Confessions of a Truck Driver's Wife

Truck drivers work long hard hours and are rarely ever home. Their job is filled with plenty of stress as they worry over getting loaded on time, getting the load delivered on time, making sure the load scales out with the right amount of weight in the right places. Tickets are sure to come if the load does not scale out just right. So stress is on them constantly when they are gone.

Now comes the family part. They are rarely home to be a husband and a father. When they are home they are tired and need time to unwind. Well with being gone so long and then when they are home needing to unwind, is sure to bring on lots of fights between them and their spouse. Divorce rates among truck drivers is extremely high. How do I know all this? Because I am a truck driver's wife. Here is my confessions.

I wake up in the mornings reaching for a man that is not there. Now I am resentful and angry because as a wife I should have a warm body to wake up next too. The baby of course is crying. Can't he get the baby just this once? Nope because he is not here. He is not here to deal with the constant crying of the baby. So I must crawl out of bed and do it all by myself yet again.

Time to get two of the kids up for school. I make my way up the stairs for yet another morning of arguments. One child is eager to get up and get ready for school. The other child as always wants to roll over and ignore me. Great, I just know this is going to yet another morning of having to load all four kids up and drive the two oldest to school. I finally get the balking child up and getting dressed.

As I come back down stairs I get to see the damage the baby has done as he has ran free destroying everything in his path. Great why wasn't Daddy watching him while I got the other two up for school? Oh wait that is right my husband is not here. Anger and resentment hit me with full force now.

I put the baby in his car seat and turn the cartoons on. I know it sounds cruel but it is the only way to get maybe five minutes without something being destroyed so I can get something done. He knows how to get out so I can only get five minutes of him sitting still. So I take advantage of the few minutes that I get and work on getting the oldest two kids out the door. If I am lucky they will make it to the bus stop on time and I will not have to drive them to school. On the not so lucky days I have to load four kids up and drive them to school then drive home and try to get the two youngest kids back inside the house.

With the oldest two kids gone to school I am left with the two youngest kids with me. I have a destroyed living room and dining room that need to be cleaned. I don't want to do it because I am once again feeling angry and resentful of being left alone to deal with it all. I need to sit down and write a few articles but the kids are demanding my attention yet again. The house is screaming to be cleaned.

I miss having a housekeeper that kept the house clean for me. When she use to come all I had to do was worry about taking care of the kids and writing articles. Why don't she come anymore? Because my charming truck driver of a husband believes I should be able to do it all by myself. He is never here to see how hard it is to keep up with the house, the kids and writing when no one is here to help.

See when he is home he has me here to help so it does not seem that daunting to him to keep up with it all. He never sees what it is like when it is only one person trying to do it all. I am a married woman but I must do everything like a single mom. During the week I must be Mommy and Daddy to all four kids by myself.

So it was up to me to come up with a way to do all of this on my own. Staring at the mess of a house was overwhelming I felt like there was no way to make it look clean and orderly again. The house demanding attention , the kids demanding attention and of course my writing demanding attention.

What came for all of this was the inspiration behind my one my articles. I had heard several times over from different places what one could accomplish in an hour. So I set to see if it was possible. I could not believe how much I accomplished when I set only an hour to each task. I of course have taken what I had learned and now put to use and wrote the article How-To Use the Power of an Hour.

Divorce has been on the verge more than once throughout our marriage. He was a truck driver when I got with him. He came off the road for three years and while I loved having him home everyday it got hard living on a local salary. I could not work because daycare would have taken my entire paychecks. So I stayed at home while he worked and the bills piled up. He went back to driving truck and the money started coming in. Now the bills are paid but he is gone all week long.

Would I have him come off the road? Never. I know that if he goes back to a local job then the money will not be enough to raise four kids. To keep me grounded and realizing just what must be done, I think of all that the kids would do without if he came off the road. Not only would the kids have to do with out but the bills would fall behind. It is this that keeps me from completely going insane while I am here all alone.

It is not always bad, so don't think that it is. The two of us have really worked hard at finding ways to stay connected with each other and with the kids. He calls me almost constant so we can talk, fight and work through what is bothering us. The older three kids know how to call him on my cell phone so that they can have Daddy anytime they need to talk to him.

Despite how tired he is when he does make it home, he has put forth a great effort to be there for me and the kids. We go and do things together on the weekends, trying to make the most out of what little time we have together. I wrote an article called Keeping a Long Distance Relationship Alive. I wrote on things that my husband I use to help us to stay connected with all the time we have to spend apart. I had hoped that maybe it would help other couples from having to learn the hard way what my husband and I had learned.

When it is time to leave back out I have to make a great effort not to cry. It hurts him when I cry because he hates to walk out that door. He has a job to do and I have to stand by him and let him do it. But no matter how much I know he has to do this for our family and I know that he loves me, No matter how much we continue to find ways to keep the physical distance between us from tearing the emotional distance apart, I still am hit daily with moments of resentfulness and angry over the way things are.

These are my confessions of being a truck driver's wife. I know I am not the only wife to feel the resentment and anger at being left alone while my husband drives a truck across the country. Many truck driver's wives feel the same resentment that I do. Some of these women will go on to divorce their husbands because of it. That is why the divorce rate is so high. Some of these women will stand by their man until the bitter end. I for one will not let these feelings destroy the beautiful relationship I have with my husband.

Would I ever trade my life the way it is for a different life? No I would not. I honestly know that with out my truck driver husband and the four little ones that keep me running ragged, I would not be the person I am today and I love the person that I am. I am a mother, writer and best of all I am a truck driver's wife.