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What you should never say to a military spouse.

By on May 11, 2012 in a glimpse into my mind, hubby, marriage, military

When my husband was in college, it never occurred to either of us that he would have a career in the military. Once he graduated, we weighed the pros and cons and within a few months he joined the Navy and took his oath.

Before we knew it, it was time for him to go to OCS (Officer Candidate School) and as much as I prepared myself for my husband (of less than a year) to be gone for months, I found that I was far from prepared.

He was under enough stress when it came to getting ready but I unfortunately added to his stress.

In some ways I felt like he was abandoning me and I started picking ridiculous fights with him. I found that by doing so, I was distancing myself from him emotionally so it would be easier when he was gone.

I quickly learned that I would just end up feeling guilty and wanted to tell my husband how sorry I was but it wasn’t like I could just pick up the phone.

For the next 12 years his deployments never got easier and I missed him just as much as the first time he was deployed.

Sure, I became more self-sufficient all of those times I was alone (I pride myself on being somewhat of a plumbing ninja with all of the sinks and toilets I fixed over the years) but there was a huge part of me missing.

My husband.

Being a military wife is like being on the most thrilling but at the same time one of the scariest rollercoaster rides that you can experience.

Like being a mom.

I’ll never forget when I was 8 months pregnant with my daughter and we were living in Washington, D.C. My husband came home from work and I just knew something was going on. He told me they want to send him to Afghanistan in the next few weeks and he’ll be gone for a year.

I felt so selfish and guilty that I wanted somebody else to be deployed instead of my husband but after a very tense next couple of weeks, someone else was sent after all.

It turned out that once the powers that be found out my husband was recovering from a broken foot, he was deemed too much of a risk.

In all the years that he’s been in the Navy, the one thing that’s like fingers on a chalkboard to me are the times he was deployed and the most frequent comment I would get is Well, that’s what you signed up for.

It feels like the person saying that is dismissing my feelings. That’s probably why my mother-in-law was the worst offender when my husband was deployed.

Just because my husband is in the military doesn’t mean that it’s easier when he leaves or that we miss each other less. I feel in some ways it’s much harder because of the danger involved.

So, if there’s a military spouse in your life, give them a shoulder to lean on. And a hug. Hugs are always good.

Do you have a spouse in the military or one that travels frequently? How do you handle the separation? What would you like people to know?

Comments { 3 }

Banging my head against a spike would be more fun.

By on March 29, 2012 in a glimpse into my mind, buttmunch, crazazy, hold me, holy hell, hubby, life is funny, marriage, mommyhood, my brain is melting, the little hummingbird, would you like some cheese with your whine?

This is a totall recall post which is something I repost because I’m being too much of a lazy ass  because I like that I can look back and see what I was doing then. 

I wrote this when we were making the move from D.C. to Northern California in July 2010.  I would never want to do that move again unless we flew. Driving was awful, especially since the hummingbird could only tolerate being in her carseat for 5 or 6 hours which made the move much longer.

I could swear I’ve already used this as a total recall post so if I did, pretend you’ve never read it before. ;^)

 

Banging my head against a spike would be more fun

July 22, 2010

The hubby will be known as buttmunch for this post.

Cue the Law and Order music.

DUH DUH

The buttmunch and I were packing and trying to get everything together since we were going to a hotel that night. I had the little girl’s things packed and went to get my things together. I asked my buttmunch if he could go downstairs and get some toys for the little girl.

DUH DUH

Around 8pm that night we were on the way to the hotel and the buttmunch went back to the house to pack some more. Soon after, I put the little girl to bed. I called the buttmunch a few times to remind him what to bring back to the hotel.

DUH DUH

The next morning my buttmunch went back to the house since the movers were coming, so it was just me and my daughter. After breakfast I went over to a box that the buttmunch brought and looked through it for toys.

DUH DUH

There weren’t any there so I looked through a few bags. Not there. I looked through her bag, my bag, the buttmunch’s bag. Nada. I was starting to panic but before I went into freak out mode, I looked through EVERYTHING again. Nope.

DUH DUH

It was raining outside and there wasn’t anything for her to play with inside. The little girl just had a few books I had packed in her bag and normally she loves to “read” her books. She must have smelled the fear on me because when I would give her a book, she would throw it on the ground and give me a bitch, please look.

Then she started to run around the room and whine. It was her special whine. The kind that makes me feel like my head is going to explode any minute.

DUH DUH

I then called the buttmunch. When he answered I politely and in a very calm tone, and not at all yelling *coughnotcough*, told him that we didn’t have any toys at the hotel room. He couldn’t bring the toys by (and I didn’t have the car) since he was waiting for the movers and told me that I “had the stroller, so there was that“.

May I remind you that it was raining.

DUH DUH

Buttmunch.

