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This is my private space. There is where I want to share the things I have read, seen and heard that I disagree with. This is the place for the wives and husbands. If I have left you under the impression in any way shape or form that it's been a perfect marriage and if you think I stand 100% in the corner of the truck driver (my husband) ... this is not true. If you are feeling dispair and lonliness I completely understand. And you need to know you are not alone. I've shared plenty where the truck driver is concerned, but I've said very little about what us wives deal with at home each and everyday. And I've heard about it. Trucking wives are ~Jacks~ of all trades" ..... I even share my thoughts on Trucking wives being hero's themselves.

Like I shared with a friend I talk to, there are just some things that one don't go into detail about on the internet or in other places. My main concern where these pages are concern was trying to share with the public what the truck driver deals with each and everyday. Maybe I was wrong not to share the wives side. I get letters from wives asking me, 1.) If it is just them or do other wives experience saddness and lonliness? 2.) Are all wives in trucking completely supportive of this business and being alone? 3.) Is there something wrong that I just can not except being both mother and father and doing everything myself? The answer to these questions are "NO" you are not alone! I see post that greatly disturbed me. It isn't the post themselves that disturb me, but the replies that went to the post. Now I'm shore I will step on toes and cause upset, but I need to get this off my chest. My husband knows I am doing this. He suggested that I tell it and share it like it is. My friends know that I have always said and I will always say the hardest jobs there are ... are being a truckers wife, a military wife, a musicians wife, and being both a mother and father.

I am ask why don't magazine's tell the truckers wives side of what it is really like being a truckers wife? Why are only the good stories told? Ladies .... I don't have the answers. I completely understand what you are asking because if we knew up front what it was all about maybe some of us would have made different choices. You have to be a team to make a good story? Where are the stories about abuse and neglect? For that matter ... even truckers are left to feel alone in this area. I honestly don't have the answers to this question ladies.

Guys you need to know you are not the only ones being yelled at on the phone when you call, or when you walk in the door. Alot of drivers deal with this same problem. It gets to be way to much on us here at home alone. Some of us have no family to turn to. All we have are ourselves to get through a crisis! Ladies, believe me these guys are not out there on a vacation. The people they meet out there on the road are and can be a nightmare. Anyone who travels a lot can tell you that. These guys are treated porrly just about every where they go. No I am not defending them. I am simply saying, life on the road is not a holiday. I am glad I stay home and take care of everything in the 90's because it's a nightmare out there on the road. Oh my husband gets an ear full from time to time also. We're not Ozzie and Harriet believe me!

I could blow a cork when I read and hear people telling ME ... "Don't yell at him when he calls you. Don't yell at him when he comes home" ... Well I understand he's had a rough day, but at least call home once in a while and ask me how my day is going? Don't just call to whine and yammer to me about the docks, traffic, dispatch and how you haven't even had a cup of coffee. Before you tell me not to be upset ... why don't you .... "Tell him to pay some attention to us and we probably won't yell. Tell him to tell us what's happening to us is important to and that it means something to him what we are going through. Tell him when he knows I'm having a bad day to send me a small vase of flowers ... Drop me a post card and say Hey! I was thinking about you and wanted to surprise you with this little card that says "I love you". Tell him not to forget my Birthday, Anniversary, Valentine's Day, just because he's coming home after the fact. It would be nice if he brought me a card to show he was thinking about me out there on my special day and that it didn't go un-noticed or forgotten. When he walks in empty handed or with no words it hurts. Just because two days go by don't mean it isn't important to hear him say it to me ...

Tell him to pick up something small for the kiddos out there on the road and bring it home to show the kiddos they were on his mind while he was out there on the road. It don't have to cost a fortune ... (even if it didn't cost much ... it's the thought that counts). I'm not saying gifts will make everything ok. If you don't want to or can't buy small gifts ... think of something you can do with your family when you get home rather then walking in the door groaning and moaning about everything and how tired you are. Tell us you are tired when you walk in the door, but you were thinking that maybe tomorrow we as a family could go have a picnic ... go to the park ... a movie ... visiting someone we haven't seen in a while. Call a sitter from out on the road .. tell them when you'll be getting back, set up a time for her to be at the house. Go home and tell the Mrs., you and her are going to spend a evening together ... but give her enough notice so she can get ready. Little things really do mean alot. It's hard thinking and feeling like we are only "cleaning ladies, babysitters, cooks, creditors etc."

