You may remember I asked anyone with questions to please send them my way so I can put more topics up that you readers are interested in.

Ree and her husband come from a similar pre-hire history as my hubby and I did. Except they took it a step further and uprooted while he went to school. Wow, impressive commitment there you two.

Ree asks: My question to anyone out there who knows how hard it is to get into this career is, How do you stay positive and encouraging for your mate as they pursue this dream? Trust me, I want this as much as he does. How can I help?

Well I can tell you that it’s not easy all the time. In fact in that last year before he got hired I was at the point that we were going to have to rethink the whole thing. He wasn’t moving up in his company because he knew he wanted out and they didn’t want to put the money into training and classes because they were aware that he was trying to get hired on with a fire dept. It was hurting us financially. But mostly it was so hard to see him get the rejections. It took a good while for him to get hired on. He’s not a tester so his scores weren’t really high. Even though the physical testing he would max out.

There were times he was totally dejected and I had to step in and push him. A test would be coming up and he would put off studying. Working full-time and OT, then trying to study while having little one’s wanting your attention is a lot. Some days I’d have to guilt him into studying. I had to remind him how much he wanted this and how much more time he’d have to be with the kids once he got on.

In our case he had already been a volunteer for quite a few years. So I also could remind him that he wouldn’t be on standby once he got hired on. (our dept was merging by this time and volunteers rarely got to make the calls) I’d remind him when he got home from drill every Wed. night and would vent, that once he was hired on it would be so awesome to be drilling with others that were totally committed to the fire service and not have to work 8-10 hours, commute 2 hours and then run to drill after.

Because hubby isn’t a very good tester I almost went and took the test with him once. He was running out of ideas on how to get better at testing and he thought that maybe if I took the test then I’d be able to help him study better. I told him I would, but that he knew I am a good tester so what if I made the list? LOL I told him I thought that would be worse for his self esteem, but I was ready to do it if needed.

Just like once they do get hired, listening is the magic. He’s going to need to vent about the process and if he doesn’t have others in his life that are also testing then you’ll be it for him. Listening and just understanding and maybe not even saying anything. I luckily was the one getting the mail most of the time then so I’d call and let him know we’d gotten a letter and try to keep that excitement up that this one was going to be the one! Because eventually it will be.

Anyone else have some words of wisdom from your experience that you can pass on to Ree?

I’ve texted and said “it’s ok” so many times today I guess I hoped I’d believe it. Hubby couldn’t get today off. It was full before he even got a chance to pick. Weird, it’s not spring break and the funny thing is he actually got all of our spring break off. There’s nothing that special to most people about the day after tax day.

It’s our 16th anniversary and I spent it with the kids. Not only with the kids, but with constantly bickering kids that I was too worn out emotionally to make go to bed at a decent time. Or did I just not want to be alone? I don’t know, I just know I’m emotionally beat now and it’s well past my bedtime.

I was busy enough all day that it really wasn’t too bad. He used to work during the day for most of our anniversaries so that’s no different. I had to get all the furniture out of the house because of course, our new stuff was getting delivered. Super exciting and I’m blogging from the new couch right now. lol This was after working a bit this morning. Then take kids to grocery store cause I didn’t want to think about dinner. At store I didn’t even get something for myself, nothing sounded good. Very easy to not think with how much there was to do.

It must have been after 5 by that point because that’s when it was starting to hit. No matter how much I pretend or try to push it aside it just sucks to be spending our anniversary alone. I know there is nothing that could be done about it without him calling in sick or coming home sick. He’d thought about it as he didn’t want to spend our anniversary apart either. But both of us are horrible liars so I’m glad he didn’t do it.

I’m just not up to putting up a brave front and I’ll let him know it sucked. I’m sure he wants to hear it and it won’t make him feel guilty. Some things we just don’t have control over and this probably won’t be the last time it happens. But letting him know I hated it makes me less indifferent. If I pretend it’s all ok then what if he really hated it and I’m coming across as it’s no big deal? Sure wouldn’t make him feel good about our relationship or himself if I don’t tell him my true feelings about it.

I set this to post in the morning as I don’t like to blog saying he’s not home. This hits my twitter account upon posting. The loneliness doesn’t usually hit me so hard that I notice. I do realize it’s there even though I do ignore it. (whole other post should go with that) But right now I’m feeling that loneliness of being a firefighter’s wife that is talked about so much. I’m smack dab in the middle of it.

Tonight there is no way I can sleep without taking the ambien. I want to have breakfast made when he gets home so I do have to get up in the morning and really should be in bed already. Ugh, it’s so tempting to sleep on the couch tonight. Feeling like a big baby tonight and I don’t care.