Somewhere along the line it was decided that military spouses are never allowed to complain, even when joking. I’m not sure where this rule comes from, but I find it really ridiculous and very hard to live up to.
The fact of the matter is that no matter how often or how long my husband and I are separated, we are still married. This means that normal married stuff happens, like bickering, fighting, and down right freezing the other out because you are mad. Being separated may make us appreciate what we have, and I do miss his pile of stinky shoes in my entry way when he’s not here, but it still bugs me when he is.
The dirty cammies stinking up the house, the stinky boots and general mess is only endearing for the first few days he’s back. After that, I fully expect my husband to return to living life with a female, not his gross and equally disgusting Marines. And while I never seriously complain about him much because I do respect that there are those who haven’t made it home yet, or at all, I don’t think I should never be allowed to be irritated with my husband.
The reality of the situation is that I’m married to another human being and we share a space together. And to make that more difficult, we spend a lot of time apart. So, coming back together can be bittersweet. One the one hand, I have help and I missed him. On the other, I married the least organized person on earth and he struggles to remember that our home is not the barracks and I do not think the stench is funny.
And I know we all try to be sensitive to each other in this life. All of my friends are in various stages of deployment, separation, reintegration, or waiting to leave again. I know that the smell my husband’s gear emanates is something others would kill to have at the moment. But I don’t fully understand why that means that the normal parts of married life are suddenly not allowed.
Marines are giant pains in the butt to be married to. There aren’t many USMC spouses I know who won’t agree with that. Don’t misunderstand, they are not all bad guys, but there is definitely a reason why they have the highest divorce rate of all military branches (second only to the Navy Seals). So, while I bask in his stench, his mess, and his general trashing of the house the first few days, as the days progress, it’s harder to find dirty cammies causing a permeable stench that will ooze into all of our furniture cute. And it doesn’t come back out which makes it even less so.
I get irked the third or fourth time I find my husband’s socks on the counter. The food spread throughout the house, the mess, the dirty dishes everywhere, and the general disregard for cleanliness or making my life a tad easier, wears my patience pretty thin by days four and five. And that’s ok.
It is ok to get irritated with your husband. It’s ok to fight, it’s ok to be mad at him and it’s ok to not think him being home is a big bed of roses. Or maybe it is. Maybe calling it a bed of roses is the perfect metaphor. Because much like having your husband home again after a separation and trying to get back into your groove with them, a bed of roses looks so beautiful, until you lay on a thorn.
