I'm going to lay this out there and then put it in a imaginary balloon and let it float away from me so as to no longer have it weighing on my heart. I hate the army life. I love Hubster, I am uber proud of him and what he does, and yes I have been very blessed in many ways thanks to this life. However, today, in this moment, I hate the army life.
In the last 14 years I have seen families torn apart by death, war, dysfunction, mental instabilities, separation, abandonment, and the list goes on. None of us spouses live near family for consistent support and guidance so we find it in each other. We find ways to make it work even when we move thousands of miles away from each other. We pick up the phone to listen to tears and frustrations from a friend we have not seen in years or spoke to in months.
We raise our children on our own. Don't you dare compare us to single parents. We are NOT single, we are NOT able to date and find companionship in another adult. Our companion, our other half, is just not available for those things. The vows are still there and the rings are still worn.
The time spent apart is grueling on a relationship to say the very least. Apart for months and months and MONTHS at a time. No one outside the military life can even fathom what that is like. That is why we rely on our military friends more than our own families sometimes. They can relate. We can be angry in front of them about our situation. They don't say things like, "It could be worse" or "You are so strong." I know in my heart those things are said out of love, but on the inside, it just feels patronizing. The only response my head has to those things are "Fuck you. You don't know a thing about my strength or how much worse it could be."
I am tired, I am worn out, and I am pissed every time I see a messed up soldier leave the pieces of a broken family in his wake after returning from war. There is no comparison for the damage done to these men being deployed time after time. Our children will be in therapy for years, and most of us are medicated into a state of synthetic euphoria just to deal with the stress of it all. It's sickening, it's for real, and it is NOT the life I would wish on anyone.
For those of you who share this with me, I have a love for you like none other. I am every day thankful to God for your friendship. When I look back at the major moments of my adult life and the people who were there for me, it will be your faces I see. It will be your voices ringing in my memory. You are the blessings I have received, and I love you, even though I know you also will leave someday and I will have to say goodbye to you too.
So when you see a military spouse, don't bring up deployments, or the war, or ask how their child is handling their father being gone... again. If you do, odds are we will smile, provide a neutral response, and say all is well. For if we have learned nothing else from our PTSD afflicted husbands, we've at least learned how to put on the brave face and just keep marching on.
Non-military people have no clue! Not even close to a clue. If I hear one more person tell me that we are so lucky, I may very well punch them in the face. Lucky, hmmm... I feel really lucky that my husband was blown up by a bomb, that he can't remember what happened yesterday, that he can't feel, that he has spent time away from this family, that other than my husbands physical appearance, he does not even come close to resembling the man Infell in love with and married. I am so lucky that I have to take medications just to get through the day... That now my kid has to go to therapy and take medications just because of his anxiety and stress and migraine headaches from living with someone with PTSD. I feel so lucky that I have had to know so many young people that have been injured or killed or took their own lives because of these nasty wars. Oh and yeah, let's not forget how lucky our kids are that they never get to have any semblance of a normal childhood. It is exhausting to play single parent and do it all... Other non military people will say, oh I know how you feel... NO YOU DON'T... You have grandma and grandpa down the road to help you, Aunt so and so down he road, etc. we have the pleasure of doing it solo... Completely solo. When it is all said and done, if I had to do this all over again, I wouldn't. I really don't feel like we are any better off than we would have been. It just hasn't been worth it... The price has been too great. I would have much rather spent my days in a cardboard box with nothing, than to have it all with a broken husband. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade any of the friends I have made for a million bucks. I am proud of my husband and what he has done. I feel blessed to have experienced all of the things I have but at the end of the day, I am sad. I am mad. I miss my husband--- not the one I have, but the guy I once knew and loved that is locked in his own prison... The key has been tossed and I don't know if it will ever be found. The last thing I have to say is that I just saw something that hit me hard because it is so true... No one has seen the end of war but the dead.
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