I believe that everyone has secrets and demons in their lives. No matter who you are, we all experience trauma in one way or another and go through experiences that we aren’t proud of or things that have scared us. Hiding these secrets and letting your demons control you, is one thing that will put a strain on your relationship. To me honesty is a huge brick in the foundation of a relationship. With this life suppressing those demons is only going to make your life worse. I also believe that mental health is a huge trigger in relationships, no matter which side of the fireline you stand on. The story I’m about to tell you could be a trigger to some, but I truly hope it helps you in the end. While reading you may think what does this have to do with being a wildfire wife. I promise to tie it all together at the end.
While I was in my junior year of college, I was introduced to a man, a marine. C was attending WyoTech at the time and he was a part of the group of friends I hung out with. Well as things happen one night turned into what you would call a “friends with benefits” situation. Well, a short time into this, I found myself pregnant.
C had completed 2-3 tours in Afghanistan. He was a troubled man with many demons and no willingness to tackle them. He always told me I would never be able to look at him again if I knew of the things he had done. After I found out I was pregnant I ended up moving in with him. This is when I found out just how troubled of a human he truly was.
There were times he would lock me out of the bedroom at night, times he would spend all night playing call of duty and screaming at the tv and throwing the game controller if he lost a game. I remember the amounts of drugs he was taking, prescribed medications are a better term, medicines that were supposed to help him with his PTSD, which in all honesty just made him worse. I remember being frightened several times of him. Imagine my fear when I had to tell this man I was pregnant. A man who would go flying off the rails over losing at a video game or who angered easily and now I had to tell him I was carrying his baby.
As life happens, I ended up pre-delivering our son and he passed away. After the death of our baby, I was a mess, and I was expecting a man with extreme PTSD and his own mental issues to just be my comfort and my safe space. The loss of this baby also sent him into another spiral and put him deeper into darkness. He was my safe space for a while, but then the games started. He wanted nothing to do with me anymore, but then he did and so on. Back and forth was this game we played. I had formed an unhealthy attachment to this man and he to I. Neither of us could let the other go. When you go through what we went through it’s very difficult to let go. At least for me it was. We were in this strange place. We were living together, but we weren’t together.
Things went from bad to worse. There were days I’d come home with food, and he’d have an episode and the food would go flying across the room. The smallest thing would make him upset. He would punch holes in the walls, yell, break things, etc… I was walking on eggshells around him all the time. Afraid of making him mad or not doing something the right way, but I still couldn’t let go of this man. I even started using drugs along with him and some of his friends, just so that he might like me even more. The drug use in the house got bad. There were some hardcore substances being brought into that house. I didn’t partake in all, but what I did is bad enough. Things were better when he was high or tripping out. He was chill, loving, friendly, you name it, but then he came down and shit went bad again.
Things went on like this for some time. The back and forth and neither one of us truly being able to let go of the other. Then we moved into another house. He tried hard to push me away several times, but me being who I am, I couldn’t let go. I was in a very unhealthy mental state and something inside me couldn’t let go of this man, I thought I could help him, I wanted to help him. I saw someone struggling, someone I truly cared about, I had seen the person that he was capable of being and I believed that I could help him to be that person all the time, but you can’t help someone who isn’t interested in being helped.
Then one night it all came crashing down. I had made dinner that night, I don’t remember what set him off, but something did. This time was worse than most. C threw his dinner across the house, grabbed a tv tray, one of the big wooden ones and tossed it at me. I ducked and it barely missed my head. Then he started screaming and shouting at me. Calling me a whore and all sorts of nasty names. His rage was the worst I had seen. Then it happened. He came at me.
The look in his eyes, was one I never want to see in a human being again. I didn’t stand a chance, I have never felt fear like that in my life. You bet your ass however, that I gave it one hell of a fight. I’ve never taken a self defense class, I don’t know much, but I wasn’t backing down. That fight or flight kicked in and I had one choice. To fight. To me there was no other option. I honestly thought, “this man is going to kill me.” I have never been one to back down from a fight and in this situation I had no choice. He had ahold of me and I had no where to run if I could.
