I think the hardest thing about HF being a cop and the schedule he has maintained for the last few years has been the lack of family support. Not that they aren't supportive, they just live far, far away. At times the distance has been very, very good, but I'm mostly speaking of his family. My family is a fun, loving bunch. We are laid back, we mind our own busniess, are pretty quiet, but love to laugh and tease, and be together. There is ZERO drama in our family. There is no smothering. I love it.
Maybe it's because I'm the baby of the family, but I find myself *needing* them. Friends are great, but there are so many days that I wish I could just drive to my parents' house for a little visit, or drop my kids off with a sibling for an hour or two, but I don't have that luxury. It's been this way for almost the last decade. ZERO family. We've made some great friends along the way, but we live in more of a transient city. People come and go. Sometimes I just feel plain lonely! I envy the friends here that are surrounded by family. They get together for dinner, they celebrate all the special occasions, they are there for emergencies, etc. This past year while HF was in the academy, it was very lonely. Not really anyone else I could rely on. In a lot of ways it was great. I had to overcome a lot of my shyness, I grew stronger and more capable and less needy, but there were and are plenty of pull my hair out days.
Anyways, sometimes I just have to leave! Especially during the summer. This weekend I will be going on a mini road trip with the kids to see my big sister. We've made lots of plans and I am really looking forward to it. When we get back, my parents will be here for 4th of July weekend. Just these two events will be enough for me to make it to the end of August when I will be wanting to get one last trip in before school starts for Daisy. Maybe we'll go to the Oregon coast to visit my parents.
I would love to meet more police wives here. I've only met one. I'm thinking of starting some kind of club. But I think most of the people in the agency are from around here so they've got their families in place. . .
So I have a couple of questions I want to ask. Do you live near family? If so, do you like it, hate it, or it doesn't matter to you either way. What kind of support network do you have in place other than the police-related blogosphere?
about mrs. fuzz
I started this blog as a rookie police wife in 2008. My husband (HF) graduated the police academy in May 2009. We are the proud parents of three children ages 10-16. We are also a proud police family and feel like this is what we were meant to do. Life is good.
apolicewife@gmail.com
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9 comments:
We live near all our family. At times I hate it because they interfere with things. There are some times I appreciate having them near but None of them are supportive in the way that a PW needs.
I have support forums that i turn to when i have "Police" related problems. My RL friends really have no clue either.
We're nowhere near our family. We have good friends and I know they'd come through for us in a pinch or a crisis. But, it's not the same. Like you, I just want to go visit family for the weekend or have dinner one night. And either family would be great. We're lucky in that respect... we both love our inlaws.
About 5 hours away from my family, which is about right. We're all a bunch of opinionated, mouthy, hard-heads, so while we'd "go to guns" for each other in a heartbeat, get togethers are fairly argumentative!
His family (mother mostly) dislikes me, the rest of them are fine, and they live 2/3 of a continent away. No problems there.
We have one couple we're friends with here... LEO and Parole Officer so I'm the odd man out ;)
I wish our kids would live close, but in reality, I just want them to get their acts together and DO something!!!!!
Enjoy your trip and if you end up heading towards the OR coast, I think I'm on your way. Oh, unless you fly, duh... hadn't thought of that!!!
We're sort of near the hubs' parents (they live a half hour away), but they're not as involved as I wish they were. My parents live a 12 hour drive away, and they're currently trying to work things out to move here (my dad recently lost his job, so the timing is right).
I've always been family oriented, although literally half of my family lives overseas and I have no cousins in the United States. So, being far from my immediate family has been particularly hard.
I'm the officer in our marriage, but even so, support is key. Hubby is a firefighter, so we are two shift workers raising our family.
Both sets of in-laws live nearby (or near enough to count) and are ready and willing to help out. We really couldn't have done it without them, especially when the kids were infants.
The set up is perfect, as all of us get along very well. Of course, with our shifts, visits are restricted to a couple of times a month, but that seems to suie everyone just fine.
I am the mother of a cop....and he lives about 1 hour away. I think that is too far away and he probably thinks it is not far enough. I don't get to see nearly enough of him. His ex-wife and daughter live here. He works second shift and so do I so that makes it hard. And neither of us gets weekends off (I'm a nurse)...It's good to have family close I think
I love having my family around,we see each other all the time. We live near both sides.One of my sisters lives 10 houses down from me and the rest, my dad,brothers,sisters and their families(theres 28 of us) live within a 10 mile radius of each other.I love that they are all so close especially my sister.My hubbys parents live about 1/2 a mile away and thats not a problem. As for support I can go to anyone in my family other than that all the other LEO support options are in my computer!
Oh, I wish I lived near you and you could drop a kid or two off at my house to play with my kids! :-O I would love that. I could have written your post almost word for word... seconding the lack of family support, needing my family, meeting more police wives, needing to leave.. ha ha should I just copy and paste your post?! :D j/k
For me, my inlaws are an hour away and my family is an 8 hour drive away. My inlaws are wonderful, wonderful people and would drop everything to come to my aid if necessary but that's on more of an emergency basis. And I kind of just don't get along with them. (Maybe that makes me an awful person? I think there is a cultural barrier. But I digress.) Hopefully in the next year or so we'll move a little closer to them so it's a 40 minute drive instead. I say "hopefully" because there is no hope of getting my husband to move to the city my family lives in, so some family is better than none, even if it's not as easy as mine might be. :(
I am woman, hear me roar. I kind of go it alone but every once in a while (4 months?) I'll break down (literally) and beg for outside help... even if it means paying a babysitter. :)
We live close enough to my family that we can get together with them easily, the same with Smith's Mom. We are also far enough away that we can get a break when we need it. (And we are far enough from my sister to have very little contact - hurray! Long story.)
My parents and brother have been amazingly supportive. They helped make holidays and birthdays shine for the kids when Smith couldn't be there. We have some drama in my family, but we pull together and are there for each other.
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