this is how i almost ended our marriage

There was coffee brewing, possibly breakfast cooking, but that detail escapes me. Four tiny children were playing and fussing in the background. It was a Sunday morning before church. At the moment, however, I didn’t smell or hear any of it. The love of my life had just entered the kitchen of our rented Mississippi home, stumbling along, coming out of sleep. 

And hungover. 

The tears came slowly at first. I stood in front of the sink, trying not to make eye contact. I had held it in for too long, though. When he quietly announced he didn’t feel like going to church, I snapped like an overtightened guitar string. Sobs and shouts and rage came flooding out, all directed toward the man I married half a decade earlier. 

“WE WERE BETTER OFF WITHOUT YOU! WE DON’T NEED YOU ANYMORE! WHY DON’T YOU JUST LEAVE?” I screamed until my vocal cords ached.

My husband had never been a big drinker, but the post-deployment freedoms were catching up to him. He had recently returned from a deployment, and living with a bunch of dudes for several months had changed his habits. It didn’t help he came home to a very well-established routine of everything revolving around three babies and a toddler. I didn’t allow him to enter back into our lives, and I can guess he didn’t really know where he fit anymore. I was unfamiliar. His kids were strangers. His home was overrun with toys, bottles, dirty diapers, burp cloths, and mounds of laundry in various stages of cleanliness. I didn’t allow him space. After all, I ran this ship solo for several months, and I selfishly wanted him to be proud we were all still alive and well. No wonder he needed a few beers!

The first few days, even weeks, after a homecoming are bliss. He’s home! You both, for a short time, go back to dating each other. You’re on your best behavior with one another and possibly even walking on eggshells because you’re still getting to know this semi-unfamiliar person again. The military likes to call this period “reintegration” and it’s a rather good term. Most commands will hand out a packet assuring families of the normalcy of reintegration frustrations. They give you checklists and graphs thinking they will help because PowerPoints and PDFs are all they know. In one sentence they tell you to re-enter slowly, and in the next tell you to spend maximum time with family. Cue the confusion.

No matter which way you spin it, reintegration is hard. There is no formula other than realizing that at some point the ball will drop. Things will come crashing down and nothing will feel easy or comfortable anymore.

I lived for months on end having to do it all alone. He lived for months on end working around the clock hours. After the kids went to bed each night, I watched The Bachelor. He put his headphones on and watched Band of Brothers. I hosted coffee chats and went to a book club once a month. He toured cities and went scuba diving. I got hugs and kisses from our four beautiful children every single day. No one touched him for months.

Our worlds were vastly different. Once he returned home, working to incorporate each other back into our lives was work: awkward, heart-wrenching work. Simple things like letting him take the trash out on garbage day was an easy one! But watching him figure out how to discipline our children again? Navigating his re-entry is no easy task and tears will always be shed. It’s one of the hardest parts of military wife life.

The reintegration process for that particular deployment was extremely difficult and the moments of frustration continued to build, right up until I told him to leave. Let it also be known this is my account of the story and how I processed the situation. My husband certainly saw the whole thing from another angle. To me, this day was monumental in our story, but to him it may have just been a road block. Keeping perspective is key when looking back on these moments. I can say that now. 

So, there we were, me sobbing, and him hungover. We had silently danced around each other for weeks, but the storm had arrived. As I continued screaming, he was inching his way closer. I wanted him to leave and he wanted to close the gap. For a thousand and one reasons this behavior made me want to punch him even more. I don’t know about you, but when I am mad, I want to stay mad and sit in those feelings. I think I will enjoy the self-sabotage and secretly want everyone to notice things aren’t going my way. This is not my husband. He is a fixer. He wants things to be remedied as quickly as possible. He doesn’t storm off in a rage. He calmly diffuses the situation and brings peace. AND DANG IT I CAN’T STAND THAT SOME DAYS! Especially when I am trying to control a situation that feels very out of control - like him not meeting my post-deployment expectations. Our family life was a downright mess and a half, and he wants to hug it out? Watch out.

I shuffled and dodged my way around the kitchen, ignoring crying babies and Baby Einstein. He walked along trying to corner me so he could bring me into his embrace. Eventually, he won. Feeling as if I couldn’t cry anymore tears, I stood rigid in his arms. Nope, I absolutely would not hug him back. (You showed him, Heather.) He is a man of few words, but he said he was sorry and he would work on it. Did we go to church? I have no idea. In my heart I want to be able to say, yes, we did. But I don’t remember. 

It would be weeks, even months, before a sense of normal returned. Reintegration sucks and there is not one way to navigate it. What we learned from this was something I would carry with me.

When he returns home, let him re-enter the family. Give him space to find where he belongs again.

He wasn’t purposefully getting drunk to escape the madness of post-deployment reintegration. He wasn’t intentionally saying no to church to hurt my feelings. He wasn’t doing any of this with an ulterior motive. He simply needed to be welcomed back into our family with grace and loving arms. He needed his role to be solidified and recognized.

We, as wives, can be so busy doing everything ourselves that we might not realize we are shutting him out. You don’t have to do it all anymore. Give him time and space to navigate his way back into the daily routine. And through it all, give and receive grace.