It's been months since he last had to fly somewhere because of work. We were actually very lucky in how things turned out this year. He was scheduled to deploy a few months ago, but a week prior to the tentative date (everything is always tentative until the plane takes off) his deployment got postponed indefinitely.
The first taste of our time apart will be short in time (a few weeks), but soon after that we are looking at an actual deployment (although this time it's shorter than usual, wohoo!). Spending time apart doesn't have to be a bad thing, and it isn't most of the times (I'm speaking as a woman with no kids). It really is what you make of it. A good attitude and a plan do make a difference. There are tons of things to do when he is gone that I normally don't get to do as much when he is around:
- Hanging out with my girlfriends more frequently.
- Not showering or having to shave my legs every day.
- Getting to wear my big ugly panties with no qualms about it.
- Watching Wicker Park for the 100th time (that was me yesterday night).
- More reading time.
- Dedicated painting time.
- Geeking out for hours on end.
- AND, I get to shop and come back home without grouping some of the bags to make it look less expensive (although my husband has never balked at my shopping talents).
This is all fine and dandy, but there are three things that are tough every time he leaves; without fail. The best thing I can do is to face them head on and prepare for them:
The first night without him, the first morning waking up alone, and the first time I come home from work to a house missing a husband.
As much as I try, I just can't truly feel happy during these days, so I figured why not enjoy the sadness? I plan it all out. I already know I won't be able to sleep until two or three in the morning, so I pick an easy-to-read book, a few girly or car chase movies (Death Proof is a rare and amazing find), and various snacks to choose from. When I go to sleep, I usually allow the dogs to sleep in bed with me (only the first night), make sure the gun is loaded and ready to go (and I definitely know how to use it), and put on Bjork's greatest hits.
To help the disorientation in the morning, I normally place a pillow or a folded blanket on his side of the bed. Yes, this is a bit weird, but it's mostly so that when I wake up I don't see an empty space next to me.
Coming home from work to a house missing a husband is something that I had not been able to find a way around... that is until recently. If it is possible, I work from home or take the day off. In that way, there is no leaving and no arriving home. Yes, the next day I usually do have to get out of the house, but by then I am doing a lot better.
It does get easier when the trips are more frequent. That is because it gives me time to get into that mindset. I do wonder how other spouses or live-in girlfriends deal with these three firsts. I also wonder what girlfriends go through.
Now that these three firsts have passed, I have done 6 of the fun things I listed above. Oh yeah, and I am only getting started.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Friday, March 9, 2012
Dangerous Assumptions and Superman Thinking
Miscommunication is not a new thing when it comes to marriage, especially a new one. Add several months of long-distance contact and a hefty load of stress and you are now looking at big problems. This is what happened to my husband and me.
There are different levels of stress, frustration and feelings of loneliness. We assumed that we would always be able to deal with them. We failed to see that as strong as we both are, we also have moments of weakness. We are human after all. It is easy for him to remember this of me, and sometimes he forgets how strong I really am. On the other hand, it is not as easy for us to remember that he is not Superman. Sometimes I say this jokingly, but now that I reflect on last year, we subconsciously (and stupidly) assumed that he was.
When we got married, we made a commitment to each other to share our burdens as much as our happiness. Now, due to his profession, this comes with a disclaimer confidential information remains confidential, so this adds a layer of difficulty when trying to communicate our emotions. We are still great when it comes to fixing external (non-relationship) problems and sharing our happiness. However, due to the above assumptions and superman-thinking, he slowly, but surely started keeping his emotional burdens from me. I was too distracted with myself, the house and other things, and I didn’t want to stress him out even more by asking him to work harder on sharing his emotions.
So how did this turn out for us?
I started feeling as if all he wanted from me was to take care of our dogs, house and other belongings while he was gone. Although this is highly important, my role as his wife and best friend were close to non-existent. I knew that my feelings were wrong and so I powered through it because I knew how difficult the training that he was going through was. I bet a lot of people know this is, but a good percentage of the training that SEALs go through have little to do with physical challenges (except for sleep deprivation), but mostly mental.
As months went by, my husband began to separate himself from his true self – in his mind he had no family, friends or anything else but the training that he was going through. This is too robotic for even someone like him, and thus he started drinking alcohol… way more than what he is used to. When it came to our conversations, he would say that he was fine, or that he couldn’t talk because he needed to get some sleep. When he felt like sharing his feelings with me, he was usually exhausted. That made it very difficult for him to think of ways to communicate effectively while removing confidential information, and so he would decide to keep his emotions to himself. Long story short, he successfully completed all of the various training events throughout the year, as that was our first priority, but it left our marriage in a bad state.
