Week 1.5: My Hubby Lies Over the Prairies

Summer 2011: My husband (then boyfriend) gets a job in Alberta, a day of flying and driving away.

My initial reaction: Yay money!

My secondary reaction: Are you kidding me?

So thus began seemingly endless brief visits and emotional goodbyes.

Let me break down a typical work "shift" for you. He starts work on Tuesday morning, works until the following Wednesday when he works a half day. Five hour drive to Edmonton, five to seven hours of flying, then he will arrive home sometime between 6am and 8am on Thursday. We spend the weekend together, then Monday morning (early… ugh!) he gets his stuff together and flies back to Edmonton, where he takes another 5-hour bus back to work. The following morning (Tuesday) he goes back to work. Then the whole process starts over.

Then when we discovered how much money we could save if he only came home once every two shifts, we started seeing him every four weeks.

And how do I deal with this, you might ask?

I would love to have everyone believe I handle this very well. I am composed, organized, content and mature about it. Everything is all "peaches and gravy" (whatever that means).

Prepare yourselves for a shock.

I am the most unladylike specimen you will ever see. I cry, threaten, throw fits and have even sat in front of the door, using myself as a human barricade, in an attempt to prevent him from leaving me. Again.

It's a funny image. I'm sure even he thought so. Me, in my pyjamas, sitting on the floor, arms crossed, a scowl on my face that so many struggle to take seriously. My hair probably askew from another restless night, dreading his departure. Makeup smeared everywhere because I was probably too lazy to remove it the previous evening.

But I did not find it funny. I found it heart-breaking. How could he want to be away from us? Did he not care?

At the time, I felt rejected and lonely.

Since then, I have tried to understand it from his point of view:

He only gets to be home four days a month, and the rest of the time he is so far away from everything he has ever known. He gave up his dreams to ensure his family is well provided for. He risked missing the birth of his two daughters (thank God he was able to be here though!) so that they would never go wanting. He had to make new friends and is lucky of he sees his old friends every six months.

Sometimes I still forget he also sleeps alone every night.

The hubby and I, October 2011

When he started working there, before we were married, I would go to the airport to say goodbye and also to pick him up. We both lived at home (me with my parents, he with his mom).

Once our daughter was born, I still went a couple times to say goodbye. I stopped going to pick him up.

Within months, I just stayed home.

From my point of view, I was protecting myself. It hurt too much to say goodbye that way.

From his point of view, I no longer cared.

It took me a long time to understand this. It is not easy looking at the world from someone else's point of view. But sometimes it is necessary.

Now, instead of complaining, I try to be understanding. After all, I am here surrounding by friends and family when he leaves. He goes to some remote freezing corner of the country where most of the guys (to me at least) seem massively sketchy.

(Another post on that later!)

Point of the story: Sometimes we have to go through the hard stuff to get to the good stuff later. And always, always enjoy the times that you do have together, or you will miss out on making memories resenting the fact that you don't have more time together.

God bless.

xoxo