To the lonely mom who's husband works a lot: you're not alone

I’ve struggled with writing something like this for a while. If there’s anything in my life i struggle with the most it would be the loneliness I feel daily and dealing with my husbands work schedule. I feel so much guilt writing this though because I know there are people with no partner at all. Single moms. Widowed moms. Moms who’s husbands are deployed. So me complaining that my husband works a lot just feels wrong. But it hit me today that we all have different life experiences and one persons circumstance shouldn’t make mine any less real or hard. And if I’m struggling with it there must be plenty others who feel the same way so why not offer my encouragement to them?
So here I am. And I’m not going to lie, I don’t have a ton of wisdom for you. I read an article very similar to this recently that was basically tips to survival. I don’t have those tips for you. I just have commiseration and personal experience and I hope that’s at least helpful to one person.
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My husband works a lot. He’s a farmer. I’m sure other farmers wives can relate. I’m sure there are plenty of other women who’s husbands work even longer hours. I go everywhere alone. Every time you see pictures of us at the park or zoo or aquarium, its just me and a toddler. I've had people say "I can't believe you take him there alone!" but honestly its all I've known and if we didn't go places like that just because I had to go alone, then we'd never go anywhere! I think my biggest struggle would be weekends. I’m guilty of looking at Instagram, facebook etc and seeing what seems like every single other family having a family outing. Parks and pumpkin patches and festivals, in the summer it’s beach days and water parks. And I’m sitting at home alone with my toddler like I do every. single. day. of the week. I get bitter. I cry. I basically beg everyone I know to hang out with me and when they have plans of their own it cuts even deeper. It’s just pure loneliness.

And then guess what? I get angry and bitter at my husband and send him long text messages telling him how much I hate how he has to work even on weekends and I just wish we could be a normal family for once. And then my husband who works SO HARD and is just trying to pay our bills and support my amazon shopping problem and put food on the table, comes back with even more frustration because it’s obvious I don’t get how hard he works and don’t appreciate him.

But the thing is, I do. It’s just so hard to see past the loneliness some days.

I want to be the family at the pumpkin patch. I want to be the people eating dinner together as a family at 6pm. But that’s the ONE piece of advice I do have. The comparison thing doesn’t help. You are NOT that family. You’re the family that has random lunches together when he gets a break. You’re the family that gets to ride on the tractor a couple days a week. Or the family that spends one morning watching movies together because it’s raining.

Granted that lunch may be the only meal you have together in weeks and the tractor rides may just be the only time your son has seen his daddy since yesterday. But we’re thinking positive here. 

You’re NOT that weekend family outing family but you are so much more when you ARE together. It’s lonely. It’s isolating. You rely on friends and family to keep you company. You forget there’s a world out there outside of chicken nuggets and paw patrol. You feel like no one else understands because everyone else has this magical “normal” life that you’re missing out on. But if you take ANYTHING else from this one blog post- just know that you’re not alone. You’re not the only one missing out on beach days and pumpkin patches and early family dinners. You’re not the only one who takes your kid(s) EVERYWHERE alone. You’re not the only one.

And every time you want to play the comparison game, try playing the appreciating game instead. “I’m alone right now because my husband works so hard” .. “I’m at this difficult doctor appointment alone but my husband is out in 90 degrees working so that I can buy groceries this week” <3 it’s all about the perspective. And I hope that not only YOU can use that in the future but I hope I can too.
Thank you for listening to my rambling!
-katie