What I’ve learned so far is that although Navy SEALs get tons of training to do their job amazingly well, they didn’t use to get a lot of training for how to deal with their challenges at home. When my husband joined the teams more than a decade ago, these types of services and training opportunities were very few and some thought of as being underdeveloped. Nowadays, based on what I’ve seen, there are several programs, services, workshops, and more especially designed to help our community through family and personal development.
When my husband and I realized that our marriage was in trouble and that we needed to improve our communication, emotional regulation and coping skills, he moved into action (he beat me to it!). Just like anything else, he faced it with all the focus and determination that he would place for a work-related mission. Before I knew it, we were enrolled to use a service called FOCUS. Here is some information regarding this service:
FOCUS is Family Resiliency Training™ for Military Families, which includes those without children. FOCUS has helped us learn to improve the following skills:
- Emotional regulation
- Communication
- Problem-solving
- Goal setting
- Managing deployments (or long intensive training trips)
http://www.focusproject.org/
As I know, this service is then developed to work with the specific needs of the community – Navy SEALs and the Marines, for example, have plenty of differences. Again, it is not couples therapy and their goal is not to help us save our marriage; these are skills that we can apply to our relationship with ourselves, each other and others.
So are we now Superman and Superwoman? Not really. If things work out between us, we know we'll never be and we like it that way. Hey, even Superman has his kryptonite. Nevertheless, we are better equipped to deal with multiple deployments, we now understand each other better thanks to the new skills we’ve learned, and we will now also be able to do a better assessment of our marriage.
There are different levels of stress, frustration and feelings of loneliness. We assumed that we would always be able to deal with them. We failed to see that as strong as we both are, we also have moments of weakness. We are human after all. It is easy for him to remember this of me, and sometimes he forgets how strong I really am. On the other hand, it is not as easy for us to remember that he is not Superman. Sometimes I say this jokingly, but now that I reflect on last year, we subconsciously (and stupidly) assumed that he was.
When we got married, we made a commitment to each other to share our burdens as much as our happiness. Now, due to his profession, this comes with a disclaimer confidential information remains confidential, so this adds a layer of difficulty when trying to communicate our emotions. We are still great when it comes to fixing external (non-relationship) problems and sharing our happiness. However, due to the above assumptions and superman-thinking, he slowly, but surely started keeping his emotional burdens from me. I was too distracted with myself, the house and other things, and I didn’t want to stress him out even more by asking him to work harder on sharing his emotions.
So how did this turn out for us?
I started feeling as if all he wanted from me was to take care of our dogs, house and other belongings while he was gone. Although this is highly important, my role as his wife and best friend were close to non-existent. I knew that my feelings were wrong and so I powered through it because I knew how difficult the training that he was going through was. I bet a lot of people know this is, but a good percentage of the training that SEALs go through have little to do with physical challenges (except for sleep deprivation), but mostly mental.
As months went by, my husband began to separate himself from his true self – in his mind he had no family, friends or anything else but the training that he was going through. This is too robotic for even someone like him, and thus he started drinking alcohol… way more than what he is used to. When it came to our conversations, he would say that he was fine, or that he couldn’t talk because he needed to get some sleep. When he felt like sharing his feelings with me, he was usually exhausted. That made it very difficult for him to think of ways to communicate effectively while removing confidential information, and so he would decide to keep his emotions to himself. Long story short, he successfully completed all of the various training events throughout the year, as that was our first priority, but it left our marriage in a bad state.
What I’ve learned so far is that although Navy SEALs get tons of training to do their job amazingly well, they didn’t use to get a lot of training for how to deal with their challenges at home. When my husband joined the teams more than a decade ago, these types of services and training opportunities were very few and some thought of as being underdeveloped. Nowadays, based on what I’ve seen, there are several programs, services, workshops, and more especially designed to help our community through family and personal development.
