen marriages lived like that. My dad was military, and my mom cried every time he left. To know that the realities of marriage were that you might possibly look forward to their departure made me question all that I had ever seen or known about marriage.
Now I live a life where my husband is gone more than he is home. In the last three years of our marriage, he’s been gone about 40% of the time. When he’s home, his hours have been such that he is merely only physically present, and he has missed more holidays and birthdays than I’d like to admit.
I’ve noticed that each deployment or work trip he takes gets easier, and I find myself a little more indifferent to his absence. I find myself battling feelings of how much better it is to manage our house and kids without him here. I find myself growing in resentment toward all the “freedom” he has to go and do, try new restaurants, see new places, have adult conversations. I reached out to a friend about how much I was struggling with these feelings and she said, “I don’t think your life is better, maybe easier…” And she is right, there is nothing better about him being away, but there are aspects that feel easier because the ball is always in my court. I get to make all the decisions. I get to be in control.
Ah, control… At the end of the conversation, I realized I was framing it all wrong and I was letting emotions and perspective rob me from opportunities to invest in my marriage, protect my marriage, and honor my husband in his absence.