The Un-Waiting Game

RedLegMeg wrote about The Waiting Game yesterday, the time between the moment the deployment is announced and the day they actually leave.  That's a rough time.

We mentally prepare ourselves for deployment.  We start to think in an independent mindframe, and we try to find the silver lining as best we can.  We come up with all these things we will accomplish when they're gone: next year I'll lose weight because I won't cook as well, I'll make those two quilts I've been talking about for years, I'll read all those books, I'll fly to L.A. to visit my friend, and so on. We convince ourselves that the year will go by fast because we'll be so busy. And then, when he gets home, we'll start a family. Everything will be perfect, because we've convinced ourselves that it's all working out according to plan.

RedLegMeg is struggling with moving goalposts: her husband's date keeps changing.  But how do we deal with the goalposts falling down altogether?

When this blog first started, I wrote about my husband's upcoming deployment.  We had a little over three months to prepare ourselves.  Just like RedLegMeg, we'd PCS and he'd be off.

But that's not what's happening now. My husband found out that his branch switch went through. He originally had made a scratch-my-back deal with his branch manager that she'd let him leave his current branch and take a new slot in Civil Affairs if he took this slot in the deploying unit that no one else wanted. We were all set to do that, when he got word that he's going directly to Civil Affairs training. No more deployment for us.

ArmyWifeToddlerMom always says that when you're on the outside looking in, people think that reintegration is just jumping up and down with a handmade sign and life is all flowers and sausages. But for the people going through it, it's not always that simple. That's how I feel today about this non-deployment. I would never say that making a quilt or reading a book is better than (or even comparable to) having my husband living in the house with me, but I had psyched myself up with all the ways I would get through next year, and it's just strange to turn all those thoughts off all of a sudden.

And the family thing, the family thing is killing me.

I heard my husband tell his mom on the phone the other day that we just had our hearts set on having a baby "like a normal couple." The way he phrased it, "like a normal couple," broke my heart. I want that so bad, and I thought it was within reach. He'd come home from deployment and have time where he was stuck in school and not going anywhere. And we'd be together for the entire pregnancy and birth. Like a normal couple. Unlike nearly every other Army wife I know who has done it alone. We had found a way to control our destiny, if only for a while.

And now, now he starts training a year early. And we're not ready to be parents just yet. Our options have now become 1) go for it before we're ready, or 2) take the chance of doing it apart. I don't like either of those options.

Civil Affairs most likely means more deployments in our future. We're fine with that, but we just wanted to get a leg up on the Army, one last stint of normalcy before he gives his life over to the whims of current events. And I find myself extremely disappointed.

I'm disappointed that my husband isn't deploying. Try explaining that complex emotion to family and friends.

So how do we shut off all the mental preparedness we went through to get ready to be independent?  He was supposed to leave in a month, and I'm having a hard time rewiring my brain.  I'm thrilled he'll be home, but I'm having a hard time with this strange whirlwind of emotions.  I tell people he's not leaving, and they're jumping up and down with an excitement I just haven't mustered yet.

Yep, I'm officially a candidate for "caged animal"...

Comments

[RedLegMeg]

Wow... that's a good question. I actually understand what you're saying. I think I'd feel pretty much the same way. I also think that you'll find your way through these feelings and finally allow yourself to be thrilled that you have him here.

As far as starting a family, I remember that being a tough decision for us, too. Timing was important. However, I have to say that no matter how much we planned for it, when I found out I was actually pregnant, I never felt ready. Never. After each birth, though, it just felt right. Like it was meant to be. Go with your gut and your heart.

[Amy Wolcott]

I understand you completely. My husband is in the Navy and just left for a 7 month IA mission with the Army in Iraq. People were appalled after 4 months of preparing when they asked how I was feeling and I responded with :I'm just ready for him to leave". They don't understand that you mentally prepare yourself for them to be gone to the point where you just want them to go so you can put that preparation into action and deal with it. You are not alone, never forget that.

[Deltasierra]

Boy . . . I think your situation would drive me crazy, too. You love your man, but you have to get on with your life. "Normal" people will never quite understand that feeling. :)

I'd just gotten my husband back from a four-month training at the end of his IET (he was almost two years in IET, wherein I got to live with him for ten months while he attended school), and we had decided just before he came home that we would start a family when he finally was home. We'd already been married almost five and a half years, but we were never financially stable enough to have children. Not that we would be when he got home and resumed a "normal" life, but we were ready to quit waiting.

Not even a month after he got home, he found out he would be mobilizing in a month and a half and would be gone for about sixteen months. We still tried for a baby, so my mental preparations for his deployment had two paths: Pregnant, or not pregnant.