I never imagined I would be threatened by the man I was living with, by the man I cared so much for. He had my arms behind my back, put his arm around my neck and he picked me up, kicked open the door and literally tried throwing me out of the house. There was no porch, I would have landed on the framed-out deck and the concrete cinder blocks we were using for steps. He tried this twice. At some point he had his hands around my neck and me up against the door.
The First time C grabbed me, I knocked him off balance. Second time I managed to get out of his grasp. I kicked and fought with everything I had. I have never been so afraid of someone in my life. I remember biting his arm at some point, the rest is still a blur and I don’t know exactly what made him release his grasp, but he did, and I got away. I ran to my room and shut and locked the door. I grabbed my dog and crawled into the corner and called his friend. I should have called the cops, but I didn’t. I was frozen. I didn’t want this man to be in trouble, but I was scared to death of what he was going to do next. I called the one person who I knew could help calm him down. Another veteran whom C was close with. The house we were in had windows I couldn’t escape out of and a back door that was blocked. There was one way in and out of that place.
Then he tried coming through the door. In one hell of a rage, he put his fist through the door, he had just about gotten in, when his friend showed up and made him leave. Once they left, I called my best friend and old roommate. I grabbed my dogs, a bag of clothes and I got the hell out of there. I had always promised myself that if any man ever hit me I would leave. The next day while he was at work I went back to the house. I borrowed my friends SUV and I loaded up all of my shit and I left. I spent the next few days on her couch trying to figure out what to do next and to come to terms with what had just happened.
I’m sharing this story with you because this is the trauma that I brought into my marriage. In the beginning of our relationship, because we were long distance, we would talk for hours. I knew that I needed to tell the man I was falling for my story, but I was scared. I knew if I didn’t it could have a large effect on our relationship later on. I ended up opening up to my man and telling him everything. He knows this story and all the details. This is something that I couldn’t hide, because it has truly affected me as a person.
It took some time for me to understand that I had been mentally abused for years, and that abuse finally turned physical. Which according to statistics happens a lot. Now imagine flinching every time your husband gets angry or upset, or being afraid of others getting angry at you because of past situations. That’s how I was, and I still am to a point. I still struggle with things from these days in my life. That constant fear of making someone mad, because it could turn into an all out rage. Re-living those moments over and over again. Afraid that the person you love might turn on you.
The hardest part about my new relationship was not only removing the fear, but getting rid of the feeling I had when I lived with C. This gut wrenching, heart aching anxiety that caused me to stop doing anything I enjoyed, just waiting for him to get home. Wondering where he was all the time and how I had to be there when he got home. I would have knots in my stomach if he was late. I also knew I’d be getting a nasty phone call if I wasn’t there when he got home. This feeling was all apart of that mental manipulation.
Now imagine bringing this feeling into life with a wildland firefighter, who is gone more often than not. I didn’t want to have those feelings with my man. I didn’t want that anxiety or that fear. I had done a lot of healing by the time I started dating my husband. I had to change my way of thinking. I had to come to realize that even though some of the situation I had been in was my fault, a man turning to abuse and manipulation wasn’t. I had to learn how to love again, because the last time it ended up with a man’s arms around my neck. I had to learn to trust again.
You can’t have a relationship without trust. Especially in this life. It’s going to be hard. Learning to trust and to let someone in again will be the most difficult thing you will ever do again, if you have been in a traumatic relationship in the past. Have faith and know that in your new man there is a new beginning.
I’m still healing from my past, and it’s been over 10 years ago. The biggest thing that has helped me is to talk about it and to discuss it. I have never been afraid to talk about it, but even my family doesn’t know all the details, until now. I have learned that mental abuse can be just as extreme as physical. The mind is a powerful organ and if it is constantly manipulated and pounced on, it can change its whole dynamic and really mess with you as a person and who you once were. Who you are.
