I spoke to Sarah about her experience of being a mother of three young children while her husband was deployed to Afghanistan. As a former military spouse, it was an emotional journey for me as well, to revisit those difficult parts of military life. Below is a part of our conversation. My words are in italic.
Tell me about the recent deployment.
The thing I hate most is people saying, “You're such a supermom.” That title. Because for me, I’m just doing it because I have to do it. There's no one else to help me, there's no one here. I don't feel anywhere close to being a supermom, but if people keep saying it, I feel like I have to reach that title, and I hate that word. The six months of deployment was definitely not what I was expecting.
Was it a surprise when he was sent? How long did you know about the deployment?
We had maybe seven weeks from finding out to when he left. He had to do his training, and then he left. We didn’t even tell the kids until towards the end. We didn't know how to tell them. The first time he was deployed it wasn't that bad. We had one kid, and I was pregnant. So he came for mid tour leave and we had the baby and he left for another four months. It was just different this time around.
Any time I talk to military spouses they say the older the kids are, the harder it is. You would think it was the opposite, but I guess they need their dads more when they’re older?
The reason I wanted to talk about this is that I feel like it's not talked about a lot. People say, “Oh my gosh, your husband is gone, I feel so bad for him, he's doing so much,” but what about me? I don't know, I didn't realize how hard it could be. Morning to night, morning to night, me doing everything. If the house is messy, it wouldn't be clean until i cleaned it. The laundry, if I didn't fold it, it was a mess. Sometimes we would go a week without folding the laundry, and I sometimes I had to do nine loads of laundry in one day.
We've gotten busy and done nine loads in one day too...
At one point I just felt like I was a driver. The kids had activities to go to. Also I felt like I put it on myself too. Trying to keep their schedule busy so then they wouldn't think about daddy so much. We were so busy. He left right before school got out before summer. We were at swim meets, Saturday mornings at five AM, dragging the kids out early just to get a parking spot and a tent spot. Taekwondo, Korean school.
Didn’t you also go on a bunch of road trips?
We went to Canada - Niagara Falls, Virginia beach, Myrtle beach. Three road trips in six months. I just wanted to keep them busy. But it was hard. Sometimes I think, why did I do it, I could have relaxed too. Sometimes I feel like I take on too much. And the thing with my husband coming back, I feel like I could have been a better mom.
People don’t talk about how hard it is when they come back. You've been in charge of everything, and then they come back. They'll come in the next day, and they say, let's do this, or they’ll have a different idea about discipline with the kids, and you think, “Wait a minute, you haven't been here. What are you talking about?”
That's the only thing I’ve heard. Military wives say, good luck with the transition. That’s the hardest. But I found that’s not the hardest. It was hard that it was only me - I had to do everything. Discipline - I had to be good cop and bad cop, and it was overwhelming. Then he comes back, and he has things he needs to do, to adjust, and I would say, I say,”We can't put our lives on hold and wait for you to adjust. It's one of you and four of us!” I know you had it hard. But I had it harder. I know you were in Afghanistan, I know there were bombs, but when you wanted go to work, you went to work. When you wanted to eat, you ate. When you wanted to go the gym, you went. When I wanted to, I had to lug three kids to the gym, and they're all running around.
The whole six months I got a babysitter once. I went out with some friends. I felt so guilty leaving them. What if something happens to me. So I just left early and I came back. My friends would come over here and there. You know those friends who say, "I’ll help you, whatever you need." I have that personality - supermom, I don’t ask for help.
How was all of this for your kids?
They would always be asking, “when is daddy coming home?" We started with one daddy doll, and they would sleep with them. I would go in their rooms at night and it was so heartbreaking. They fought over the daddy dolls, so I had to get two more daddy dolls. I feel like military moms don't talk about their experience. Do they? Do deployed moms talk about it? Maybe they have a support group? I had no one.
I wasn't part of that. I was in grad school when my husband was in Afghanistan. Before that, I was in college when he was in Iraq. We were in Korea together, but that wasn’t a deployment. I didn’t have a lot of military friends. I think there is help, but generally it's just a sense of, you gotta suck it up. I think a lot of spouses have a sort of PTSD, but we can't talk about it.
Maybe thats why I was so busy. Because I didn't want to think about it. Its definitely not just the men who get the PTSD.