I know what you are dealing with. I have been on both sides of the coin. I have been out there both as a trucker/truckers wife ... and I have been at home for several years now as a truckers wife. I can relate to both sides. So this page is designed for the truckers wives who are feeling alone, and sad. For the truckers wife who is confused and afraid. You need an ear ... you got an ear. You need a friend ... you got a friend.

I talk to wives about alot of things. I have only one condition in doing so ... "I won't lie to anyone about anything. I won't paint a pretty picture to make it look good and just to make someone feel better". Like I shared with a friend ... what is the point of saying what will make someone happy? What's the point of lying or stretching the truth ... sooner or later the truth will come out.

Like I explained to her .. friendships don't grow on lies. They'll break in a *snap* when someone finds out you've lied.

As you can tell by my pages ... I call it like I see it ... feel it ... and experienced it ... and if someone really don't think they can handle the truth then I probably am not the one to write. If their looking for painted pretty pictures and letters full of roses ... I CAN'T DO THAT. If their looking for the truth, honesty, a ear to bend and a growing friendships ... I CAN DO THAT! None of what I share are crying pages ... feel sorry for me pages. Their pages to explain what I have personally dealt with. To open the eyes of those passing through my pages so they know what tucking is all about. Maybe not what it's all about, but to give them some ideal anyway. Considering prior guest-book signatures ...I don't think people want it any other way.

I don't agree with Comments like ... "You married a truck driver, you knew what you were getting into before you did it. Here's one! There will be other loves down the road to mend your heartaches". This is upsetting to me... Who are these people?

I'm not changing my tune about truck drivers and what they deal with in anyway. I feel the same way about the abuse and neglect that they deal with out there on the road. I cover many things where the truck driver is concerned ... I feel I was fair and I feel I am being fair in sharing that there is another side to the trucking business. Then ..... "There's the family that sits at home".

We don't always Understand what's involved!
Nice Girl turns Crab and Worse?

For those interested passing through here. I will use myself and my own relationship as an example ... yes ... I was dating a truck driver 17 years ago (my now husband) I did not have a clue what I was getting into. Why? Because ... he hid it from me! Shore he drove truck, but he made it all look so good! Like he'd always be there for me. When he was courting me, he spoiled me .... flowers, cards, phone calls all through the day and night, he'd go 100 sometimes 200 miles out of his way to see me or spend the night with me on his eight hour break. He smelt good, dressed nicely, was sharp from head to toe. When we went on the road he took me to the finest places to eat, he loved to go dancing, he liked the same music I liked and it goes on and on and on.

My how things changed ... and no we didn't rush into this marriage. We dated for one and half years. He was very good at always being there for me. Never showed a sign of burn out, never said it bothered him to go out of his way. Had he done it the right way instead of leading me to believe that it was possible to do this all the time, maybe I could have looked at this a little differently (truth be told ... I wouldn't be married). I was never given the chance to see the other side of this business ... not until I said, "I do". If you doubt me ... feel free to ask him yourself, he'll admit it, he's never denied that he wanted me and would do what ever he had to, to get me. Please me and make me happy, because he loved me. He threw money around like it was water ... I wasn't interested in his money ... he'll tell you that also. I insisted on spending my own, but he would never allow me to do so. When I did spend my money it was usually on something for him. I loved spoiling him. I thought this was my knight in shining armor I wasn't about to let him go. "BUT!"

After we said I do .. his true colors began to show, he became possessive, jealous, controling and yes sometimes abusive. It didn't take two years for my life to turn to pure hell ... there's no other way to say it. He was on the road more and more it seemed. I was home alone all the time ... I was suppose to understand this. How could I understand it when I was never given a taste of being alone. Over the years I became independant, and actually I became almost nasty (no not almost ... I became nasty .. there's a word for the type person I became, but I'll be nice). I resented the situation I was put in based on all the lies and false presentations of this business.

I could go on and on about this ... my point is there is no way to know what you are getting into when they go "WAY" out of their way, to make it look better then it is. Flowers sent to work. Or when I arrived at work he would be sitting there. He was always there! He trusted me, ... Until we said I do.