I have always been a strong and stubborn woman. C belittled me and took away much of my strength and my confidence. At the end of the day though, no matter how much I loved him, I found the strength to leave and move on to a better life. The quote, “You never know how strong you are, until being strong is the only choice you have.” (Bob Marley.) I had one choice left, be strong and get out, or next time I may not be able to.
I have now found a man who loves me for me. All of my flaws, my weakness’s, my self confidence issues, all of it. He has shown me what true love really is and not just what I perceived it to be. We have both shared our dark pasts with each other and things we aren’t proud of and in the end, it has only made our marriage stronger. It has drawn us closer to each other. He is helping me to find the woman that was lost all those years ago.
I hope that this story can help others out. Other men, women, to not be afraid to speak up about abuse. Honestly, I never thought it would happen to me, but it did. Anything can happen to anyone, we are only human and this is a harsh world we live in and we aren’t completely protected from her terrors. The moment you think something would never happen to you, it does.
A very important lesson as the spouse of a wildland firefighter is to learn to communicate. You have to build those communication skills, or your marriage or relationship is going to struggle. Don’t be afraid of the past. Bring those demons to the surface and don’t let them eat you up inside. There is too much time apart in the fire life to let this happen.
Wildland Firefighting is a high-risk job and issues on the home front that get carried to the line could cost someone their life. There needs to be that open line of communication and the fear of communicating needs to be removed. It is not an easy task to tackle. There are still things, I’m not very good at communicating about. I see the same in my husband. Especially with the stigmas that surround wildland firefighting and tough man syndrome. The buck it up and rub some dirt in it, and grown men don’t cry.
If your man won’t open up to you, then maybe you both need to find someone to help you. I know my husband very well and see signs in him, things I have learned from my previous relationships. Many of the signs and attitudes are the same, I have learned to read these, and I can look at my man and tell him I know something isn’t right with him or that something is bothering him, and I bug him until he tells me. That’s not always the best approach and sometimes we all just need a minute. In the end we will sit down and have a serious conversation and he will usually open up to me.
Don’t try to force your spouse to talk to you. If something is really wrong that they don’t want to discuss, see if they will open up to a least someone. Seek help. It won’t make you or him a weak person at all. In fact it takes extreme strength and courage to admit that you are struggling with something.
Now I am not a phycologist, or psychiatrist. I am just a woman who has experienced many things in a short amount of time and learned many lessons. My way of doing things has not always been the best. If you and your spouse are really struggling maybe it is time to find someone to help. It doesn’t have to be a doctor, maybe it’s a close friend you can both go too, a supervisor, or another professional.
I never talked to a professional after all of this and I believe not reaching out for help really affected me in the long run. Perhaps I should’ve, maybe I still should, I don’t know. This is just how I handled it. You have to find what works for you and sometimes our pride gets in the way. I have found a person in my life to help me through problems and that person just happens to be my husband.
As a couple you can’t let your past define your future. If your spouse has a past, they are not too proud of and they are open to talking about, that is the first step, otherwise, it will have an effect on your relationship at some point. Don’t resent them or make them feel more guilty than they probably already do. If you are new to being in the life of a Wildland firefighter, I want you to know how important it is to be open to your person and to not be afraid to communicate with each other or reach out for help to do so.
PTSD is growing within the Wildland fire community at an alarming rate. If you or your firefighter are experiencing symptoms it may be time to reach out for help. Just remember you can’t help someone who isn’t willing to help themself. Don’t be afraid to speak up and reach out. We all love our men, but PTSD can turn them into someone you won’t even recognize, and in the end they need someone who will stand by their side and help them through it.
I hope that this was helpful. I hope someone will get something out of this. If anything, I hope it makes you want to be a better communicator with your significant other and to let go of that fear, guilt, and maybe embarrassment you may be feeling about your past, or perhaps, you yourself were or are in an abusive relationship. If you are currently in an abusive situation I hope this post gives you the courage and strength to leave and do what is best for you and your family. You are strong enough.