I had a serious neurosis about phones when my husband went to Iraq. I couldn't call him at all, and he only had sporadic access to phones. In Afghanistan he had a satellite phone, and he could call more. But in Iraq I didn't know when he would call. He would go on dangerous missions, and I wouldn't hear from him for days. The news would cover deaths of soldiers in his area, and I felt like I was going crazy. If the phone rang, my heart would just start beating fast. It was a serious problem. I still to this day don't like phones ringing.
The kids don't like us fighting. They tell us to apologize to each other. I'm still stressed that he's back. He'll ask me if I'm not happy that he's back, and I tell him that I'm not happy either way.
It's so hard to adjust because you have a routine and then it changes. You're thinking, he could go back. You're guarding yourself to that. Its so hard because you're thinking; I have to have this shell. I have to protect myself. I have to be self sustaining. He comes back, and you say, what can I give him to do, but if you stop doing everything yourself, then you crumble. And there are so many thousands of families going through this. I guess now it's less. But I know families who went through four deployments over six years.
And they have tons of kids. How do they do it?
How do you think they did it? Do you think they just can't be connected to each other?
I don't know. I don't think I could ever do this again.
We had such a hard time, in our marriage. Even before we had kids, with two deployments. The guys, they shut down emotionally. Even if they're back it takes a while for them to really come back.
Thats how i feel right now.
You're the one not here?
Yes. I know I should be thankful I'm not a single mom, because a single mom is going through the same thing. So I would tell myself, just turn it around, don't be depressed. Just be happy you're not single. But then if something happened, I could be a single mom.
When my husband was in Afghanistan, I hated leaving the house or coming back to it. If I hadn't heard from him for a couple days, and I was worried about him, I was so scared that I would come home to a uniformed soldier waiting for me to tell me he had died. Since then I've been told that they don't wait around for you if you're not there. They just come back. But I didn't know that then. It was a horrible thing to have to think about every time I left the house, or heard a doorbell, or find myself checking the parking lot every time I came home.
It was such an emotional roller coaster. At one point, I didn't even want to see people because it was so hard. I didn't want them to worry. I didn't want any recognition. My friends said, 'why don't you go out?' No, I didn't even want to see people. I was so stressed, and tired. I needed a break.
Could you have gone to family for the summer?
I could have but my son had school. He would have missed the end of kindergarten, and then the beginning of first grade. People said we should go for the summertime. I thought about it, but then we’d come back to Virginia, after so much fun, and now we have to go back to our daily routine, but daddy’s not back yet. I felt like it could have been hit or miss. It could have been really hard for him. I didn't want him to be affected in any kind of way.
How would you have liked to be helped?
I guess it would have been helpful for people to see me and say, 'it's really hard.' I just wish my friends could just read my mind and just be there for me more.
People always thought that I was super busy, and I can be busy. Sometimes you just need someone. I'm a first born, so nobody takes care of me. I take care of everybody. But everybody needs to be taken care of sometimes. Especially with the military. I think people are worried about hurting your feelings, starting you off crying. People are careful. Maybe because they know they don't understand, They don't want to broach the subject, but that can be very isolating, especially if you’re a very capable person.
I didn't feel like I could complain. How could I, when he’s in Afghanistan? He said, you could have told me that it was so hard. We could have talked about it. How could I? The signal was always bad. He always called at three, at kid's pick up time. How could I talk, how could I tell you how I felt? What am going to do, complain about the kids to him? Make him worry? I took all the negativity, everything that went bad.
It's almost like there's a pause in your relationship. Your relationship doesn't grow while they’re deployed. It's not a break, he’s still your husband, you see them on the screen, and talk to them, but you can't grow. And thats really painful. Have you two had time to talk?
Not much. The kids are all over him. They like Star Wars, superheroes. Sometimes I say, I guess mom will just go, cause I don't like any of that stuff. You guys don't want to play with dolls? I do all this for you, and daddy comes back, you don't need me anymore. Guys are guys. Boys are boys; they have so much in common.
I’m so sorry you had to go through all of that.
I just tell myself to get over it.
I don't think it works that way. A therapist would never say, it should suddenly be all fine. You’re in that point of transition. But then the problem is that it could happen again.
Thats one thing i do not even want to think about.
Knowing it could happen again, I felt guarded about it. He could go again, so I didn't want to have to get better about it and go through it all again.
The only good thing about it all was that I enjoyed the time with my kids. I always enjoy my time with the kids. It was just hard. I just feel like i could have been better to them while he was gone. Played the roles better.
I’m sure you were great, but I think as mothers you always, no matter what, feel like you could have done better.