Army Wife Reality

Tonight I did an earlier blog about how much fun Joe, myself and the boys had tonight dancing and singing and laughing to "Ain't No Mountain High Enough". I felt on top of the world. Until now.....
It has become painfully aware to me this week that the husband I had before his deployment to Iraq no longer exists. He has been replaced by a man I feel I know nothing about. I deleted my post from earlier simply because after the way things progressed tonight, my fun time earlier now seems a mirage. I am sitting here in tears while my heart breaks. I don't know where to go for help or whom to turn to or how to get my husband back.

I know that I can not imagine the life he led while in Iraq last year. That is something he has never mentioned to me or is ever willing to talk about. I cried for him every day he was gone and focused on the day he would return to get me through each day. I couldn't wait to see him. When the day came for him to come home, my heart was joyous. Until...he stepped off the plane and didn't look at me the way he did when he left. He barely hugged me and in pictures upon his return he isn't even smiling. I was so excited to have him home I looked past that. I looked past the fact that once home he wasn't affectionate to me when all I wanted to do was be holding his hand or hugging him or giving him kisses yet he was distant. It wasn't at all the happy homecoming that is often portrayed on the news or in those cute tearjerker videos on youtube like I was expecting. The reality isn't sunshine and rainbows. Not even close.
This Is My Husband Telling Me Goodbye and Promising To Come Home
This Is My Husband When He Arrived Back Home

Increasing over the last several months, I've seen even less resemblence of the man he was before he left. He is withdrawn and quiet. He isn't affectionate. He is short tempered. His normal tone of voice most of the time is now yelling at anything the boys or even the dog does that annoys him. I try to talk to him and I become the bad guy and I get attitude and rudeness. The man who used to never go to sleep unless I was in his arms now gets into bed and has his back to me. The father that used to play and wrestle and cuddle his sons now ignores them and doesn't tuck them in and stays on them for everything to the point they are nervous around him. Landon has even told him he wants him to go back to Iraq.

My heart is broken. My fear is strong. I miss the man I married. I fear for who he has become and what is to become of us. I am clueless how to get through to him or get him to open up to me. I am lonely and worried. I don't know where to turn for help or support. I know in my heart that if something or someone does not step in to help us, our marriage will fail. I have tried numerous times to contact my husband's commander to seek some sort of help or counseling but he has since been too busy to return my calls. I just don't know what to do.

Part of me is so angry at the army. They take these soldiers and give them months and years of training and preparations to go off to war. Then they take them from their families and ship them off to war and to things I could never imagine. Until it's time to bring them home. Then they just drop them off at the nearest runway and leave them on their own to cope with all they have just endured in a war torn country. What about preparing them to be home again? How fair is it to just send them home and don't address the issues they may be facing or the things they have seen? It's not fair to the families or to the soldiers who have lived it.

I am so thankful for the men and women in our armed forces but I am not happy with how the system is set up that they come home with no preparation and no counseling. They come home totally different people. They come home strangers to those who love them most.

I am now married to a man I no longer know. I feel like we are a headache and burden to him. I feel as if he no longer loves me. I used to be able to see myself in his eyes and now I see nothing. My boys who couldn't wait for daddy to come home now just want to send him away. NO ONE PREPARED US FOR THIS!!!! NO ONE TOLD ME THEY WERE GOING TO TURN MY JOE INTO A BITTER, ANGRY, DISTANT PERSON!!!

How is this fair to any of us? How can I explain the situation to my 3 and 4 year old sons when they ask me why is daddy mad all the time or why is daddy yelling at us all the time. What do I tell myself when I wonder if my husband loves me anymore. What do I do when I am lonely and I have no husband to turn to? None of my friends will understand...they are not military wives. It's a entire different life than they know or can even relate to. How can I get my husband to see the change in him and what it is doing to our family? How do I convience him to get help?

I am scared to death I may never see my husband be the man he was before Iraq. I thought having him deployed was going to be the worst time of my life but I was wrong. Having someone home that looks like him but acts nothing like him is much worse. I just want my husband back. The man I married. Why did this have to happen? Why did he have to go? It's ruined our life. WHAT TO I DO?