The Breaking Point

Today we reached a breaking point.

First, let me say that I don’t normally blog about all this personal stuff because, quite frankly, it puts me in a very vulnerable position. I mean, I’m supposed to help you, right? Then, I think that if you know you aren’t alone and that other spouses go through the same thing, you’ll share, too, and we’ll all be stronger because we know there are others like us out there.

News flash: I am not perfect. My family is not perfect. This deployment is hard.

Kevin called today. I spoke to him for about 10 minutes, then I went in the other room to get Wrena. She refused to come to the phone. Of course, I rationalized that Daddy just wants to say hi, he only calls once or so per week, please say hi to him.

She didn’t care. She didn’t want to talk to him.

I finally said YOU WILL TALK TO YOUR DADDY (something I shouldn’t have probably said, but gosh, dang it…).

I held the phone to her ear, and as muffled and angry as she could sound, she says, “Hi, Daddy.”

He said hi back and asked her if she was being good.

“No. I’m not.”

He told her to be good for Mama, clean her room, and that he missed her so much.

“Fine.”

He asked her if she was mad at him.

The last two weeks have been a challenge. Wrena, who is normally a very good child has fought me on everything she can think of. I

have heard the child say “no” about three thousand times.

She has thrown temper tantrums and slammed doors.

She even “ran away” recently.

Nothing I say helps. No amount of time I spend with her, conversations I have with her, nothing—nothing helps. I was to the point of a counselor or having her talk to my mom or something to figure out why she was so mad at me. We’d have wonderful days together or she would have days with her friends then cry all evening long it was the “worst day ever.”

I was at a loss.

She recently told me that she wished that I was in Iraq instead of Daddy.

Well, it doesn’t take a genius. She misses her Daddy. Quite frankly, so do I.

So he asks her, “Are you mad at Daddy?”

“No.”

Then, she starts to cry these huge tears. She tells him, “I just want you to come home. I miss you. I want you to come home tomorrow. I’m lonely. I want you to be here to play games with me. I want you to see my new room. I want you to meet my new baby sister.” She continues, “I don’t know why you have to be gone. Daddy, please come home.”

Of course, by this time, I am a complete basket-case. I know he is, too. He’s crying. I’m crying. She’s crying.

Then, he tries to tell her that he can’t come home, but he will be soon and she hands me the phone.

“I don’t want to talk to him anymore.”

Oh, Lord. I didn’t know what to do. She calmed herself down long enough to ask to see him. She told me to tell him she wanted to see him on the webcam. Bless his heart, at 1 a.m. over there, and he got off the phone and went straight to log in.

She got to see him on webcam. She showed him every thing she has ever owned. She kissed him. She shared stuffed animals with him. She typed to him. She blew him kisses.

He watched her and cried. I watched them both and cried. (Who I am kidding? I’m crying writing this.)

For the first time in two weeks (probably longer if I think about it) her attitude completely changed. She was the happy kid I knew again. She got done with him on webcam and kissed him goodnight and gave him a little “I love you” sign. We signed off, and she immediately went and cleaned up her room, ate every bite of her dinner, and asked me to snuggle and read a book. She went to sleep as the timer went off, by herself with no arguments.

We reached a breaking point, but it was just enough to convince me to tell him that everything wasn’t okay. I didn’t want him to worry, so I didn’t tell him I was having such a problem. It was just enough for him to realize that those little moments of webcam and actually “seeing” each other was so much more than a phone call. More than anything, reaching that point and allowing herself to express her saddness and anger to both of us, and that brief moment she got to “see” him was just enough to recover and make it through another week.

We aren’t perfect. We aren’t broken. We’re human.

The thing I realized tonight, especially when he said to me “don’t be sad” as we said goodnight, was how very truly lucky I was to have such a wonderful family and a wonderful husband. Some people don’t even have someone that they can miss as much as I miss him. Some people can’t say that their husband is their best friend and lover.

I am truly lucky, though we are apart, to have what I have. If a breaking point is what we needed, then it was a blessing.