6 am: Alarm goes off. Wake up. Get ready for work. Get kids up and ready for school. Let dog out. Feed dog. Feed kids. Maybe feed self? Run out the door.
2 pm: Pick up kids from school. Come home and try to work on homework for that Master’s degree that you need to even out the lack of stability and experience on your resume. Help kids with homework. Let dog out and in. Repeat 17 times. Tell kids to play with dog. Try to pick up the house. Maybe feed self?
4:30 pm: Start dinner. Try to clean kitchen and maybe grab a load of laundry while things are in the oven. Finish that essay? What is that smell?
6:30 pm: Finish eating dinner. Did I eat anything today? Clean up dishes. Put away leftovers.
7:00 pm: Put kids in shower. Get kids ready for bed.
8:00 pm: Read stories, sing songs. Tell kids for the hundredth time that they must sleep in their bed, not mine. Did I feed the dog? Feed poor dog. Let dog in and out.
9:00 pm: Finish homework. Maybe just crash out?
Tomorrow: Rinse, wash, and repeat.
Five deployments. Trainings. Schools. Exhaustion.
This life is hard. I never wanted to keep moving. I didn’t see it as an adventure.
But I made it work. And I found how to make myself happy.
Thirteen years. Two kids.
You had PTSD and depression.
You were gone and when you were home, you weren’t really home.
You drank a lot and spent a lot of time by yourself.
You left again.
For good.
You no longer love me.
You no longer want to be married.
You have been cheating and lying.
You destroyed the life I never wanted but made.
You left me to fend for myself and the kids permanently,
While I dreamed of the day you’d come home.
You said it was my fault.
You were tired, and I wanted attention.
You wanted to relax and have fun after deployment, and I was worried about finances.
Where I once had a community of spouses,
I will fade into the world of civilians that I no longer know.
I will heal wounds on my own.
Because I am the untold spouse.
I am the woman so many other women fear to be.
My story is the story that is told after women have had too many glasses of wine.
The story that they shake their head at,
But fear that one day it might be them.
No, not my husband.
Gosh, why do they do this?