Congratulations, your loved one is coming home.

By Betsy Reed – guest commentator

October 24, 2006

I want to start out by thanking you for your sacrifice, as you have made many sacrifices for this our wonderful country. It is hard enough to have to move your whole household every three years, but the ultimate is having your loved one gone for almost a year, let alone go to a war zone. Your loved one is definitely a hero, but you are every bit a hero too.

You have held down the home front and had to be the one to make sure everything runs smoothly while your husband or wife is gone. You have had to fill in for your spouse/loved ones this past year with the kids, with the vehicles, with the house, and with the yard. Believe me, I know how hard that can be. My husband was gone for two and a half long, lonely, hard years. I learned how important it was to get my sources lined up to help me with all of the difficult tasks that I felt so incapable of doing. These sources also had to be reasonably priced if not down right cheap as keeping things going can really get expensive.

You also have had to be both mama and daddy to the kids. That is almost impossibility. The kids are not something that you can put on hold like you could a stuck window, wait till daddy or mama comes home. Nope, these ever changing little humans that we have created from our own bodies have minds of their own, and needs. Oh those needs! Meanwhile we have needs too. The need for a little cooperation from those growing kids we have living in our homes, as well as some cooperation from the car, the appliances the lawn mower, and for that matter any and all of the other stuff that daddy used to do.

Eventually however, we do manage to get into a fairly decent routine, and learn how to do the things that we never really wanted to learn how to do. Hey, even the kids are doing pretty well. No, things are not perfect, and we miss our loved ones, but we are evolving into a can do person here. In fact we are even proud of some of our accomplishments and some of our newfound abilities.

Now, it is getting time for our loved one to come home. The first thing we think of is, will he be happy with what I have done? Does the house look ok? Do I look ok? Shoot, I need to lose 5 more pounds. I haven’t seen him in so long will he think I have changed? How should I act?

All of these questions are normal. Also, in the back of your mind you think that it will be so good for him to get back home so he can handle the car problems, or the air conditioner problems or the “you fill in the blank” problems. Just give him a few weeks and then we can get back to normal.

NO, NO, NO!!!!! This is where you will run into problems.

First, your husband or wife is not coming back to the same people that he/she left. You have changed. You have had to grow greatly while they were away, and you are not the same dependent person that you were before deployment. You have grown up, a lot. If your spouse thinks they are coming home and things will be just the way it was before let the buzzer go off in your head now – buzzzzzzzz - (which means wrong) because you are not that person anymore. When daddy or mama left, the kids were in certain stages (you know they are always in some stage or another, and they seem to jump from one stage to another without always completing the stage they were just in). They have also grown in size, in wisdom (hopefully), but definitely in knowledge, whether good knowledge or bad knowledge, it is still knowledge, and even changed in their likes and dislikes. Ha even by now the fads and some of the fashions have even changed.

No, he/she is definitely not coming home to the same people. What he/she wants to come home to is what he/she left behind, and those people just do not exist any more.

Of course who you expect to come home to you is the same person that left. Guess what? That person does not exist any more either. He/she is still in there somewhere, but after the things they have experienced over in Iraq, that person is buried deep inside a protective shell that is very thick.

He/she may look the same, may smile the same and even at the very first for one or two days or maybe even a few weeks, may actually act the same, but remember it is an act that they really do want to be true. In reality, your spouse is coming back home to heal. He/she is wounded mentally and emotionally. You can check out their bodies and it will look the same, no wounds or bullet holes, but they are wounded just the same, inside the mind, inside the heart.

You may be just talking innocently about something and all of a sudden for no reason that you can think of he/she explodes, or just out of the blue he/she is in a rage and you do not know why. Neither actually do they. It does not really matter why at that point. It can either make you mad or flatly hurt your feelings. NOW IS THE TIME to shut up, listen, and do not take this personally. He/she may even just wake up in a rage thinking they are back in Iraq. Never, never approach him while he is sleeping by touching or grabbing him. You might really get hurt physically yourself. Yep very bad idea! Thankfully I did follow that advice myself, as my husband experienced those flashbacks. He even sometimes felt guilty about being home rather than being back there in Iraq, still helping out.

Your feelings will be stomped on, smashed and hurt, probably for the first year that they are back, and probably a lot. (So will his/hers) It is all right for you to have hurt feelings. It is all right for you to get mad. But I want you to remember one thing. CHOOSE YOUR BATTLES WISELY. Also, timing is everything. During the time your loved one (and you must remember he/she is still your loved one even during these times), is having this fit, that this is not the time to confront, or yell back or try to get your point across. Most of the time when they go into these rages of madness, it is not even about you. It is about what they have experienced. They have seen some horrific things, dead bodies, wounded friends, and have experienced hearing mortars fired into their surroundings
daily. They have seen the results of those things we only hear about occasionally, IED’s going off and tearing up machinery, tearing up people, and getting fired at and on by the enemy. This did not happen just occasionally. This happened every single day including Sunday. No wonder his/her nerves are frazzled and his instincts are still in warrior mode ready to fight or defend. They should be.