When my husband and I realized that our marriage was in trouble and that we needed to improve our communication, emotional regulation and coping skills, he moved into action (he beat me to it!). Just like anything else, he faced it with all the focus and determination that he would place for a work-related mission. Before I knew it, we were enrolled to use a service called FOCUS. Here is some information regarding this service:
FOCUS is Family Resiliency Training™ for Military Families, which includes those without children. FOCUS has helped us learn to improve the following skills:
- Emotional regulation
- Communication
- Problem-solving
- Goal setting
- Managing deployments (or long intensive training trips)
http://www.focusproject.org/
As I know, this service is then developed to work with the specific needs of the community – Navy SEALs and the Marines, for example, have plenty of differences. Again, it is not couples therapy and their goal is not to help us save our marriage; these are skills that we can apply to our relationship with ourselves, each other and others.
So are we now Superman and Superwoman? Not really. If things work out between us, we know we'll never be and we like it that way. Hey, even Superman has his kryptonite. Nevertheless, we are better equipped to deal with multiple deployments, we now understand each other better thanks to the new skills we’ve learned, and we will now also be able to do a better assessment of our marriage.
Friday, March 2, 2012
The elite group of Navy SEAL Wives
I cringed as I was writing the title to this post. I feel like I'm about to throw up a little bit in my mouth, I can't stop rolling my eyes and I am mostly disgusted to say that there is, within the community, groups of Navy SEAL wives that truly believe they are above others, the bees knees, the cat's meow, or like I like to say - the shit. Now, my disclaimer is that not every single SEAL wife behave this way. I know many that don't, and I like to think that I belong to the latter. Well, let me tell you a story of when I had my first close encounter with one of these cliques.
My husband had been deployed for almost 7 months. It was time for him to come home. We were in regular contact and although I knew his arrival was close, it became official once he gave me the information that I needed to figure out his arrival time, location, and other details.
The day came faster than I was ready for. I had my mom help me clean the house up to my husband's standards a few days prior to when I thought he was arriving, but just like anything military-related, the date was postponed by about a week. I was too excited to care about the details, and there I was, driving anxiously toward the place I was told to go to. On my way there I was wondering whether I would see welcome banners from other wives (not my thing, but it's cute when others do), I also wondered if dressing up was the way to go, or was my effortlessly-cute-but-casual-not-trying-too-hard look the one that would make my husband remember me by for the next few weeks?
Getting back to the purpose of this story, I finally arrived to the 'waiting room.' We weren't given an exact time of their arrival, but it should be within the next 3-8 hours. As I walked into the room (classroom style), I see a group of women gathered in a circle by a corner of the room. I look over to the other side of the room and I see a single woman sitting with her small daughter. I did not know who she was, but she looked more approachable than the rest. I smiled at the lone lady and her daughter, sat close to her and introduced myself. After 1o minutes or so of conversation, I found that her husband works for a support-type command (not SEALS) - some call them enablers - and it turns out that her husband was arriving that day as well. I asked her why she hadn't joined the group of ladies on the other side of the room. That's when she told me about the No-Support-Wives-Allowed cliques.
Before I go further, it is good to note that SEALS sometimes deploy with men from various support commands. Sometimes, they work together while deployed. Long story short, she told me that in the several years that she's been a part of the community, she is usually excluded from wives-only gatherings or events due to the fact that her husband is not a SEAL. Furthermore, when a SEAL wife befriends Support wives (like herself), they are shunned from the group. I don't like jumping into conclusions, so as I was listening to her, I figured that she must have had some bad experiences that may have pushed her to such a stereotype. I am sure that there are some SEAL wives that behave this way, but figured that it had to be a very small amount of them.
An hour later, the wife of a close friend (SEAL) of my husband - whom I had met several times before, socialized, visited her house and spent a few holidays with - walks into the well-lit room. I look at her and put on a huge smile (finally someone that I know!), she looks at me for at least a few seconds, looks away and walks straight toward the group of women hanging out at the other end of the room. Why did she not even smile back at me? Did she not recognize me? Does she not like the person I am talking to? Weird.
I keep looking over to try and catch her gaze. I did a few times and smiled each time with a "Hi there" face. Nothing. She looked away each time. This is starting to bother me, I now know she definitely saw me sitting there, just a few steps away from her. I forget about it especially since we are told that the group is arriving and we need to go outside the building.
It is dark and cold outside. I feel like peeing, but try to hold it in (no time for a bathroom break) and calm my nerves. I am trying to act cool, as if I am not a newby at this, but then I realize that I don't even know how a non-newby should act. I say hi to a few people around me, hoping that someone would see through my facade and help me by telling me what to expect (will they be allowed to greet their families right after they get off the van/bus? Do I wait where I am at or can I to walk toward him?). Can someone tell me if I am doing the right things?! I'm so needy.
