Words with Moms

It’s been 7 years since I’ve sat on this computer and written for Words with Moms. So much has changed. I have changed so much. And yet, so much has stayed the same. The biggest change? My perspectives. I wish I could say that has changed little by little over the past 7 years, but in reality I was stuck in the same mindset for so many of them. So much anxiety, worry that I’ve been doing everything wrong, trying my hardest every day to feel a sense of failure at the end of most of them, wondering how on Earth could I possibly deserve a love like my husband’s and even my children’s. I had a constant ache in my heart put there by myself and my inner thoughts. 

My husband serves in the military and I’ve always felt lucky that he’s never had to deploy. Until, the military decided to take him from me for a year, which turned into a year and a half. If you know me and my family, you know that I am absolutely obsessed with my husband. The love we have is something I’ve forever cherished, and up until recently, I took advantage of.

Being alone is not something I do well. I feel every single tether of my heart slowly and painfully break when I am alone. My husband has never made me feel alone, not once since our lives have come together. When I was quite frankly forced to be without him for a year my heart took it quite hard. Now, we both knew we could do this. We knew our love was a foundation that could not be broken by the earthquake coming our way. So, I did all I could do, I took a deep shaky breath, and lived life and mothered our two boys with my husband thousands of miles away from me with a few too short visits in between. I took a lot of deep shaky breaths that were accompanied by many many tears. Being away from your person is not for the weak, and there were so many days that I definitely felt like one of the weak.

We did it though. Many people warned us that when our family was able to come back together it would be hard. 

“You and your boys will have your own routines, and your husband coming home can cause some tension in the home. Just prepare for it.”

This was not something that worried me. I knew that the only person in the world who could even ease any tension within me, was my husband so that would not be a problem for us. What I did not expect though, was to in the end, be thankful for the time apart from him. 

Let’s go back to 7 years ago up until 2023. I was a young girl in my 20s who took advantage of my happy marriage. My husband spoils me and I have known it since the beginning. If he had to work late? Oh, I was just miserable to be around when he came home. Parenting our children was a challenge at times, not all the time but when I was forced to parent my children without my husband’s help every single day I quickly realized who cohesive our parenting really is together.

So, I am truly thankful for our time apart. It taught me the timeless value of our family. We simply do not work without one another. It’s given me the beautiful  true appreciation of my husband and our love. When he works late, I am just thankful to be sharing a home with him again. When he parents our boys, I stand back in awe at the wonderful father our boys have. We’ve never been a more cohesive unit and I am thankful. I recognize and know that I deserve his love and that I am a wonderful mother to our boys, I am thankful. So much was given to me behind the scenes during the hardest times in our family’s life, and I am thankful.

Embrace the hard, because you’ll be thankful for it one day. You may not see it through your tears and shaky breaths, but I promise you that your new perspectives will show you everything you’ve been missing through them. You’ve got this, mama. 

Blog Written by

Cailyn Tuller