The reason a lot of the guys want to get back with their Army buddies that they went over with and even just go hang out with them is because they understand what each other went through, and the families do not. They feel they can talk to each other with understanding without having to explain themselves or talk about the actual experiences. Sometimes families ask questions. Do not force your loved one to talk about “it”. This will all come when it is time. Kids sometimes ask “Wow, did you kill anybody?” Bad question! Wrong question! Your loved one needs your protection from this at this time. Give him/her a chance to heal.

You now have the hardest job of all. You need to make your home a safe place for him/her to heal, and let them know they can trust you to help them through it all. This generally falls to the wife, the mother, the nurturer. There are going to be times you will wish that they were back in Iraq. Sometimes they will think it would just be easier if they would leave. Well, in reality yes it would, but we are dealing here with saving our marriage, rebuilding our relationship and being there for our very hurt loved one. Always remember, this is the person I fell in love with, and he/she needs me now like he/she has never needed me before. And, you wonder, what about me? Will I ever have a normal life again? Yes, you will, it will come. Again I say choose your battles wisely. When the storm and rage is over talk it through with him calmly. Sometimes, they cannot talk about their experiences for a long time, but you can talk to him/her about not taking it out on you at that time. My husband has been home a year and a month and is just now getting to where he can talk about his experiences without getting depressed. The main thing for you to know is that you will have hurt feelings, and be mad at times, and this is normal and it is ok.

You need to talk to your children and prepare them that daddy is not going to be the same, and even help them to know when they might need to back off. Even if you have to come up with signals that only you and the kids know.

There are even going to be times when he is going to deal with the kids and you will think he/she is wrong, but will have to back him/her up. You will think to yourself “What does he think he is doing? He hasn’t been with the kids, I have. He doesn’t even understand what they are going through, I do.” but it is very important to not make him/her look bad in front of the kids, or undermine his authority even if it feels like he is undermining yours. You can talk to him/her privately later. Be a team. The kids need to see you be a team, he needs to be part of the team, and actually so do you.

Remember the finances might be another problem source. When he/she comes home they might want to go shopping. Something they have not been able to do during this past year. Be prepared to endure this. If possible go over the finances as soon as you can so he/she will know what they can do. After all, they feel like I have been sacrificing all year, so it is my turn to go out and get something I want.

You may have made plans for you two to go to the two of your favorite place and he/she does not want to go. Do not let this hurt your feelings.

Do talk to your loved one. Keep the lines of communication open, without fighting. This will be hard on your part because he/she may want to fight at that moment, but they really do not want to fight with you, their loved one, the one they cannot wait to get back home to and who is their security. He/she has not yet learned how to put that rage on a shelf, as it is not going to happen overnight. He/she needs your help and patience so together you can put the trauma, the rage, even the fears that were felt on that shelf. He/she has gone through mental and emotional trauma. This trauma never goes away, but with your help and support it can be set aside so you and your family can go on as a normal functioning family. It is a matter of you two learning how to communicate again with each other. He has had to communicate as a warrior this past year, not as a loving husband or father. He has had to survive, and he is still in a survivor mode mindset.

I have heard some women say, “Well, he had just better straighten himself up!” It is not a matter of him straightening himself up, he has to relearn how to communicate with you as well as you have to relearn how to communicate with him/her to let him/her know that our marriage and our relationship is still worth it. You will at this time have to learn to relinquish some of the authority that you have grown used to, and he/she will have to relearn how to take it back fairly. Remember how it is when you have gained 5 pounds and you are trying to fit back into those jeans. Sometimes it takes a few weeks and patience to lose that weight and fit into those jeans. It does not happen overnight. We live in an instant society, but there is no instant fix in this case. If you can make it through this next year, it will be so rewarding.

You may have a friend or two that you talk through things with. Be careful even then, as you do not want to say things that will make your loved one look bad. You will forget and forgive, others will not. If you can find a friend who is going through the same thing as you are, that might help. I do know that I prayed for patience and wisdom, and turning to God was a great source of strength for me. I have lived through this and survived it, and you can too. My husband and I have been married 43 years. We have too much invested in each other to let it go. Even one year is an investment in your marriage or relationship and is worth the time it takes to work things out.

This letter is not written for instruction. I wrote this for information from experience. It is so much better to fight for your marriage the right way, than to give up and get out. That really is not an answer, but sadly it does happen. That only adds trauma to you, the kids, and to him/her. If you can overcome, and I know it can be done, you will actually be happy and complete again with your partner. The job of the terrorist is to destroy. If he can destroy your family he has won.

Signed,
Been There and Made It Through

Betsy Reed is the wife of KBR convoy commander, Paul Reed. Paul’s story, “Only You Know” can be read at www.uglypuppy.net.