DUH DUH

I found a pack of tic tacs that she grabbed at the store the day before. She wouldn’t let them go and chewed off most of the wrapper so they were ours for keeps. Those only amused her for a few minutes.

While the little girl was racing around the room, I sat on the couch dazed from the lack of caffeine. I contemplated dragging the both of us to the hotel lobby so I could get my hands on some coffee and the little girl could run around in a bigger space.

To get to the lobby we had to go outside and walk what seemed like a mile in the pouring rain, so I decided it was best to just stay in the room.

DUH DUH

While I was twitching around from my caffeine withdrawal and a whiny toddler, I found two plastic spoons. I thought “Yay, she loves spoons!” A few seconds after giving her one, she dropped it on the nasty hotel room carpet. The same carpet that turned her white socks black within a few hours.

So I threw it away and gave her the second spoon. Same thing. Finally, I just let her start throwing things out of our bags onto the nasty carpet. The carpet Dateline NBC says is covered in fecal matter, salmonella, and sperm. I guess there are a lot of chickens that stay at hotels and have booty sex.

While the little girl was going through the bags, she struck gold. She found a Ziploc bag full of tampons, the ones that come in bright colors. She was entranced with my bag o’ tampons. The little girl started roaming around the room with the bag, shaking it and holding it above her head.

This kept her occupied for about 10 minutes. While she was playing with her new toy, I was looking through the bags again, not for toys but for anything resembling caffeine. No such luck.

DUH DUH

After she got bored with the bag, I spent the next seven hours repeatedly singing the Elmo Duck Song, Elmo’s Song, and letting her play with my cell phone (which surprisingly still works). I also got quite a workout staying in a room that wasn’t child-proofed. Finally after one of the longest. days. ever, the buttmunch came back to the room.

DUH DUH

Hmmm, what’s that sound? Is it me saying no sex for a week? Well, that’s nothing new.

*We’re still not in California. It has taken us forever to drive across the country and as of this morning we are in New Mexico, about an hour from Arizona. I finally got my hands on a new laptop (thanks to my sweet hubby, the buttmunch).

Comments { 7 }

My antidepressant has made my downtown lady depressed. *cue the more you know rainbow*

By on March 1, 2012 in a glimpse into my mind, anxiety, depression, hubby, marriage, too much info

After being on an antidepressant for the last several months, my lady friend down south is not a happy camper. I know that’s one of the side effects but c’mon, you’d think that by now they would’ve come up with something to help liven up a woman’s Southern lady.

So, I can either be depressed and have my sex drive fall off a cliff or I can be on medication and have my sex drive be obsolete. Yay!

I’ve gone so long without sex that I think my virginity grew back. Too bad I didn’t regain my bladder control too.

I tried a lower dose of my medication but it didn’t go well. I’m still not at a place where I can do that yet.

My doctor really thinks the med I’m on is the best for me since it’s for depression and anxiety.

I was on a 30 Day Shred kick, hoping more exercise would help, but recently I’ve been working out for a few minutes and then giving up. I go and grab some chips or ice cream and I watch while Jillian Michaels and her exercise buddies sweat their asses off. Better them than me, right? bwahahaha

I got a $30 bottle of an herbal supplement at Whole Foods that’s supposed to help a woman’s libido but it hasn’t worked. It would probably help if I opened the bottle and actually took it though.  ;^)

Even though I talk to my therapist about everything else, it’s hard to bring up the loss of my sex drive. Instead I write about it and send it off into the interwebs because that’s how I roll.

