“And so I sit here, trying to understand that because my life is not filled with trauma causing events, and has really calmed down in a lot of ways, that it makes me feel like a fraud. As mental health is my chosen field to study and eventually work in… This makes me want to dig into this further.”
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“Some of you may be dealing with heavy psychological issues with a friend, significant other, or family member. Their behavior is erratic and/or frightening.
You don’t know what to do.
What can you do?
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“When a man loves a woman, he sacrifices.
My husband has spent the last 20 years in the military. 20 years of heart, soul, sweat, and anguish. The plan has always been that he would retire this year after his 20 years were done. Our children are heading into the teenage-years. A time when they need their Dad around.”
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“Military homecoming videos are all over the internet. With the holidays coming they seem to explode in number. The videos are beautiful, heart-warming, and I can’t watch them.”
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“I watched people walk by the door of the classroom through the window. I remembered the times I had sat in front of a TV thanking God my kids weren’t old enough to go to College after watching the reporting of a mass shooting at one.” Read more. . .
“We had just found out the week before that we would be moving to Memphis TN. We were having profound difficulties with one of our children that I found devastating as a Mother.” Read more. . .
Every night this week leading up to this day my Husband and I have listened to fireworks going off at night for a good hour or more. My Husband is a soldier and a veteran of war. The sound of fireworks bring back a lot of memories for him. As I sat there listening to him talk about the experiences he had as they came flooding back, I realized-
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Right before our 1st wedding anniversary, my husband was getting ready to deploy to Iraq for 16 months with the military. He actually reported in for duty on our 1st Anniversary. We had just moved and were at a new church. The women there were gracious and kind.
However, I didn’t understand the comments from various women about how they were jealous and wished their husbands would go away for a year or two. Here I was a newly married person, my husband was going off to war with no guarantee that he would ever come home again, I was appalled!
I’ve also been on the opposite side of comments where women have said, “I could never do what you do, having your husband gone all the time.” They feel their husband has to be by their side in order to survive. While these comments are basically the exact opposite of the previous ones, these comments puzzled me as well.
Fast forward 15 years. . . I now understand what each of these groups of women meant.
You love your husband. You really, really do. But. . .
Sometimes it’s nice to have the whole king size bed to yourself!
Occasionally it’s nice to stay up half the night working on a project without having to worry about waking up your husband or feeling guilty because you aren’t spending time with him. The kids are in bed and this is your time to do with as you please.
Sometimes you want to watch a sappy girl movie that most men would rather die than watch.
Occasionally you want girl food, not meat and potatoes. Because let’s face it, the kids are happy with cereal or Mac and Cheese. This leaves you to have your grapes, cream puffs, and croissants, or whatever else strikes your fancy.
But what about that other group of women who can’t survive without their husband’s being there?
I’ve always been a pretty independent person. Having kids has taught me the value of having a partner in the craziness.
Someone who can take over before you’ve completely lost it with the kids, the house and the dog.
A person who can share the joys and the sorrows with you and help you face the day after.
Someone who is your best friend and who just “gets” you.
My married life has been such that my husband has times in which he is gone for extended periods. Other times he is home working normal hours locally. What I’ve learned through the years is to take each time that I have and thoroughly enjoy it to the fullest.
If your spouse is in the military, law enforcement, or dealing with a potentially deadly illness, you have played the “What do I do if my spouse dies game?” You may have played it anyway if you are the type of person like me who wants to have a plan for every contingency.
I say “game,” but it’s not a game you ever want to play. But this is the reality of life for people in these situations.
When my husband was deployed to a war zone, I met another spouse whose husband was also at war. She said when she can’t sleep, she figures out how she is going to spend her husband’s life insurance. She plans out his funeral. As he is double insured, she had lots of money to figure out how to spend. For his funeral? She planned on getting Clay Aiken to sing because her husband couldn’t stand his singing. She thought it might be enough to make him rise from the dead if she did that.
Those of us who find ourselves in situations of life where our spouse could die, find that there are necessary conversations that must be had. There are contingency plans that must be made, that while others might make them, for us, the reality is that the chances are much higher we might have to enact that plan.
If your spouse dies, will you stay where you are? Move closer to the family? Change jobs or go back to work? How will childcare be handled? How will we handle life? These are the thoughts that run through our brains in the middle of the night. This is a fact of life for us.
1- If it happens? We have a plan. Not everyone has one.
2- We highly value the time we do get with our spouse because we know that any day, things could change.
So here’s to all the other spouses and families out there playing the “What Do I Do If?” game. May you never need to use it.
Brain fog can be caused by stress, anesthesia, chronic illness, pregnancy, mental health issues as well as other things. It is a symptom, not a diagnosis. Read more…