My husband sees me. I see him. We both have our biggest I-don't-care-how-ridiculous-I-look smiles and we go straight for a 3 minute bear hug. Several minutes later I see his friend, the one married to the wife that completely ignored me just a few hours ago. He comes over, says hi, and gives me a hug. All of a sudden his wife looks at me with a surprised face and with a fake high-pitched voice says "Oh my gawd, how are you doing?! It's so great to see you!" I tried to fake smile, but since I suck at it, I am sure she saw through it. She glanced me a guilty face and semi-apologized for not saying hi earlier. I figured that she is one of the followers...hmmm, there must be a Godmother? (Okay, that was dumb - replace that with 'a leader').
I met the leader a few months after that day and let's just say that I never want to see that person again. I let my guard down, tried to give her group a chance (all SEAL wives, of course) and make some friends. The leader's husband was one of the head honchos in the team, which of what I gathered from that group, can be trumped by a lesser-ranked SEAL wife who's husband did something famously heroic. These wives mainly value themselves by their husband's rank.
Now back to my story: I was invited to join them the day after for drinks. I was going to receive the details via text. The next day comes, I wake up early (NOT my thing), dress up, cancelled some plans I had (trying to make an effort here), and no text. I called and texted two of them asking for the information and no reply. Is this their version of hazing?
A month later, I see my husband's friend's wife (my husband wanted to stop by and say hi) and after she ran out of random things to talk about, she says "Oh, sorry about never getting back to you last time, hope you weren't waiting for our reply. We totally forgot about you."
I cringed, wanted to say something like "Oh, not at all, I was actually calling to cancel," but then remembered that my dumbass self left messages like "Can you please send me the address? I am all ready to go. Can't wait!" so I just made a "Oh, don't even worry about it" face. I didn't want to risk opening my mouth and saying something like, oh I don't know, "You fucking bitch!" (excuse my language).
I mentioned I needed to go to the ladies room and as soon as I got there I silently screamed at myself in the mirror (just like in the movies), angrily texted my husband with a "Let's get the fuck out of here, I'll tell you in the car" (Phone's keyboard almost lost a key or two) and fake smiled my way through that visit.
Yes, this story could just be a Mean Girls vs. Cool and Awesome Girls (ha), but as I've gotten to know more of the cool and awesome Navy SEAL wives out there, my story is just like many of the stories shared by them. Based on my experience though, the cool and awesome SEAL wives heavily out-number the mean girls.
My message to these ladies: It is OK to place high value to yours and your husband's accomplishments. Yes, your husband achieved something that many have not, their accomplishments have been also due to your unwavering support, and in some ways the life we live is tougher than many other military families. However, do not use this to excuse your poor treatment of others.
My husband had been deployed for almost 7 months. It was time for him to come home. We were in regular contact and although I knew his arrival was close, it became official once he gave me the information that I needed to figure out his arrival time, location, and other details.
The day came faster than I was ready for. I had my mom help me clean the house up to my husband's standards a few days prior to when I thought he was arriving, but just like anything military-related, the date was postponed by about a week. I was too excited to care about the details, and there I was, driving anxiously toward the place I was told to go to. On my way there I was wondering whether I would see welcome banners from other wives (not my thing, but it's cute when others do), I also wondered if dressing up was the way to go, or was my effortlessly-cute-but-casual-not-trying-too-hard look the one that would make my husband remember me by for the next few weeks?
Getting back to the purpose of this story, I finally arrived to the 'waiting room.' We weren't given an exact time of their arrival, but it should be within the next 3-8 hours. As I walked into the room (classroom style), I see a group of women gathered in a circle by a corner of the room. I look over to the other side of the room and I see a single woman sitting with her small daughter. I did not know who she was, but she looked more approachable than the rest. I smiled at the lone lady and her daughter, sat close to her and introduced myself. After 1o minutes or so of conversation, I found that her husband works for a support-type command (not SEALS) - some call them enablers - and it turns out that her husband was arriving that day as well. I asked her why she hadn't joined the group of ladies on the other side of the room. That's when she told me about the No-Support-Wives-Allowed cliques.
