I'm a newbie to this forum (been lurking and scoping for a couple of days before joining), but not a newbie to being a truckers wife ...

I'm not sure how this all works yet, but I'll figure it out.

I have a question for y'all, and I hope this will help me to make a concrete decision.

My hubby has been driving for 14 years now (both local and OTR). He's hauled just about every trailer known to man, and gone to places that don't even show up on Mapquest. We've known each other for nearly 10 of those years, and are sneaking up on our fourth wedding anniversary. Of that four years, I think we've seen each other for maybe eight months total. . . that's tough on the nerves, especially with four kids in the mix (two are mine from before).

He's been complaining for years that he wants to get a local job and be home with us every night, but (and here's my dilemma) I worry that if he does that, we'll end up another statistic and get divorced!

I've learned to live with him being home periodically; doing everything a woman is supposed to in running the house and raising the kids while finding time to work full time periodically.

When we talk, and he takes that 'tone' that tells me he's considering turning in notice to the company, I end up blurting out something stupid like, "But we finally have health insurance!" and his tone turns from lonely to angry instantly. Or I'll go the other route when I'm having a bad day, and call him screaming, "Turn in your two weeks notice; I'm not going to be married to a mystery! If I knew I was gonna be doing it all by myself, I wouldn't have married again in the first place!"

He tried the 'local work' scene for about three months, and I thought we were all going to lose our minds! He finally fell apart and went back OTR just to save his own sanity.

Don't get me wrong, I love my driver more than anything in this world, and I love it when he comes home to us . . . but as the old addage goes, "visitors, like fish, start to stink after 3 days" . . . after that three day period, I'm trying to gather up all his dirty laundry, and make sure the truck will actually start, just so he'll take the hint That's pretty bad to say, considering it's his money that pays the bills around here when I'm not working. . . I probably shouldn't look at him as a visitor, but boy doesn he goof up the routine the kids have when he's home! lol

What type of advice can y'all give me on this?

Get professional help ...

Well ... thanks, roses ... that was ... blunt.

Maybe I should have explained that I was a single mother for 6 years before we married; running the house was all I knew, and now that we're married I've got someone who comes in and changes the rules every week ...

Like I said, I love him very much; my whole attitude lifts when I know he's on his way home, I race around making sure he's got all his 'comforts' ready to just kick back and relax.

I do my best to do everything for him while he's home, and still find time to do everything else too ...

Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm just bonkers and don't know what's real, but I do know that I've seen him throw tantrums when things go wrong out there, and before we know it we're moving again, and he's changing jobs.

I feel bad that he's never here to watch his boys grow up, or teach them things ... his truck was broke down in New Mexico during the delivery of our first son together ... he was on the phone with me the whole time, and now feels cheated because of that.

He actually quit his job to make sure he'd be home for the delivery of our second, then after a week of being home with me in C-Section recovery, he lost his mind and went to work in another state!

We know nothing about each other I guess ... maybe that's the problem ...

I can understand where you're coming from. My husband has only been driving a year and a half and I've settled my household into a routine and it feels like things get changed when he's home.
Although I miss him very much I like when he comes home to "visit"
I'm used to having the whole bed to myself, having the remote all to myself also.

It will take some getting used to when he decides to drive local. I think the main thing is that you both get on the same page about things (household, kids discipline etc.) and compromise when you're thoughts differ.

Maybe when he comes home, for example, for 4 days, you "cater" to him the first day. Then you ease him into the routine the next 3 days. (with his involvement in decisions of course)
Just a suggestion of course.
I'll be dealing with this probably within the nest 6 months - 1 yr.
I wish us luck!

Jypzi I wasn't trying to hurt your feelings but seriously ... the best help you'll get is from a professional who will be neutral in this situation ... I was once where your at right now (many years ago) and if we would of got professional help we might still be together today ... as a single woman for many years it would be very hard for me to let someone walk into my life and start telling me what to do and trying to change the rules of the house. It sounds like the two of you didnt' discuss the 'rules' of the family before marriage or come to a common ground on them. That's the reason for Professional help ...... Again, it wasn't my intention to hurt your feelings.

:roll: .... If you love this man .... do everything in your power to make it work. Good men are hard to come by now days. Again ... I'm not trying to hurt your feelings but you did ask total strangers for help ... and opinions.