What about the new wives to this business. The wife who's been married to her husband for years and then one day he deceides that he wants to be a truck driver? Nothing can prepare her for what's ahead. Nothing can prepare her for the long days and nights alone (unless she don't care about her spouse and wants him gone), nothing can prepare her for handling every emergency that arrises alone. There are no courses to take for them understand and learn what is ahead of them. Just other wives and even that is of no help because not all relationships go sour or have trouble handling it. Shore they can talk to other wives ... but just like anything else out there ... there are always different sides of the story being told. Some wives enjoy being home alone. Others can not handle it or deal with it well at all. Sometimes the only thing that does help is knowing that you are not going through it alone. Then it's not always enough, it's just a way to release some of the tensions that are building so we don't explode.

Nothing can prepare the wife how to handle the little one who wants to know why daddy is always leaving and why daddy is always gone. How does a mother tell the little one on Monday that daddy will be home tonight (Monday) because daddy called and said he'd be home tonight, then daddy don't come home until Wed.? How do you help your little one understand that daddy is working because we need to pay the bills? How do you explain dady is too far away to make it home for a sporting event or special event at the school? Kids don't understand!

I was happy go lucky. Laughed all the time. Made friends easily. Loved traveling and visiting. Use to dress up everyday. Did my hair and make-up everyday. I cared what I looked like. Now I frown alot. Cry alot. Have headaches all the time. Worry about everything. Don't want to be around people anymore face to face because I'm so use to being secluded that I feel like when I am face to face with people I am being judged. Have no reason to dress up. I live in sweats, baggy shirts and socks all the time. I go through more socks then anyone I know. I walk barefoot all the time around the house so the carpet wares holes in the bottom of my socks after a while. Tried wearing slippers ... ha ha ha .... that don't work with carpet on the stairs ... found out the hard way :-) Yepper came right down those stairs on my behind one day. Threw the slippers in the closet and haven't worn them since.

Putting on a pair of jeans when we are able to leave this place is torture. I use to love my jeans ... now I hate them! I force myself to have a good time when we are out of the house (usually at the boys football or baseball games. Most times I'm by myself at the games) but I sit at the field praying the game will get over just so I can get home and get those jeans off and my sweats back on. And I do ... I walk right in the door straight upstairs and off come the jeans and out come the sweats ...

Times alone .... who wants to be alone? What can prepare a wife of how lonely it can and sometimes will be. The nights of crawling into bed alone. Not having anyone to turn to or talk to. Who can relate to or understand what you are dealing with? Shore you can have friends at the office, but if their not familure with trucking and being a truckers wife ... what's there to talk about? The wives who don't have a computer to talk to someone about what they are going through. What about the wives who will never see these pages to know there is someone out here who cares about what they are dealing with. Hubby takes her home a truckers magazine or some books, and all she reads are the stories about positive truckers wives stories. She remains alone and unknowing that there are other wives going through what she is going through.

The times alone .... like having a little one to tend to and being preg. I couldn't hardly move because of complications. The little one is sick has a fever of 103 degrees. I don't have a car, a phone, no neighbors, I can't get any sleep because the baby is crying and crying, he dozes off for 10 -15 minutes and wakes up screaming again. Here I am for three days with a sick baby and I myself am sick. The only way you can get to the doctor is if he (hubby) can or will take a day off work to take you or the kids to the doctor. Three days later he (hubby) comes in the door and I am suppose to be in a good mood? He's tired ... reminds me over and over how tired he is. Well I'm tired to. I'm not natured to sit down in a chair and pass out where I'm sitting. I am the type that keeps going and going because there are things that need my attention or have to be tended to. That night I can't take it anymore! We're going to the doctor. Sorry you are tired, but we have to go! Baby still has a fever, and come to find out an ear infection to boot. That's why he was screaming and crying for three days.

Read and try to do things ladies ... keep your mind and yourself busy, keep the kids busy. That's sometimes easier said then done. What if like in my case you live way up in the mountains where you don't know anyone, the only places to go are the local mini market, football game, baseball game, school event or the video store? It's one hour to the closest mall or movie house and you don't have a car? Do things to keep yourself busy? It's hard work taking care of a house, family and all that needs attention. It's not keeping busy we have a problem with ... It's finding quiet time for ourselves. Finding space for ourselves to just regroup. No finding stuff to keep ourselves busy isn't the problems at all.

Call someone in the family to watch the kids so you can get a break. Well what if your family is over 100 miles away, you have no long distance phone calling, you have no car, no money, no friends close by etc. The family won't drive any great distances and always tells you the same thing ... my car won't make it that far. What if your family tells you .... Hey! I raised my kids and I'm not watching anyone elses? Even if it is their own grandchildren, neices and nephews?

