Tips for Truckers’ Wives - on the home front
I am a trucker’s wife. But I’m also a trucker. As such, I am in a unique position to know what it’s like to be married to a truck driver AND what it’s like to BE a truck driver.
A trucker’s wife may want to be a help to her husband when he’s on the road and also be a blessing to him when he is home. But without an understanding of what it’s like to be a truck driver, she may misunderstand some aspects of the job. And the trucker husband, being a man, generally doesn’t know how to voice his needs.
When a trucker gets home he wants nothing other than to BE. He wants to relish the smells and sights and comforts that he has missed while on the road. He doesn’t want a to-do list, he doesn’t want an rambling update on local news, he, frankly, doesn’t want to work. That means he doesn’t want to talk and he doesn’t want to listen. That DOESN’T mean he doesn’t love you. He DOES. He just can’t give when it’s all been drained out of him.
Trucking is 24-7 when you’re on the road. Whether you’re driving, on-duty not driving, in sleeper berth or off-duty- you’re still trucking. Off duty in the truck stop is still steeped in the world of truckers. It’s constantly around you. That’s not necessarily a BAD thing, but it IS a draining thing.
When you get home, there’s a little bit of culture shock. And if you are only home for a few days, you find that packing a long list of home-time chores and obligations makes for more stress than you can handle. A trucker needs to relax and decompress for a while before he can give of himself- and if he’s only home for a few days, then what he really needs is to be pampered.
We used to come home for a day and a half every weekend. The list of things to do was long and we spent our entire home time working on chores. Consequently, we never got time to relax and just enjoy our home time. The problem is that the kind of tired that comes from trucking is cumulative. That means that if you don’t get your R&R, you just get more and more tired. And THAT means that you get more and more frustrated and irritable and less and less patient and pleasant to be around.
If you want your trucker husband to enjoy being home, you’ll have to make sure his home time is enjoyable.
I am sure there will be all kinds of women who take offense to that statement, but the fact is, truckers need a break. They are out there on the road alone and lonely. They don’t have a support system beyond the cb radio, dispatch and a cell phone. And, trust me, those don’t make up for seeing your loved ones face-to-face, sitting in your recliner after work, and sleeping in your own bed each night.
It’s hard to see things from the trucker’s point of view, but a trucker’s wife who wants her man to look forward to coming home will try to do it.
26th, 2007 at 9:21 pm
you left out the wife’s needs too. There are things she can’t do and things that are the mans obligation. If a man is married with children he has certain responsibilities other than working. No man should as a women to be mommy daddy do ALL the bills and ALL the work for everything invovled in the home and family and never contribute some when he’s there. Moms’s need breaks too! we aren’t supper human