peace and quiet

I kicked my husband out of the house the other night.

After almost five years of marriage, two combat deployments and another coming up soon, two national training center rotations and another within weeks, countless field training exercises, calls away from home in the middle of the night, two kids, two cats, dealing with friends who have been killed or wounded in action, dealing with in laws and friends who don’t understand our lifestyle, and missed holidays, I FINALLY kicked him out.



He had it coming. I mean, he comes home at the end of a long work day and tends to me and the kids with whatever we need. After helping with and sometimes completely making dinner, he puts the kids to bed, and then picks up the house if I haven’t already. Some nights, he even surprises me with flowers for no reason. Don’t even get me started on how dedicated he is to his soldier’s on top of his family. He constantly goes out of his way for them, and it doesn’t matter if they were an old soldier or a new one! He never puts himself first, and I had enough of it!

Don’t worry readers, I kicked him out just for the weekend. He needed it, and I’m honestly surprised I didn’t do it sooner. He has constantly been going and going like the energizer bunny, with no rest. He’s either being a top notch father or a top notch leader. He NEVER puts himself first unless he’s forced to. I’m sure many of your husbands are the same as well. Lately, I can tell the exhaustion was getting to him and I felt that he needed a “time out.” So, I told him that I loved him, but he was going to a hotel room for the weekend. At first, he wasn’t so thrilled, but he warmed up to it by the time Friday evening rolled around and he had been busy at work all day.

For once he got COMPLETE quiet. No kids to wrangle and no problems to solve at work for 24hrs! I made him leave his cell phone with me after promising that I would call him if he was needed. He got to just lay in bed and be completely bored for once. He slept from 9pm until 1230pm the next day and the only reason why he got up at that point was because he was hungry. The peace and quiet did wonders for him and he is in such a better mood than he has been in a long time.

In our marriage, most of the time the two if us are so consumed with finding chances to give me, the spouse, a break from our hectic and unpredictable life, that we forget that he, the soldier, needs a break as well. It was nice to put him first and make him take a time out and get the rest he needed. We have decided that we are going to send him away every few months now as the budget allows.

What kind of things do you do to assure your soldier is getting the rest he needs?