Unpopular opinion.

Your spouse’s career in law enforcement is not an excuse for them to treat you any less than you deserve.

Read that again.

My husband has been in law enforcement for 15 years. To him, it is a job. His personal life isn’t consumed with guns, and thin blue lines, and police lingo. His days don’t revolve around the fact that he is a police officer. Likewise, I am a police wife, by default, but that also does not consume my personal life. It is a piece of my story; not my entire being.

I should note that my entire adult life has been in law enforcement; as a crime scene investigator and, currently, in the private sector. I have played an active, albeit behind-the-scenes, role in both local and national police wives’ organizations. I have joined the social media groups, and I have read a lot of the “police wife life” stories. It’s hard to deny that I have seeing a common theme. Too often, a spouse of someone in law enforcement is perpetually giving that person excuses for bad behavior due to their job. And this is just something I cannot get behind.

Is the life of a law enforcement officer difficult? Sure. It absolutely can be.
Is it the type of career that is for every personality type? Nope. Sure isn’t.
Do people get deep into a career and allow the job to change them? Yes. More than we’d like to admit.
Does that mean they get to go home and choose not to participate in family activities, or ignore their spouse and children? No. Not the slightest.

A close friend recently went through a divorce and her [ex] husband is a police officer. The more I saw what was happening within their family and relationship, the more I questioned why she didn’t stand up for herself; why she didn’t expect more. For a long time, he blamed his distant personality, unwavering desire to be gone and doing things with his friends, and his lack of interest in their marriage and family life, on his job, and more specifically, PTSD. The problem with that? He works for a small suburban police department which, quite frankly, rarely sees a violent call. I may be speaking out of turn when I say that, but, both my husband and I have worked for a very large metropolitan police department. And I certainly do not discredit the affects of PTSD on someone. But the PTSD excuse in this case? Was simply that. An excuse for sympathy so that he could get away with behavior that he knew was unacceptable.

When I was working in the field, it was rare for a shift to go by that I wasn’t dealing with another dead body. My husband and I made conscious decisions. You know what we didn’t do? We didn’t go home and ignore one another. We didn’t search for affection outside of our marriage. And we didn’t speak to each other like the other was insignificant to our life.

I ran home, at the end of each shift, to talk to my best friend. I ran home to security and someone that would tell me it was okay and that I would work through it. Was I okay all the time? No. I wasn’t. And that’s okay. Even more, that’s normal. Together, we worked through things.

Being “not okay” is never an excuse to be perpetually rude or mean to those you should hold closest to you.
Being “not okay” is never an excuse to search for affection or relationships beyond your marriage.
Being “not okay” is never an excuse to sit at home, refusing to participate in a relationship, and expecting your spouse to also be your parent.

A recent post on a police wife page asked about husband’s being “cold”. And one of the comments indicated “you can tell the wives that are with newbie LEOs”. My stomach sank.

This. Cannot. Be. Our. Mindset. Period.

To the wife of the “newbie LEO”, keep your spouse on their toes. Do not allow the job to change them such that it affects their personal life. Talk to them. Encourage them. Listen to them. When things start to change, call them out on it. When they start to treat you differently, acknowledge it. Hold them accountable. But whatever you do, do NOT excuse it away as “well…the job has changed them.”

There are a lot of difficult jobs in this world. It’s no secret that there is a lot of infidelity and divorce within law enforcement. But I can’t help but notice that many just accept it as it is, rather than choose to make it stop.

Remember this: By signing up to be a law enforcement wife, you are not also signing away your right to have a happy and loving relationship. Do not accept any less than you give. Marriage is a partnership and your spouse should never choose to be more loyal to their work partner than their life partner.