He (hubby) gets angry with me telling me I'm a pain in the ------ and that I'm not understanding. That I don't do anything for myself. I handle everything including cleaning up some of his messes ... but how much can I do without a car or not knowing anyone? I'm the one he calls when he needs advice or someone to moan and groan to. I'm the one he calls when he breaks down and wants me to find a way to get money to him. I'm the one he calls and ask advice from when things are going bad for him. Nice for him though ... he can call me when ever he wants anytime of the day or night, but I can't get to him when I need him. Shore he could get a cell phone or a pager, but not everyone can afford that. And when he had one seemed it was always .... mmmm wonder why I didn't get that page when you called me? There's always something the causes that ounce of doubt in us wives. Did it really not go through or did he ignore it when it did?

The times I've run out of fuel and he couldn't get home for days. Had to move the crib and the mattress into the kitchen cover the door way with a blanket to keep the heat in the kitchen and the babies warm. Run the water so the pipes didn't freeze. The times the pipes did freeze and I had no money to call anyone to come and help me ... I'd go out and dip snow and ice until my hands were frozen, boil it on the stove just to make a sink full of wash water. The times the car breaks down and I am personally under the hood figuring out the problem getting it to run long enough to get me and the kids home. Yeh .... I became a pretty good machanic on my own. Lighting furnances, fixing sump pumps, doing any repairs that needed done around the house. I got pretty good at handling problems and emergencies around the house. To the point when he came home I was no longer saying could you, would you? I was saying I'll get it, I'll fix it.

I'm suppose to be understanding that he had a bad day/ week/month. But who's understanding when I have had a bad day/week/month? When he comes home he never says to me you need to get out of the house a little bit. No I keep doing what I always do ... tend the kids, clean the house, wash the clothes, do the dishes, cook the meals etc. He comes in and gets a bath, puts on the clean clothes, drinks the coffee, eats the food, dirties the dishes, moans and groans about everything that displeases him and I listen. He comes home yelling at the kids for noise, fighting, arguing ... Hey! this is home! Sorry it's not as quiet as the inside of your cab ... this is what it is, how it is ... you don't like it get back in your truck and go truckin. I'd much rather listen to the noise here in the house, the kids arguing and fighting, their stereos blasting, them rooting out the kitchen cupboards ... then listen to him walk in the door and complain about everything he don't like. The kids are use to going and doing things with their friends. Their allowed to as long as they come in here and help me around the house first. Then he comes home and it's no ... no ... no ...

Reminds the kids over and over how he won't give them a dime, he won't do this, he won't do that for them until they help out a little more around the house. How can he say this stuff when he's gone most the time and has no ideal at all what our children do and don't do?!

Ironically he's the one on the road gone ... gone ... gone and I was the one accused of cheating, and being unfaithful. The road makes him very insecure. He'd call the house and I didn't answer the phone he thought I was off doing something wrong. I had no car to go any where. I was just out in the back yard with the little ones playing and couldn't hear the phone but couldn't convince him of that. Knowing me like he does .... he has to know if I was doing anything wrong .. "HA!" I'd be the first to tell him so. I was given the ability to have a guilty conscience no matter how hard and tough I can be at times. This little inner voice won't let me hold my feelings in or things that I know are wrong. I'm a fessor what can I say? If I did, do or think about doing something wrong that inner voice starts beating me up and I tell on myself ... no matter what the consequences in the end are. He knows this and has to know I couldn't live with myself if I did something like that. I've always told him from the time we met ... if I did something wrong he'd be the first to know. It's true ... He won't have to hear it from someone else. I'll tell him myself.

I raised these children ... we have a routine ... we're happy with what we do and how we do it. Don't come in here being the man of the house and the boss after leaving me here alone for years to do it my way. This is my castle, my home, my domain. I use to be nice to him. It's hard. It's really hard. Over the years resentment grew and grew. I went from crying myself to sleep at nights, to getting angry and going to bed angry. Then I became honestly very strong and independent. I did so much for myself and by myself that I didn't need anyone or anything else other than my children ... my home and my alone time.

Best yet was the one night he did tell me to take the car and go do something. He'd been home half the day and waited until it was late ... knowing I wouldn't go alone after dark out here in the mountains ... so telling me that at that hour was pretty neat huh? Cause he knew I'd say no. Plus all day long he sat there on the sofa falling asleep ... now why would I leave him here to watch the kids knowing one or two things will happen ... either he will fall asleep and let the kids run the house ... or he'll make them all go to bed very early just so he can sleep. That's a bunch of bull to me ....

