My husband is the stuff of legend.
He has rugged good looks and a wicked glint in his eye. His hands are strong and capable, becoming increasingly battered by use. His freckles are each one a delight, his tattoos made sexier by the full body of fur over them. My husband is very much a man. His humor is crude and continual, effective and endearing. He can fanagle and fix just about anything we need fanagled or fixed. His artistic skills are awe inspiring, the man can just sit down and draw…anything. He has tremendous patience with our children which balances out his deficit of child proofing skills. He has helped make my dreams come true, one kid at a time.
I could not possibly be more in love with him.
His hard work and dedication to our family are evident in every minute of his absence.
Which is a good thing. Because much like those tremendous folk tales of yore, some days I feel like I know of him only from memories, from stories of his interaction with us.
Anyone else out there have a partner they don’t get enough of? How do you deal with the loneliness and the potential for resenting their extracurriculars? How do you stifle your excitement about them finally coming home so you don’t come across as demanding?
Being perturbed by the person you have missed so dearly because you’ve missed them so dearly is some predicament.
I feel for you. My husband is the same (minus the fixing part) and makes me appreciate how rare a supportive, loving man is.
He travels quite a bit and our first few years together it seemed he was always away. Unfortunately I never really found a way to get over missing him and just began to realize this was our lot in life so we appreciate our time together that much more.
*Sigh*
girl, i feel you. my dude goes on tour for weeks, sometimes months at a time, and when he’s actually home he’s locked up in his office or rehearsal space working from 9am to 2am. just had our 4 year anniversary, and even then he had to leave just after dinner to go work on stuff.
i’m still awful at dealing with it, and even though i try really hard not to seem disappointed, i know i do. i try to keep busy with projects and errands and stuff like that, but the two of us only need so many jars of jam or pickles!!
if you ever want to commiserate or talk about it, email me! hope you are well, can’t wait to see more pictures of baby goat!
I feel you for sure. My hubby is also a tattooer and all the conventions and long days at the shop mean many lonely dinners for one. Even when he is in town and opts to go out with the boys, or sit at the pub solo, for a few pints after work and I don’t see him until I wake up next to him after he crawled in after I went to bed, it’s still tough.
What I remember is that everything he does, he does for our family. He needs his time alone and at his “extracurriculars” so that when he is home, he is relaxed and can do all the wonderful things he does that much better.
He works so hard so he can support me, the perpetual student, and our dreams, like owning a home, which his hard work just allowed us to do.
We have amazing men, who helped us create amazing lives, and sometimes, all we can do is be patient. Afterall, they always come home at some point.
Chin up.
Thank you dears.
Alix – I know. Believe me, I am all for the occasional pint, him getting tattooed, soccer, gym, whatever. He works his tail off so I can have a myriad of farm animals as we are not having more babies. I couldn’t be more thankful. I just miss him, tremendously. It’s mutual, a bit sad you know?
Daft I know to be complaining “oh I love them SO MUCH” and having THAT be my problem. I completely acknowledge how blessed I am!
Thank you the chin up.
xx
Hey you, I’ve been reading your blog for a while but haven’t the courage to comment until now. My boyfriend and I are both in the Navy and he is currently deployed for another four months… so I sure as heck feel you!!! I can’t get enough of him on a daily basis, leaving him in the morning to work for eight hours is more than enough time apart before I generally have a list of things I need to tell him all about saved up in my head, or sometimes even scratched out on a piece of paper (“Things to tell Ry!”)
I honestly believe that the little absences really do make the heart grow fonder. The little things I’ve taken for granted become glaringly apparent, like how he’s always walking around with his guitar and we sing together, or the way he throws his arms open for me to run into EVERYtime I see him, or the kisses to the top of my head when we’re curled up together or even just going for a stroll. Those little things that sometimes get lost in the midst of everyday life.
<3 Really makes you grateful for all you do have when you have it!
I too feel this sting.
We have just made a really hard decision to downsize to a flat in a bigger town instead of our little house and garden in our lovely small town by the sea. I am heartbroken because we have to give up our beloved dog. But, the major deciding point is that my husband can stop working from dusk till dawn and putting his body and mind through such exhaustion.
I find that I vacillate between guilt over his long hours, missing out on family activities etc and the resentment over his lack of energy and empathy when he gets home. I just try really hard to recognize that the resentment is my own, more from my frustration over not being able to heal/energize him. Because I want to be able to say, take a break honey, don’t work so much today. But he does it for us, to provide for us.
There are so many of us that struggle with this. And I think that we are doing the most important thing. We are recognizing that regardless of how sucky it is sometimes, we have awesome husbands who we love with everything we’ve got. We have amazing kids who we do our best for while our husbands aren’t able to be there. Perhaps the emotional details and our actions/reactions aren’t as critical if we can keep up the most important part of it all, loving each other the best that we can.
Oh, and of course a sense of humour doesn’t hurt either.
I hear ya. When you’ve got a great husband (which I think these days is more and more rare) you want to be with him all the time. I try my best to be as supportive and encourganging as I can be and enjoy all the moments when I do get to hang out with him. Mick is a sports writer- loads of time away. We have rediculous cell phone bills and lots of miles on our cars- but we love eachother too much to not make it work.
I long for that kind of love. You ladies are all very lucky.
Hey Ashley. My husband is also very talented and very busy(classic cars won’t rebuild themselves unfortunately!) We have so much going on at home and with the kids I just try to hug him and kiss him every chance I get. We often have to stand back together and look at the big picture and say ” we’re doing our best and we’re doing it together” and enjoy every minute of it. I leave messages in his cooler that he takes to work and little things like that. People may find that cheesey but he likes it. I get up early to spend time with him before he leaves for the day. The only advice I can give is spend your love all over him every chance you get.
