Distance + Time = Different Reactions
There is no social media access under the ocean. So submarine wives are often the sole gatekeepers for information from home. When Erin Grayson learned her son might need surgery for a brain tumor, she desperately wanted to contact her husband who was deployed at sea on a lengthy underway.
“I just needed him to know that our baby was in danger. I needed him to share the burden, almost as if by telling him, I could split the burden in half since the whole seemed unbearable alone.”
But she also chose to wait, on advice from the Captain’s wife, until she had firm answers from a neurosurgeon. Once she had more definitive information, the message was sent. Her husband learned the news from his captain, but the couple was not able to talk for a long time.
“When we were able to talk, he’d already processed the information in his own way. He’s a scientist. I’m an artist. He’s a man. I’m a woman. He was confined to a submarine. I was not. Our first conversation was not the comforting, consoling, encouraging one I’d hoped we would have. Instead, it felt very sterile, more about the facts without emotion. I felt cold and bitter. As a result, I felt like I’d been left to shoulder the burden alone. The fact was he couldn’t come home unless we were faced with the worst case scenario, which at that point seemed unlikely, thank God.”
Erin’s son never needed surgery. And she understood why her husband couldn’t return to help her. She said the experience eventually helped her marriage to grow, but she still struggles not to put up emotional walls.
Messages Long Delayed
Sometimes even if you choose to share the bad news, the service member won’t receive it right away.
Two years into her marriage, Janelle Becker faced the possible death of her newborn daughter. Weeks before, her husband deployed on a ballistic missile submarine with a healthy prognosis for both Becker and her soon-to-be-born daughter. But when Becker delivered the baby, there were complications. There was fluid in the baby’s lungs and the newborn’s life was at risk. Doctors told Becker to contact her deployed husband so he would have a chance to see his daughter before she died.
“My husband left for sea expecting to come home to his wife and new baby daughter. I hated having to send a message informing him of the difficulties my baby was having, and the possibility that she might not be there when he came home,” Janelle says. “I was very worried how he would react… (but) if there was any chance that he could be home to see her, then we had to try.”
A message was sent via Red Cross, but the submarine was on alert and didn’t receive it until weeks later when the submarine pulled into port.
“He was overcome with emotion when we first spoke, but was much better after he heard my voice and heard his baby daughter crying,” Becker said.
She said the experience, and many others along the way, made her husband trust her to handle life at home. She never resented that he wasn’t there for the tough stuff.
“Even as a young wife, I understood that this was the nature of his job. I knew that if it was at all possible, that he’d have been right there with us through it all. It hurt him just as much to find out what she and I had gone through without him, as it did for me to go through such a scary time without him there.”
How Will You Handle It?
For every military spouse, the choice to share or not share news from home is a unique one. We can gather advice from others, run scenarios in our heads and debate possible outcomes. But in the end it’s a decision based as much on faith, instinct and knowing your partner as on any practical information. We’re with you in spirit, as are thousands of military spouses who have made these tough decisions just like you.