Or if someone mentions their having a party ... tupperware, home interior something like that. he don't say she'll be there. I don't ask to go hoping he'll think of me and say why don't you go? Get out of the house a little. The party starts at 7:00 p.m. at 7:30 - 7:45 p.m. he says are you going to that party? Yeah right I'm gonna walk in there half an hour, 45 minutes late. You had the whole day to say that to me ... and you waited until the party started to ask me this?

Bottom line is if I wanted to be alone "I didn't have to get married to do it". I didn't have to get married to have children ... and worst is the not knowing what was stored ahead for me before I said, I do! because he made shore to go out of his way ... for me not to see that side of trucking.

Now if I can stand outside in the middle of the winter and help him over haul a truck engine and all that, the least he could do is take me out to dinner some place. Take me some place I like to go. Just because he don't like to dance shouldn't mean that I can't dance. If I can do all that I do I should at least be entitled to a little time for me ... I shouldn't have to beg. Don't come home off the road and tell me you are taking me out. let me get all excited .. only to find out he's taking me to a motel. No thank you. I'll stay home. Go to the room yourself. I'm not interested. My bed is free and I even have a TV in my bedroom. Bathroom is donw the hall. So why do I need to spend $150.00 for a room when I have it all here! Forget that crap!

He's calmed down alot over the years. I would not recommend this to anyone, but I am explaining what I myself did. I became the meanest walking person in our little town. I pull no punches and I fight back! I'll fight for what I believe in, what I don't agree with, but above all I'll fight tooth and nail for my person and who I am. I was controled for far to many years and I will never, never allow that to happen to me again. I lost who I was, what I wanted, what I needed because everything I did revolved around him and his world. I still don't leave the house and I figure when I'm suppose to be in Kentucky for the Mid America Truck Show that he said I could go to because he has to work .. he'll figure out a way that I won't be able to go. Story of my life ....

So ladies if I left you under the impression that this is the perfect business and that we do adjust easily I am sorry. I never wanted to do that. You are not alone. I know what it's like when you talk and he falls asleep on you. When he comes home and he don't want to go any place. I have sat right here in this house for months at a time. The only time I see the outdoors is to check my mail or when I open the door for a bill collector or when I have to go out and untangle the dog. My phone don't ring for days and days at a time and when it does, it's usually my mother (which is about once a month), Paul (my husband) or a bill collector. I can't call anyone because I don't have long distance. The only people I have to talk to are children ranging from the ages of 4 to 16(now 12 to 23) and then you only talk about school things, sports, disney, and with the four year old and the 14 year old it's trucks, trucks, trucks ... just what I need more trucks.

Now on one of my other pages (not here because of puter failure pages were lost!) "almost too late" I do write the good about Paul. That good came only after I walked out the door and he saw that I was serious that I couldn't take this anymore. He really did help me when he felt I was not going to return. He was back to sending me flowers to my work place, calling me every night to say he loved me ... and on and on. He begged me to come back ... told me things would be different. I believed him. I was home for three months and everything was right back to the way it was. I wasn't working, stuck at home, no car again, he moved me to the mountains because he relocated for a job. And today my only communication with the outside world is through my computer.

I personally feel with as many trucks that there are on the highways these days that companies, trainers and dispatchers could help us work our marriages out. There are more then enough trucks on the highways that our drivers should not have to be gone days and weeks at a time. Trucking in so many ways (in my own eyes) is like the military. Trucking comes first and family comes second ... "if there's time". There's no reason for this!

There are many drivers who don't care where they run or when they get home out there. Just as there are many wives who don't care if they do it or not. But for those drivers who do want to get home! I'll never understand why that can not be worked out ? Dispatchers, Trainers and companies who intentionally route drivers to keep them from home and their families are heartless and cold as far as I am concerned. During the training process and when a driver has a trainer riding with him/her and they are passing the exit to this drivers home ... why? can't a driver stop in to say hello and visit his family? No driver should be made to make a choice between his family and his job. That is just what trucking does. It requires drivers to make choices. It causes alot of mis-understandings in marriages. Drivers see that they have to keep working to provide for their families and homes. Spouses and families see it as him/her not caring about them because they keep doing it.