I don’t have kids, nor does my husband travel. I just wanted to say hurray for amazing men who we miss no matter where they are, as long as it’s not with us. My husband comes home from work every day at 4:30 and it’s like we’ve been apart for days every time I see him. We’re going on 5 years and I still can’t get enough of him, it still feels like we have only been together for a couple months and want to spend every waking moment with each other. When I read your description of your Scott, it was like you were talking about my Nate, too. We are so lucky to have found people who are so perfect for us!
God, I have this problem, too. It’s so hard not to turn in to a little yip dog every time he comes in the door, like “look what I did! look what the kids did! did you see this! did you see that! can we go do this?!” and on and on.
And I know he works so hard and so long for us, and I can appreciate that he needs time to himself, but my emotional side just wants him to want to be with me.
I have been dealing with this since for nearly a decade now- sometimes it gets easier, most times it just stays hard. I wish I had better advice, shit, any advice.
You forgot to mention his magnificent voice and way with words! OK. I’m not helping now, am I?
I do roller derby so at least a couple of nights a week during the season I am gone until sometimes as late as 11:00 PM. You’d think there would be a respite during the off season but no, I am the co-chair of Recruiting so I am still home from work, changed, then off and running. I told him last season would be my last and instead I am going back for more. I feel incredibly lucky that he supports me (has never missed a single bout) and encourages me. There are girls on my league who are not so lucky. I try to make up for it but it is hard. Fortunately we don’t have kids so that isn’t an issue. ^_-
Quick bit of background: my wife and I were a long-distance couple for four years while I worked and she went to school. We got pretty good at dealing with the loneliness. Now, we’ve been living together for about 12 years. We both work unusual schedules and have non-work activities that aren’t in common. The issues you’re talking about definitely come up. I don’t have any great advice except that it seems to help to confront the issue directly when it pops up (eg. be forthright about the fact that one or the other of us is being pissy because we’re lonely and having the “ships-passing-in-the-night feeling” and not because of any more general discontent). It’s tough. Neither of us wants to ask the other to do less of what they love as individuals, but we’re also protective of the time we do spend together. It’s just about finding and maintaining a good balance and that requires constant readjustment.
Nope, no advice. I’m really not good at dealing with this either. My husband is a pilot and he keep leaving for days or weeks every now and then. I can’t help myself and I’m tough with him out of disapointment, then I feel bad for being a bitch since he’s working hard to support us and he’s doing his best and he’s such a good person. I only wish time will make it easier, but our first kid is only three months old and I miss him twice as much, since I so desperately want to share all the excitment and hard work with him… He left this morning for 6 days again and it feels like it’s gonna be 6 months. I wish I could stop being sad about this and enjoy the time we spend together much more, instead of worrying about the next time he’ll be gone.
The worst part is (this is silly and innapropriate I know) that he’s 20 years older than me and sometimes I’m so scared I’m gonna loose him one day and I’d have to keep going maybe for years without him, and it breaks my heart to think it MIGHT happen, even though we’re not that old and I really should not think about it. But sometimes, when I really miss him, I freak out. Stupid.
I live in Oklahoma and my boyfriend lives in Wales. There really is no way of coping with missing him. I haven’t seen him since May 10th and will more than likely not see him again until September at the earliest or December at the latest.
I hate crawling into bed every night alone and waking up every morning without him beside me but I know that this is only temporary. He is planning on “popping the question” sometime over the Christmas holiday and we will hopefully be married by the end of next summer. The time we spend apart only enforces how much I love him.
It’s both a blessing and a curse to love someone so much but it helps to know that the time you spend apart from them makes them miss you just as much as you miss them.
And as far as stifling my excitment when it comes to being able to talk to him/see him/etc…I DON’T!
Here, here!
We’re in the process of moving to Canada from Ireland and part of it is that myself, my daughter and our bump are seperated from him for 3 months with a 2 week visit in between. It sucks. And I have felt the way you feel when we are together too. Sigh. I wish I had an answer. Pregnancy brain is not allowing me to think!
I really enjoy reading your posts but have not commented until now- because boy, can I relate! When it’s 10 am and I’m napping beside my daughter, I could not be more thankful to my husband for working as hard as he does so I can stay home and raise her. When it’s 12 am and I’m alone with a wide-awake, teething baby because he’s out camping… well, my feelings towards him aren’t quite the same! I know he needs his down time after working so hard but I finally figured out that I do too. I signed up for a goofy dance class once a week with a friend and after just an hour of being around other adults, seeing my good friend and having both hands free without a baby strapped to me or hanging on my boob, I can come home and just be glad to see him, much less resentful and much less likely to talk his ear off. Sounds silly to suggest being away from the person you miss so much, but a little time for just myself has helped make our time together much better. Good luck!
My man and I work opposite schedules currently. It’s coming down to that classic decision of importance: time together or money to make our dreams happen?
I am so so thankful to have him though. Why is it so easy to forget that he’s my soul mate at the end of the day and treat him more like a business partner? I totally relate to the little yip dog comment. It’s like HEY! I haven’t seen you in so long GUESS WHAT…
I love this though, Hayley is right: “The only advice I can give is spend your love all over him every chance you get.”
I know exactly how that goes. Nick works insane hours. He is gone so much of the time. And he takes our only vehicle. When he comes home I feel like a puppy dog following him around, asking for details of his day…trying to catch up on all the things I want to show him, etc…I see the frustration in his eyes at times and it is really hard.
We live and work at the Carnival, and the work days are long. I have the benefit of going out to see him most times if I want, but he is always busy fixing something. I have a thing for the rugged hands too ;}.
But this 7 days a week, 14 hrs a day schedule is killing me.