Before he left to mobilize, his civilian job that he had to get in the interim was so crappy, I was ready to *mail* him to Afghanistan. :) I was still pretty independent from being alone during his training, that it was hard to deal with him being there and unhappy about some stupid job when he was about to leave in less than a few weeks.

Then, there was some question as to whether they could even use him over there, and it took a little work by his higher-ups to get him back in the slot. By then, though, *I* was ready to climb the chain of command and demand to whoever made the decision that my husband WAS going, NO question - because *I* couldn't take the stress of their indecision!

Of course, I didn't want him to be gone so soon after coming home as a "normal" Guard member to resume a "normal" life, but our "normal" life was looking like more of the same crappy contract jobs peppered by months of unemployment, just like the four and a half years before he left for boot camp. And I didn't like the possibility that he would just be deployed later, when it was even more inconvenient. If he was going, I wanted him to GO NOW.

To top it all off, I ended up finding out I was pregnant about three weeks after he left for Ft. Sill - but four days after that I miscarried (not looking for sympathy; it's just what happened. I can't believe it's almost been a year, though, since then). I'd been psyching myself up for living a year without him, then suddenly psyching myself up for living a year without him and being *pregnant*, and then, even more suddenly, I would be without him *and* his baby.

Thankfully, I could call him on his cell phone when I needed to at the time, and I got to see him during Christmas exodus. It helped me reorganize myself and try to figure out how to be independent for yet another long period of time without him. I was able to revert to the "not pregnant" mode of thinking I'd had before he left - not that it made it any easier, but there are many things I wouldn't have been able to do, that I'm doing now, had I been pregnant this whole time.

Of course, like always, life will be a huge question mark when he demobilizes and comes home. How long will he get to stay home till his next deployment? Long enough to try for a baby? Long enough to HAVE a baby? Long enough for him to see his baby's first steps?

I guess it's just something we live with every day, as milspouses. We have to count our blessings and move on. :)

Good luck to you in whatever you decide! I'd say "go for the baby, and don't look back", but, of course, it's ultimately up to you. Let's face it: It's the military, and they'll NEVER have their heads on straight. You just have to grab the opportunities where you can get them. :)

[Sarah]

DS, I am so sorry about your miscarriage. That's not something I've ever even thought of having to deal with alone...and I'm so sad that you had to.

You're right: we live like this as milspouses. Like it or not, it's my life...and most days I wouldn't want it any other way.

[Amanda]

I am so glad I am not the only one feeling this often "misunderstood" thoughts. Another area that never ceases to cross my mind is how deploying and not deploying affects my husband emotionally, mentally, and professionally.
We were geographically separated for a year while he did an unaccompanied tour in Korea. Yes, he was not in any immenant danger, but it isn't exactly friendly where he was either, and nonetheless the seperation was the same. And yet, the Army didn't provide any "re-entry counseling or options" like they often do for troops and families after Iraq/Afghan. Also, that doesn't help my husband at all professionally.
Let's face it, in certain Army branches and at certain ranks it is becoming a "must" to have a war ribbon/combat patch on your uniform or your carreer is pretty much at a standstill if not over prematurely. While my we were stationed in Alaska, his units deployment orders got revoked (so I know how you all feel with having to deprogram your mentally prepared selves), and he was told, "NO--we absolutely need you and your skill level here with us." When he asked to be deployed with troops he had readied for deployment.
So, if you count it out, he has "turned away" from deployment 5 times! No lack of wanting on his part, just fate. Which he himself struggled with--not wanting to leave his wife and son, but also wanting to actively participate and carry his share of the burden.
So...if we continue to be "blessed" by not having deployments, is he in the end screwed for promotion and therein, screwed up emotionally because fate bit him in the butt with no doing on his part? it is something that I struggle with everyday. Any thoughts?

[airforcewife]

I think many people quite often take for granted "plans". It's far easier to be emotionally stable if you know what is coming up and are able to prepare for it mentally. It's the sudden about faces after you've already worked out what is going on that kill us emotionally.

Deployments are so hard. But doing the necessary getting ready for a deployment and then having that yanked out is almost harder, because it leaves us without anything to hold onto and no plan. Then we have to scramble and struggle to come up with another plan that probably won't get stuck to, either.

My Grandmother once told me that the secret to her success was making five year plans. She suggested I try it. Five year plans? I can't even plan ahead five MONTHS! Being a military family gives whole new meaning to the term "by the seat of your pants." More than once I've been stuck somewhere with just the pair of pants I was wearing...