Is It Always Going To Be This Hard?

If your going to be a trucking family, you need to get a hold of yourself and be strong, you cant let him know this is bothering you so much.

Call your frineds, make a nice dinner, take a bath, go for a walk, get yourself busy. Enjoy the time you have to work on a hobby, join a church group, get outside and feel the sunshine. You cant just think about it all the time, you have to be proactive in making this career/lifestyle work. Nothing is going to happen while he is out on the road that you cant take care of if you just put your mind to it.....and once you have things taken care of you can tell him about it in your next phone call and be PROUD of yourself for dealing with it. I sincerely hope you find the support you need to get over this first big hurdle, it DOES get easier with time, once you know you can deal with things just fine at home.

 

I have to completely disagree with the last part of that statement. If this lifestyle is going to continue to be this hard on you, it is very important that you are completely honest about this, otherwise it can just build up and lead to worse things.

With that said....

This is something completely new to you. Chances are you will get used to it and adjust to the new way of life. If you can't, then the two of you need to look at how to address the future.

The best thing to do is try to look at every positive aspect that you can. If this is the best way that your husband can provide for the family, be sure that you think about that, and remind yourself of that whenever you need to.

Better options with more experience - If after a year or so, you simply can't adjust to this, talk with your husband about looking at more local/regional options. Depending on where you live, you might even need to consider moving at that point if there are no driving options like this available.

Back to my first statement. You have to be honest and up front. At the same time however, once you make your thoughts known, do your best to be positive until something better can become available. Your husband will know, at that point, how you feel and what you want, so at that point, being supportive for the next year or so is the best thing you can do. You don't want every phone call to end up being depressing. You can discuss the needs to change to something different once in a while, but don't make that the common topic of every phone call. You are an important support base for your husband at this point, when you talk, focus on how you are proud of him for providing for the family, and avoid the negative feelings as much as possible.

Best of luck to you, and remeber, focus on the positive as much as possible, no matter how hard it may be to see at times.

 

Personally for me, when my man left (when we were together), I kept a smile while I helped load his truck up. On the drive home if my kids were not with me.....then I would allow a tear or two.

What I found best, was my support system. I didn't have much in the way of friends who understood...so I started a diary of sorts specifically for this purpose..missing my man. I eventual told my man about it and occasionally I would share from it if he asked. (not all but little excerpts)

We eventually found a way to laugh through the heartache TOGETHER for some of my thoughts he also echoed.

BTW, the reason we are not together has nothing to do with his career / lifestyle. Still consider him to be a #### good man.

 

Originally Posted by luvmyhubby
If your going to be a trucking family, you need to get a hold of yourself and be strong, you cant let him know this is bothering you so much.

Keep in mind though it is new to him also. I do not think she needs to add to his stress. Let them both adjust because he is pre-occupied with learning this job/lifestyle. He will already be stressed enough worrying as it is. Give them both some time to adapt then look at the cards on the table. If he is worried that she is not coping well it will even make it harder on him for fear that she will move on without him. I am all for being honest with one's spouse, but in this case he has a lot on his plate right now. I know the wives at home do as well, but he is in the strange enviroment, she is in familar surroundings.

 

That is why I said the rest of what I said, explaining that if over time if she wasn't able to adjust to this, then she needs to say something and they need to figure out what they need to do.

 

The part you disagreed with. you cant let him know this is bothering you so much.



I realize that. I was just disagreeing with you disagreeing with the advise that Luv gave.

 

We will have to agree to disagree then. One the initial emotions pass, if that feeling is still there, something needs to be said as quickly as possible.

To say you "can'" let someone know how your feeling and that it will "get better" is just wrong. Everybody is different, and situations like these affect people differently. Being upfront and honest is the only way to go.

As with any situation like this, I hope that it all works out for the best. The best way for it to work out though is for everyone to be upfront and honest with each other, rather than bottling up feelings that just won't go away and having a bad situation happen a couple years down the road that could have been taken care of with an honest conversation.

 

True, but I never said that. I just said let them get used to it. Let him get his training done. Let him get a feel for the road. Why dump more stress on the fire? They may not adjust. Look how many bail. No sense in dumping a bunch of money in to get a CDL. Then bailing before you know whether it will work out for you or not. They have never been apart in 5 years. She is not the only one that is going to be dealing with that. She has the seperation phase to deal with. He has the seperation phase,, learn the job, truck, find places he has never been, etc. All I am saying is if she puts more pressure on him by being honest before they have a chance to feel it out, why go through that?

Some couples get along better when they don't see each other all the time. In time they will know if it will work out for them. I say give them a chance to adapt before they start telling each other it won't work.

 

I think that is pretty much what I originally said.

I wasn't insinuating that you had said otherwise, but you were disagreeing with my original post which was basically saying the same thing you are saying now.

The original reply to the first post that I disagreed with said that you can't say anything, and that it "WILL" get better.

Sometimes it does get better, but sometimes it doesn't. Once you give it a little time, think it is best to be completely honest about your feelings, than bottle it up.

I went through this situation, although my wife and I had only been married about 2 years and we had no kids. This was very tough on my wife, but looking back, I am very fortunate that after going through school, being out with my trainer, and a month into driving on my own, she was completely out in the open with me about how she felt. I immediately looked for another alternative to where I was at (company I was with only allowed passengers for a certain amount of months out of the year), we adjusted our budget, and my wife got out on the road with me. I have since spent much time out on the road without her, but the communication upfront turned out to be very important to a young marriage.