by Kasheika Campbell

Created on: June 08, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

I dont know what I expected when I joined this community, but I guess it came shortly on the heels of me googling families dealing with a deployed spouse. My husband has been deployed now for several months, and in the time that he has gone, I have tried to take care of business as usual. We have two children a 3yr old boy and a 18 month old girl. Saying that it is hard to deal with my husband being gone is probably the greatest understatement of the year. We thought we were mentally prepared for this situation. We did not have the usual worries about cheating or finances because we had a foolproof plan or so we thought. Well the reality is certainly different than the plans. There are worries that never entered into our minds and that not many people talk about on blogs and such. For instance, the fact that the conversations that we have over the phone is stilted and a bit uncomfortbale. We cant really identify or treuly understand what the other person is going through, so there is no real rapport. I love my husband, and he loves me, and we were the best of friends while he was here, but now that he is gone, his daily life does not include me. Mine does not include him. He is living through unspeakable conditions in Iraq and I am dealing with the daily drudgery of raising two kids, paying bills, running a home, being a full time student and being a drilling reservist myself. There is no one for me to vent to. I cant tell my husband, my best friend who is dealing with heat and sand storms and 12-14 hour work days and living in tight quarters with unknown individuals from different backgrounds that I am tired and lonely. He would certainly think that I am crazy to complain about how difficult my day to day is. But the truth is, I am not in the sand, but I am about to have a nervous breakdown from all the work associated with having a spouse deployed and if I feel that way, then I can only hazard a guess as to how he feels. Then added to that I genuinely miss the companionship and just being able to talk to someone who understands me. I fear that when he gets back(because I dont even entertain the thought of him not coming back)we wont be the same. I fear that our lives would have gone in such different directions int he space of a year that we wont understand each other. But most of all I fear uttering the unspeakable, I fear that because of the extremity of his situation, he will never be able to appreciate or understand that I too am making a great sacrifice. Even now I hesitate to write this down for fear of all the virtual reprimands I will get for being selfish. I know everyone is silently wagging their fingers in my direction, but the truth is while the war rages in Iraq, life does not stop at home. We wait as spouses, and we live in fear daily, but we also soothe the worries of children even though we ourselves worry. We also go to school or work and carry out all the daily things that will ensure that our soldier has a home to come home to.And to be real, most nights when I do crawl into bed well after midnight, I say a hurried prayer for my husband, then my mind wanders to the numerous chores that await me in the morning, and that is my true fear and worry. The fact that no matter what this is a year that we will never be able to share with each other. A year of his life that he can never expect me to understand and a year of mine that he will never be able to understand either.And more than I ever worry about jealousy and cheating, I worry that we will be able to survive this year where our lives progressed daily without each other.

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