Living with a Stranger

My husband’s job usually takes him away for 2-5 nights a week at least three weeks out of every month.  The most common and predicable schedule around my house includes him being gone Tuesday-Thursday. The weeks that he is gone Tuesday-Thursday are considered "normal" around here.  I know what you’re thinking, “I could never do that!” “I’d miss my husband too much!” “I would die without my husband’s help with the kids/house/cleaning, etc…”  However, I must admit that the "normal" around my house is kind of nice.  My daughter and I fill our Tuesdays with after school playdates, Wednesdays we go to dance class and, by Thursday evening, he is usually home.  I don't even have time to notice he is gone, let alone miss him.  We don't cry in parting, we don't Skype, (heck, sometimes we don't even talk besides through text or email), and I certainly don't miss intimacy because I'm too tired to even think about doing any kind of extra-curricular activity anyway.

Of course the weeks that he is gone Sunday-Thursday or Monday-Friday are a little rough.  However, if you're thinking that on those weeks we definitely have tearful goodbyes, Skype sessions and long talks bemoaning being apart, you're simply fooling yourself.  No, those are the weeks when I operate in survival mode.  Instead of fawning over my missing spouse, I have resorted to Chick-Fil-A for dinner at least one night, found some sort of children’s programming to ensure at least one hour of silence and, more often than not, (especially if The Bachelor is not on), have gone to bed at the same time as my four year old.  Survival mode doesn't necessarily make me sad, but it certainly makes for a long week.

After his longer trips away, I've found that the hardest, saddest part isn't when my husband is gone.  Nope.  It's when he returns.  Imagine five days on a somewhat regular basis without seeing someone who is supposed to be your closest partner in crime.  Instead of feeling rejuvenated in the relationship when he returns, I find we experience what I call "Stranger Syndrome".  Suddenly, this person who I think I know inside and out seems almost foreign to me.  I feel shy about seeing him and I feel nervous about how I look to him.  Have I changed?  Does he still think I look pretty?  Does he mind that he only sees me in sweatpants????  Besides these self-conscience thoughts, I also wonder if the house is clean enough, if our daughter will willingly go to him after WAY too much Mommy-time and then I think, *gasp* "WTH do you mean I have to share my bed with him?!?!"  I can only imagine he goes through a culture shock as well.  After all, he has just had four undisturbed restful nights of sleep, room service and/or meals out at restaurants and been living in a place where someone cleans your room and makes your bed every day and then he comes home to a stressed out, frantic wife, a daughter who may or may not like him at that moment and an empty refrigerator. 

"Stranger Syndrome" goes past the initial return too.  I find that we have to acclimate to one another all over again.  Depending on the week, he might fall asleep at 8pm or stay up until 10 or later.  While I have to decide if a particular night is "ice cream worthy" or not.  The idea of going to bed at the same time doesn’t even occur to us unless we find that we’ve met in the bathroom for simultaneous tooth-brushing.  Some nights when he is home, I still find us spending our evenings on different floors of the house, unable to bring together our two separate worlds.  Family dinners can be a challenge because I find myself not knowing what to make for him anymore.  I wonder, “Did he eat this while he was gone?”, “Does he prefer TGIFridy’s BBQ chicken to mine?”, and "How can I possibly compete with the dining experience he gets at The Tilted Kilt Restaurant?", otherwise known as the Scottish Hooters where the women serve in bikini tops and kilts? 

Truth is, I can’t give him the things he gets while he is away.  I can’t give him room service and command over the remote in bed.  I can’t give him undisturbed sleep or silence because the constant sound of little feet runs rampant in our house.  Heck, I can’t even give him dinner in a bikini and a kilt because…well, I guess I could, but…maybe we will leave that one alone for now.  I know can’t give him a lot of things, so I try to focus on what I can give him: Family, a home, companionship, a friendly ear, and most of all, my love.  Yes, I can give him a return into my open, loving arms, even if they are the arms of a stranger.