Jypzi,

Well Hello and welcome,

Nice to have another Truckers Wife,

My husband just last night, well he woke up this morning and told me this dream he had, It's clean enough to share, So we were all fishing as a family and along comes a woman and her children to fish. We the lady and I get to talking and she says " Fishing sure beats talking on truckers site. She was a trucker's wife Too."

Ok to that was funny and I laughed, ice breaker I hope. Not sure where you are from and what activities you and you kids enjoy but maybe try fishing. I am a lucky angler myself, I neither bait my own hooks or get the fish off when I get one. My boys take care of all that for me. But I am quite lucky when it comes to fishing, they must like me or have an unhealthy death wish. We catch and release so not a lot of mess.

Unfortunately I wont be commenting on your situation, Who am I to tell you how to run your life or your marriage. Read some old posts as this subject matter is common and has been covered. We all have opinions and advice that generaly stays the same.

As far as the internet and message boards take all with a grain of salt, which I am sure you already do so. Make your decision that is right for your family and marriage to be healthy and whole.

God Bless
TW

Roses, I want to apologize to you; I believe I was having a bad day and took everything personally -- even when my daughter asked me when I was going to go get my hair cut again ... I went back to bed. lol

Wyve, That was a great story. We live in Wisconsin, and while we love being outdoors -- I can barely see over the snowbanks into my front yard right now, so we (the kids and I) play a lot of board games, video games, and computer games right now.

My husband loves to go fishing, and we live minutes away from the Wisconsin River, so I believe once the snow melts we'll all be down there casting lines. He's finally got his days off screwed up so he will be home on weekends now.

He and I have had some good conversations in the past couple of days (nothing better to do when he's got a night driving schedule, but is sitting in a hotel room due to breakdown), and we've come to the agreement that we both need to work on some things together.

This coming weekend, he and I have planned a family trip up to Green Bay; he goes there nearly every day on his runs and he wants to show us around a bit on an entertainment scale. I am looking forward to it very much.

Alone;

I am sorry, I didn't scroll far enough up and see your message! oops!

We've done the local thing ... home every night, and he's crabby because of traffic, etc. I like the schedule he's got now, gone 5 days, home 2 ... although he says that's not enough.

Although I do the condensed version of this for the two days, I usually find myself catering to him the entire time he's home! lol -- maybe that's just my upbringing sneaking out or something, I don't know.

He'll surprise me on occasion -- like one time he arrived home a day early, snuck in the house (though how that happened in that noisy semi, I'll never know), and when he woke me up -- it scared the crap outta me -- and once my eyes got focused, all I could see was a huge bouquet of wildflowers, and his gravelly voice saying, "honey, I'm home!"

It's those moments that I live for, even though they're stretched quite far apart.

I find myself getting resentful of his 'inattentions' sometimes, after I do things like scrub his back in the shower, or give him a heavy duty back massage ... then get nothing in return ... but I'm slowly learning to live with the little 'pleasures', like not having to battle with our little ones to go to bed for two days, or not having to shovel the snow off the porch either.

LOL

I will admit I'm easily amused, and for the most part we do well with his schedule -- beware the extended absences -- we just got out of a job situation like that; he was promised "Out for three weeks, home 4 days" ... it ended up he was gone for well over a month, and he had to fight just to get two days off! That lasted for just over six months, and he walked away from it.

Best of luck with your driver! My mother always said being a truck driver's wife is the hardest job in the world . . . but we never take our men for granted!

I have only been Married to my wife since 1979 so i am kinda new at this..1 or 2 things come to mind.. You love him or you don't if you do you will have to make it work out..

Being a Wife and a mother is hard work.. I understand the children are yours before the marrage is this some how making it harder on you? Is he as far as you are concerned interfearing with your childern up bringing? there are so many questions you need to ask yourself and be honest about them.

I am in no way trying to put blame on anyone here..

I just know honesty has worked for me and the wife.. in 1980 she wanted me home more she had a daughter from a previous marrage.. I was honest and she was to me about her daughter.. I adopted her daughter we had 3 other kids bang bang bang right in a row.. I did the local thing for 20 years. about 5 years ago i went back to otr. she went with me for about 2 years then she got sick.. So local again i went... Now she is better and once again i am going back to OTR she is staying home.

I can tell you this if me being OTR starts to intrude on my marrage i will leave it and flip bugers. What ever she wants is what i will do.. All i can tell you is my love for her is real. All that matters to me is her happiness nothing else..

A marrage is hard work and takes much sacrifice.. If you still have doubts after you read this i would get help talk to clergy and professonals.. Please excuse the typos..