It is Friday evening, 17:00 hours. What am I doing? Cooking. What do I want to be doing? Sleeping. No, scratch that, I want to be sitting next to the fire pit on this cold crisp night, sipping on a glass of Shiraz. Instead I am in the kitchen preparing a meal for the last three hours for our multiple children, and soon my husband will walk through those doors with minuscule appreciation for my cooking abilities and create a mess like a toddler. He has become The Home Front Husband. The one that has no idea how to function as a civilian, and proudly wears that post-military beard because, he has suffered more these last five deployments than most do in a life-time. He is a highly honored and decorated soldier who has had his entire career controlled by the military. The concept of freedom makes no sense to him, including the freedom of doing dishes. Since he has retired from the military, I decided it was finally time I took care of my needs. Little did I realize how exhausting being a mother of three young children, working forty hours a week and attending a well-known University full time would be. Now I have a husband who needs my love and support from sun up to sun down because of physical and mental challenges. So why do I find myself so frustrated with him over something simple like the dishes, they are just dishes after all, right?

To me they are not just dishes, they are items used to support the weight of nourishment for his body. When I see the dirty dishes, I see the hours spent trying to figure out what to cook so my husband will actually eat something substantial, rather than Oreo's. I see the scraps of meticulously prepped food, devoured with no appreciation for the love that was put into it. It is as if my hard work is no big deal to him. He eats and then hands the plate over to me, practically shoving it into my face in a chauvinistic manner, expecting me to put my plate down in order to cater to him. This is not the behavior my husband used to have. Post-Traumatic Stress has not only caused my husband to suffer in unimaginable ways, but it has also stripped my husband right under my fingertips. I recently read an article about PTSD and it has been stuck in my mind ever since. It says, “Long term intimate relationships often involve a number of collective responsibilities, such as meeting financial obligations and completing housework. One potential cause of distress in veterans’ is the reduced ability to fulfill such responsibilities” (LaMotte, Taft, Reardon, Miller, 2015, pg.8, para.4). This specific line reminded me of the challenges all Home Front Husbands face, and how dare I act in such a selfish way that I genuinely get upset over his inability to help me around the house.

Sure, he looks pretty normal on the outside. People look at him and see an insecure man with a limp and a stutter when he speaks, a man who wears hearing aids yet looks no older than twenty-five. I see a man who whimpers and cries while he sleeps, a man in so much pain that simply walking practically brings him to his knees. I see a man who has had to make life or death decisions that could greatly affect another. Thus I find myself selfishly feeling like I have the care-giver burden, “which refers to caregivers’ perceptions that their emotional or physical health, social life, or financial status are affected by their caring for an impaired relative” (Zarit, & Todd, 1986). That is why I am frustrated because, I am stretched in every direction. Yet I still have the expectation that a man who can willingly sacrifice his life for his country, can somehow find the ability to wash simple, annoying, disgusting dishes.

One might think that asking your Home Front Husband politely to wash the dishes is the solution to end all, it is not. If you are a military wife, then you know how it goes. The men have their manly duties and the women have their womanly duties. Gender placement has worked for thousands of years and in most cases it just makes sense. “Most married couples develop a shared understanding of who does what in their relationship. It is sometimes an unspoken recognition of an inevitable division of labor, and responsibilities” (2013, Neuman, para.11). Then there comes a point in life however, when a Home Front Husband should be more than capable of sharing the same duties as his wife, and this is when asking him to do the dishes becomes more of a challenge than an actual chore. Currently, chores to my husband are labor intensive, which is probably why he hands his finished plate over to me. So the times I do tell him to take care of his own plate, I watch him painfully try to stand, which in turn erases any pleasure he has had on his face originally. I feel guilty watching him walk around, grinding his teeth to help ease the pain. What kind of wife must I be if I force him to do dishes? I have no disabilities, or difficulties, and it is my responsibility to come up with a solution.

At one point I thought about paper plates. Originally it was a great idea and one that seemed to be a simple solution. Then my grocery bills got more expensive, and as most military families know, you have to penny pinch. Not only did the bills get higher, the trash piled up and I realized that most of those plates could not be reused or recycled because of the amount of food stains on them. “Food is one of the worst contaminants in the paper recycling process…Essentially [oil] contaminant causes the entire batch to be ruined” (McNatt, 2010, para.5). In my mind, not being able to recycle is a sin. If I did buy paper plates I could recycle, I still had to wash them in order to do so, which is the exact thing I was trying to get away from in the first place.

Fast food and fine dining is convenient, expensive and usually unhealthy; and because PTSD causes panic attacks, eating out becomes nearly impossible. When walking into a restaurant, Home Front Husbands not only count their steps to the table, but also every person in the building and what direction customers are facing. They scan floor to ceiling looking for any indication of a terrorist threat. Seating areas are requested, which is always tucked in a corner with views of the entire restaurant and close to an exit. Home Front Husbands memorize the names of servers, not always out of respect but because, it helps them recollect their steps. There are good days and then there are bad days when my husband and I go out to eat. On a good day we get to enjoy one another’s company during a meal; on a bad day panic attacks will sink in and we have to leave before we get our food. Those are the nights our local pizza place becomes our savior.

Recently I met with someone who has become an inspiration to me. During our conversation about how frustrating my husband can be, and as I wiped the tears away from my face I realized something, there is a beauty behind my own frustration, the mess is a reminder that he is home. During my husband’s most recent deployment, I heard air strikes in the background followed by blood curdling screams and my husband instantly hung up. I did not hear from him for an entire month, and the only reason I knew he was alive is because, no news is good news. I prayed and wept every day, hoping my prayers would be answered and soon that man would walk through those doors, and I could jump into his arms once more. My prayers were answered and I am lucky enough to see my husband every day. I am lucky enough to have those holidays, to hear his laughter, and to melt in his arms, as he kisses me like a prince from a fairy tale. Every day, soldiers are taken too soon and leave behind a shattered family. Though their spouses are in heaven with God, they are not here on earth with them. Knowing that my husband is here, in present form, reminds me every day to be thankful. The dishes are a reminder of the blessings God has given me. Once I realized that, the dirty dishes have become nothing more than a daily task, rather than an annoyance. I find myself feeling honored to cook for him and even more honored to clean up after him. The mess is a reminder that he is home.