I’m actually not even sure where to begin this post. Let’s start with I am the wife of a First Responder, and I have never felt more joy and pride inside myself to call such a person my own. He doesn’t care for praise or people knowing his occupation, but I do nothing but praise what he does. My second go-to statement is…it’s hard to be a First Responder’s wife, and I haven’t even been doing it that long. I watch the man I love more than anything fight to protect other people’s loved ones while there is a war against police officers happening. That’s hard to watch for him, but it’s also hard for me. I married the buffer between good and evil.
My day-to-day job can be hard, but my occupation as a first responder’s wife is the most challenging. I call it an occupation because that is exactly what it is, except this occupation is 24/7, no nights off, no weekends, and no holidays…not even a little PTO.
It’s funny that even on their days off they aren’t “off”. He spends his time watching every crowd we are in, every car that drives by, and it’s funny after our 4 years of being together I find myself doing the same a lot of the time. I know my place anytime we are in public and that’s with my back to everyone so that his isn’t. I don’t mind because that means in between sweeps of the room his eyes are in my direction. They’re on me, protecting me and everyone else in the room that isn’t prepared to respond to what no one wants to think about. I’d take that over the guy who always chooses the seat that faces the television with whatever sport happens to be on at the time.
Now don’t get me wrong I have nothing but pride inside of me to be married to the guy who would lay his life down for myself, or for your loved ones. But, it doesn’t mean that it’s not extra work for us as a couple. When we were dating and engaged I couldn’t wait to live together once we got married…in my mind, that meant it would make his schedule easier. Yeah he still worked nights, or he would go over his 4th overtime for the week, but he was coming home to me. That’s all still true, and I somehow actually find it harder. Before we got married, I lived with others so when he was working late or on nights, I was never alone… I had my roommate and then later on when I moved back home I had my family. I find it now incredibly lonely and being lonely is not my personality. I’m not good at it, being alone that is. Some people thrive when they get their alone time while I slip into a dragging slump (hence why I thought I could make blogging my hobby). We haven’t been married long and I know other first responder’s wives are probably well past this stage, but I’m trying to learn. I’m trying to find more hobbies to fill my days. I’m trying to work on my self-love and care so that I can feel loved during the times when I feel like I haven’t ACTUALLY seen him in a week.
The other thing I struggle with is I often complain about his lack of showing emotion or expressing his feelings. But the more I think about it I admire how he can control it. His eyes have seen worse things than I could probably even imagine, and he comes home and doesn’t let it affect the time that we spend together. Me on the other hand when I let my emotions get to me my personality is off for at least 5 hours, HA! I admire this man so much.
I open up about this, because I find myself looking for articles from other first responder’s wives. Just exploring what they do in their free time (the ones who don’t have kids that is), what special tricks they have to make sure they get in their one on one time, but also have enough time to spend with friends and family. I laugh thinking about when Jordan and I had first started dating he told me “it takes an incredibly strong woman to be married to a police officer, but I think you’re that person”. He wasn’t wrong. I am strong, all of us are, and it’s nice to hear that we all go through the same thing. It’s nice to hear the ways others “handle” it. It’s nice to have found the sisterhood within the brotherhood he has. Are any of you first responder’s wives?