I am often bewildered by people’s Facebook status updates, but one particular variety of announcement used to cause me particular consternation. I’d read comments from my friends like “counting down the hours until my husband returns from California” or “this is THE LAST TIME I’m letting my husband travel for work” and wonder what exactly these husbands were doing around the house that made them so indispensable to their wives. My husband also travels frequently for work, and although I certainly missed him when he was gone, I had never felt desperate enough during his absence to post a sympathy-seeking social media SOS. I was convinced I was missing out on something relatively huge in my domestic arrangement, and I was not amused.
And then along came our second child who met nearly all the features of a high needs baby, and the fog lifted. I remember my husband announcing when Nathan was six weeks old that he would be leaving for his first trip since Nathan was born. I felt like my world was crumbling before my eyes. How was I going to manage bedtime by myself? How would I ever be able to get dinner on the table by 6:00? How many hours of sleep per night would I be forced to forfeit just to keep the sanitation department off my tail? And all of a sudden, I got it. My husband had become my right-hand man. I relied on him in a manner that I hadn’t needed to back in the good ole days when we just had one. I knew that managing without him was now going to be a formidable challenge…and I was right.
I do not wish to declare myself an expert at surviving as a temporarily-single mom. I have had my fair share of days filled with borderline comedic self pity and triple shot nerves, but I have also enjoyed days that fill me with an abundance of gratitude for the remarkable family the Lord has blessed me with. Through the good and the bad, the most valuable lesson I have learned along the way is that most things will actually wait until I get around to doing them. There is precious little that really cannot wait until tomorrow, next week, or sometimes next month. And guess what… even if you do miss a deadline, the world still keeps on turning. So when my husband is away, I give myself a break and try to do whatever I can to be kind to myself. Here’s what that looks like for me.
Planning Ahead
I don’t always get advance notice when my husband has to leave, but when I do, I work like crazy to get my most tedious chores out of the way prior to his departure. I go to the grocery to load up on everything I’ll need for the foreseeable future in an effort to avoid dragging two crazy – and completely unpredictable – kids to the store on a Saturday. Just knowing that I have all my essentials on-hand is very comforting to me.
I try to have most (or all) of the laundry done before he leaves so that I can be sure he has everything he needs to pack and so that my time in the evenings can be spent on something more enjoyable than trying to pair 8 different varieties of almost identical but just different enough to be annoying sports socks.
Mealtime
Meal preparation is probably where I cut myself the most slack when my husband is gone. I revert to my glorious bachelorette days and go one of two ways for dinner: I either heat frozen food up in the oven/microwave or I fix a super-sized one dish meal and plan to eat the leftovers for lunch and/or dinner for a couple of days. If going the frozen route, I will make a pizza, Gardein chicken tenders with Alexia sweet potato fries, or lasagna. If making a big meal, I love to make pasta with meat sauce, macaroni and cheese with squash puree, or a simple soup with just-add-water-mix cornbread. I have even been known to serve this food on paper plates with plasticware which helps reduce the amount of kitchen clean-up I need to tackle after the kids are down.
In the morning, the biggest challenge for me is not actually getting food on the table but getting everything ready to get food on the table: assembling the plastic sippy cups and filling them with milk, water, juice, etc., figuring out which purees and cereal my son is going to eat that morning, and tricking enticing my daughter into eating something besides candy for breakfast. To circumvent these challenges, I spend some time after the kids are asleep getting ready for the morning ahead. I assemble cups, fill them with beverages galore, and have them waiting in the fridge to be called to duty. I place bowls and spoons out on the counter with appropriate cereal and pouches standing at the ready. I try to have muffins made as my daughter thinks they are cupcakes and is therefore highly motivated to eat them. And perhaps most importantly, I have the Keurig coffeemaker preloaded with water, my coffee du jour and mug waiting underneath. Waking up knowing that my kitchen is ready to start the day before I am makes facing the day ahead seem a little less daunting. (I realize that some of you probably do these things every morning as a matter of habit, but I am simply not that awesome.)
Children
I haven’t had good experiences in the past when I told my daughter (who is just starting to grasp the concept of time) in advance that her daddy would be leaving in a few days, so I wait not only until my husband is gone but until my daughter addresses his absence to talk about the fact that he is away. My husband sometimes records short video messages of himself talking to our daughter which really helps ease her anxiety during his absence. Before his last trip, he sent me three videos: one for the morning, one for the evening, and one general purpose. I saved them to my phone and played them daily to my daughter’s delight. When Facetime/Skype or phone calls aren’t an option, this is a great way to make children feel connected to their traveling parent.
Keeping in Contact with Spouse
It goes without saying that every relationship is different, and you have to find your comfort zone when it comes to communicating when your spouse is away. For us, it has worked best that we let go of the unspoken expectation that we will talk every day when my husband is traveling. His schedule simply doesn’t permit it, and frankly, when it does, he often calls at a time that is very challenging for me: during dinner, bedtime, or right as I’m just drifting off to sleep. To keep him informed about what we’re doing, I take lots of pictures documenting our activities…even ones that seem pretty mundane to me. So that I’m not limited to the number of pictures I can send him via text or email, I upload them all to a shared photostream on the cloud. (yes, we are iPhone users.) He loves that he can see what we’ve been up to even if we don’t have the opportunity to talk on the phone that day.
Treat Yo Self!
One of the best survival strategies I’ve discovered to make manning the ship alone more tolerable (and perhaps even enjoyable) is to reward yourself in ways you normally don’t. As if the easy peasy dinners aren’t enough, I also treat myself by climbing into bed early – with a deadline of 10:30 pm – to partake in the most indulgent activity I can imagine in this stage of my life: mindless TV-watching. If you’re like me, you’ve been stockpiling shows on your DVR the way a doomsday prepper hoards distilled rainwater. Well, your husband is away, the remote control is all yours, and it’s time to quench that thirst baby! So what if you fall asleep 10 minutes into the show? It will feel like the most gloriously liberated 10 minutes in your recent memory. Go for it!
On the aforementioned pre-departure trip to the grocery store, I also treat myself to some fresh flowers to brighten the kitchen. Yes, at the end of the day, changing out the water for those suckers is just one more thing I have to check off my to-do list, but looking at them truly does make me happy, so I begrudgingly oblige.
And if all else fails, I recommend chocolate. Chocolate cures all.
Welcoming Spouse Home
Another thing I’ve learned through trial and error is that the way I choose to welcome my husband home makes a big difference in how easily he is able to transition back into life at home. Again, if I were a truly awesome wife, I would probably meet him at the door in a trench coat and high heels, but I am simply not that cool. What I will do, however, is make sure that the kitchen is cleaned up by the time he arrives (usually late evening) and that there is something in the fridge for him to eat. I also wait up for him so that I can hear about his day/travels – even if I am dying to go to bed by the time he gets home. For my husband anyway, just making the effort to ensure that he comes home to a relaxing, tranquil environment and staying awake to greet him in person goes a long way. It’s also a nice touch to welcome him back with a Welcome Home! sign made by the kids.
And in closing, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge the military families who face extended absences as the norm rather than the exception. When I find myself in a state of self-pity during my husband’s travels, I frequently think about the women and men who deal with this kind of separation every day and remember to thank my lucky stars that my husband’s travels have a defined beginning and end date. I take my hats off to the military families whose dates span months and years rather than days and weeks and thank you for the many, many sacrifices you are making for our country.
An excellent read! I love Elizabeth’s style and subtle humor!