Before I go further, it is good to note that SEALS sometimes deploy with men from various support commands. Sometimes, they work together while deployed. Long story short, she told me that in the several years that she's been a part of the community, she is usually excluded from wives-only gatherings or events due to the fact that her husband is not a SEAL. Furthermore, when a SEAL wife befriends Support wives (like herself), they are shunned from the group. I don't like jumping into conclusions, so as I was listening to her, I figured that she must have had some bad experiences that may have pushed her to such a stereotype. I am sure that there are some SEAL wives that behave this way, but figured that it had to be a very small amount of them.
An hour later, the wife of a close friend (SEAL) of my husband - whom I had met several times before, socialized, visited her house and spent a few holidays with - walks into the well-lit room. I look at her and put on a huge smile (finally someone that I know!), she looks at me for at least a few seconds, looks away and walks straight toward the group of women hanging out at the other end of the room. Why did she not even smile back at me? Did she not recognize me? Does she not like the person I am talking to? Weird.
I keep looking over to try and catch her gaze. I did a few times and smiled each time with a "Hi there" face. Nothing. She looked away each time. This is starting to bother me, I now know she definitely saw me sitting there, just a few steps away from her. I forget about it especially since we are told that the group is arriving and we need to go outside the building.
It is dark and cold outside. I feel like peeing, but try to hold it in (no time for a bathroom break) and calm my nerves. I am trying to act cool, as if I am not a newby at this, but then I realize that I don't even know how a non-newby should act. I say hi to a few people around me, hoping that someone would see through my facade and help me by telling me what to expect (will they be allowed to greet their families right after they get off the van/bus? Do I wait where I am at or can I to walk toward him?). Can someone tell me if I am doing the right things?! I'm so needy.
My husband sees me. I see him. We both have our biggest I-don't-care-how-ridiculous-I-look smiles and we go straight for a 3 minute bear hug. Several minutes later I see his friend, the one married to the wife that completely ignored me just a few hours ago. He comes over, says hi, and gives me a hug. All of a sudden his wife looks at me with a surprised face and with a fake high-pitched voice says "Oh my gawd, how are you doing?! It's so great to see you!" I tried to fake smile, but since I suck at it, I am sure she saw through it. She glanced me a guilty face and semi-apologized for not saying hi earlier. I figured that she is one of the followers...hmmm, there must be a Godmother? (Okay, that was dumb - replace that with 'a leader').
I met the leader a few months after that day and let's just say that I never want to see that person again. I let my guard down, tried to give her group a chance (all SEAL wives, of course) and make some friends. The leader's husband was one of the head honchos in the team, which of what I gathered from that group, can be trumped by a lesser-ranked SEAL wife who's husband did something famously heroic. These wives mainly value themselves by their husband's rank.
Now back to my story: I was invited to join them the day after for drinks. I was going to receive the details via text. The next day comes, I wake up early (NOT my thing), dress up, cancelled some plans I had (trying to make an effort here), and no text. I called and texted two of them asking for the information and no reply. Is this their version of hazing?
A month later, I see my husband's friend's wife (my husband wanted to stop by and say hi) and after she ran out of random things to talk about, she says "Oh, sorry about never getting back to you last time, hope you weren't waiting for our reply. We totally forgot about you."
I cringed, wanted to say something like "Oh, not at all, I was actually calling to cancel," but then remembered that my dumbass self left messages like "Can you please send me the address? I am all ready to go. Can't wait!" so I just made a "Oh, don't even worry about it" face. I didn't want to risk opening my mouth and saying something like, oh I don't know, "You fucking bitch!" (excuse my language).
I mentioned I needed to go to the ladies room and as soon as I got there I silently screamed at myself in the mirror (just like in the movies), angrily texted my husband with a "Let's get the fuck out of here, I'll tell you in the car" (Phone's keyboard almost lost a key or two) and fake smiled my way through that visit.
Yes, this story could just be a Mean Girls vs. Cool and Awesome Girls (ha), but as I've gotten to know more of the cool and awesome Navy SEAL wives out there, my story is just like many of the stories shared by them. Based on my experience though, the cool and awesome SEAL wives heavily out-number the mean girls.
My message to these ladies: It is OK to place high value to yours and your husband's accomplishments. Yes, your husband achieved something that many have not, their accomplishments have been also due to your unwavering support, and in some ways the life we live is tougher than many other military families. However, do not use this to excuse your poor treatment of others.
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