Loneliness

I think that the hardest thing that I have had to deal with so far in my husband's chosen career is loneliness.
The day that he told me he would be gone for 3 months, I just sat down and cried.  Before that, we had never even spent a night apart, but now he would be gone every night for 3 months.  It seemed like an eternity.
I don't really remember much about the day he left, but I do remember a night a few days later.  I got in the car and started driving towards work.  I don't remember much about the drive there because I was crying so hard, and such a mess by the time that I got there that my coworkers thought that I had been in a car accident.  I was lucky enough to have a wonderful woman take me aside, and let me just talk about all of my fears, and how quiet the house was.  She told me that eventually I would get to the point where even though I wanted him to be home, I really wouldn't want him sleeping in the bed because I was going to get used to sleeping alone.
Since then, the longest that we have been apart has been 3 weeks, but even then he would only be home for 3 days before he would have to go out again.
When you talk to other people about this, they don't understand.
"Oh, he'll be back in a few weeks."
"Don't you enjoy you're time alone."
"I envy you that time without your spouse."
It can get to the point where you don't want to leave the house because you start to feel like a burden to other people.  You start to feel that if their envying you so much, that they don't want you around.  People must be getting tired of hearing how much you miss him.  I actually spent most of a year locked in the house, only going out once per week to go to the library and grocery store.  The only time I went other places was on his weekends home.  My depression at having him gone was recognized, and then I started making myself visit my parents on his weekends out. 
The loneliness isn't only hard on us, but on our trucker spouses as well.  My husband says that he feels cut-off from the world, and from family life.  He doesn't want to hear what is going on because it makes his loneliness more acute.  If something bad is going on and I am crying over the phone, he can't come over and comfort me.  He wants to talk to people, but doesn't want to call them in case he is interrupting something, but on the other hand no one wants to call him in case he is busy.  I think that in a way, it makes it more lonely for me because I don't want to do something that may make him feel worse then he already does.

I Am a Trucker's Spouse

My husband is a semi-truck driver.  This statement is one that I am very proud to be able to make.
Like many people I was raised not knowing a lot about truck drivers.  I didn't know any truckers, and didn't know enough about my own ignorance to find out more information.  The information I did have was full of errors.  I thought things like only people with criminal records were truckers, or that truckers didn't have college degrees.  I even thought that all truckers were fat, dirty men.  Boy was I wrong!
I met a great guy.  One of his goals in life was to become a semi-truck driver.  He got his B license before we got married, and I thought that was as far as it would go.  A few years into our marriage, he decided to take a course on truck driving, and of course was the top of his class.
I was not a supportive spouse when he started looking for jobs.  I threatened to divorce him if he became a long-haul driver.  I makes me laugh now to think about all of the fights that I tried to start with him about his chosen career path, especially because none of my dire predictions came true.
Since that time, my husband has held a regional job where he had to do his own unloading, held another regional job where he was training other drivers, driven over the road for the same company, and changed to 2 other over the road companies.  He just recently accepted a local route with the company that he has been working for over the last two years.
Over the years, I have talked to other trucker's wives, and have discovered a lot.  There are wives out there like me that are nervous about being a trucker's wife, and then there are those that embrace the idea whole-heartedly.  One thing that I have found to be true of all is that it is nice being able to talk to someone else who understands what it is like being married to a trucker.  This is true whether their spouse is local or over the road.
I wanted to start this blog to try and reach out to other trucker spouses.  If I can share my experiences, and maybe hear about other people's experiences, maybe it can help me to be a better trucker's spouse.