So, here’s a question to you dear readers. If you’ve been on an antidepressant at one time or another and your sex drive became non-existant, did you just wait it out? Shots of Vodka? If you’d like to answer privately then please don’t hesitate to email me. When it comes to my hubby, I really want to tap that.

~~~~~

**Make sure to check out the new website What The Flicka? that was founded by actress Felicity Huffman and where I’m a contributing writer. For weeks I’ve been dying to say something but I was afraid I’d jinx it.

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I got along so well with my mother-in-law this past visit and we even got matching outfits and held hands while skipping down the sidewalk. *snort*

By on February 17, 2012 in anxiety, blah blah blah, depression, family, hold me, in-laws, marriage, mother-in-law, my brain is melting, the little hummingbird

*This is a really whiny & ranty post. If you’re lucky and have a nice mother-in-law I just have one question. Can we trade?

This last visit with the in-laws was one of the worst I’ve had with them. By Thursday night I just wanted to leave and go to the fancy schmancy hotel down the street and have a spa weekend. These are just a few of the highlights.

I usually wonder what I did to make my MIL act the way she does towards me but my therapist said that it wouldn’t have mattered who my hubby married, my mother-in-law would have probably been like this with anyone else. My mother-in-law absolutely undermines every little tiny thing I say and do when she’s visiting. That pisses me off since it’s my house but as soon as she visits, she takes it over and my hubby never wants to say anything.

I was talking to her about the hummingbird starting preschool really soon and the MIL asked me how she thinks the hummingbird will do. I told her I think she’ll be fine, it will be me who cries and takes a few hundred photos of her going to school. I’ve joked that I’m going to throw a party and it will be so nice to watch what I want and even bathe before bed once she starts preschool but I know I’m going to miss her like crazy.

It’s like when I’m dying for some free time so my hubby will take the hummingbird out but once she’s gone, I don’t have any idea what to do with myself.

When I told my MIL that it will probably take a bit of time to get used to my baby being in preschool and not cry, my mother-in-law said No, you won’t.

Sometimes I end up falling into her trap so I told her that it’s hard because even though I trust the school and it’s teachers, I won’t be there to protect the hummingbird. I was starting to see red so I don’t remember exactly what she said but she basically told me that I was an idiot and it’s not normal to be emotional when your kid starts school for the first time.

I told her that even if she thinks it’s not normal, I’m still going to worry because that’s just how I am and she said No, you won’t I should put that on a t-shirt. Really? That’s when the conversation went downhill fast.

After that I went upstairs to the bedroom and hid which is what I mostly did the rest of the week.

As far as my blog is concerned, my in-laws are just under the impression that I write occasionally for blogs but they don’t know I have my own. I had to think of something fast last year when I slipped and said I was writing for a blog. One of the last times they were visiting we were watching the movie Julie & Julia in which Julie cooks her way through Julia’s cookbook and blogs about it.

I don’t know everything there is to know about blogging but my father-in-law quickly became the expert on blogs and basically talked out of his ass for about 15 minutes. It took all I had to not say anything because he was saying things like you can make a lot of money really fast if you blog. Uhhmm, okay. I guess my money for blogging has gotten lost in the mail. Ha!

Even though I try not to say much when they’re here because my MIL always twists things, I could probably sneeze and she would tell me I didn’t do it right. It was so hard to tell the hummingbird to give her grandmother a hug and kiss when she would go to bed because my MIL would be treating me like shit.

Because they love to talk about things that make it impossible to add to the conversation, I would disappear for a while.

On Saturday night when I decided to brave the downstairs, I grudgingly went into the living room. In just a few minutes time they went into this deep discussion about the wind energy in the Netherlands. ?????? I don’t even know anything about the wind energy in the U.S. so I just sat there for about an hour while trying not to fall asleep and forcing myself to be quiet and not yell shut the f*ck up!

I made a huge mistake by making the suggestion of watching Crazy. Stupid. Love. Luckily I’ve seen this movie 100′s of times a few times but my in-laws sit there and always have something to say about the movie. They even get into long discussions so they miss most of the movies we watch.

My hubby and I had to explain things that would have been answered if they would just pay attention to the movie. I would end up not being able to see Ryan Gosling’s hotness, which should be a punishable offense, when I have to answer questions like “who is that guy”, “why did they do that”, or ”this isn’t realistic” (they’ve said that with almost every movie I’ve seen with them. They don’t seem to understand the concept of movies).

One of the most oddest moments was when all of us minus the hubby (who was in the garage but I think he could’ve been hiding from his parents) were sitting on the couch and watching one of the hummingbird’s favorite cartoons, Peppa Pig. The hummingbird and I were making snorting sounds when they did it on the show and my FIL actually joined in.

That’s when my MIL flipped out and told all of us to be quiet because snorting like a pig is disgusting. She has 2 grown kids and 3 granchildren so I don’t know how it’s possible that making an animal noise is disgusting. I’ve been thrown up on and have cupped my hands to catch the rest of the puke and I’ve gotten poop under my fingernails when I’ve cleaned up a really messy diaper. That’s gross.

Snorting like a pig is a walk in the park.

 The last night my in-laws where here we had dinner at the house and the subject of teenagers and rebellion came up. All I said was I think most teenagers go through some type of rebellion at one point. The MIL said No, they don’t I need to put that on a t-shirt and I should have just been quiet but told her that I said most not all teens and they rebel in different ways.

My mother-in-law told me that was probably just me and my friends. That’s when my FIL cut in and said the hubby was a wonderful young man at that age. I was thinking uh huh, that’s what you think. My husband wasn’t that wild when he was younger but there were still things he did that his parents won’t ever know about.

They ended up having an early flight on Monday thank gawd! so I only had to deal with them for 4 days instead of 5 like I thought but I’m still recovering from their visit.

The hummingbird’s 3rd birthday is in less that two months but they didn’t say anything about coming to visit again so soon. I’m hoping I’m in the clear and can enjoy her birthday.

**I’m going to be really busy this coming week and if you’d like to write a guest post, whether you have a blog or not, then drop me an email at elle dot mommyhood at gmail dot com. The post can be about anything you want but I currently don’t accept sponsored posts.

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