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What They Don’t Tell You About Depot

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Or, what they won’t tell you about any situation where you have to spend extended periods of time away from your spouse, really.

Here it is: there comes a point where it’s easier not to visit them.

And it’s not because you love them any less, or that something is wrong with your relationship. It’s just that as exciting as it is to see your Cadet after so long apart, it gets harder and harder to leave them again. Each time I’ve gone out to visit, the pre-visit excitement period gets shorter, and the dreading-leaving-again period starts earlier, usually before I even fly out to see him.

For my Cadet, coming out of the Depot bubble into the real world was a nice break, but going back to depot was harder each time. I found that it took me a few days to adjust back to my life, and my Cadet found the same thing.

We ended up not booking my final trip out in favour of sucking up the last eight weeks until graduation. If you had told me we would make that choice back in January when he left, I never would have believed it, but it was the right thing to do.

On the upside, we’re only three weeks away now!

Let’s Get Moving

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We’re now at the end of Week 17. At the end of Week 16, I flew out to see the Mountie to hear about his divisional assignment. Division means (loosely) which province we’re moving to. In the next few weeks, we’ll find out his detachment (city). The RCMP really likes to keep us on a need to know basis, it seems!

It turns out, we’re heading to E Division (British Columbia). When my Mountie told me, it was hard to know how to react. We knew we would have to move, but this still means we’re leaving our life in Ontario. We were happy to get B.C., but we’re still sad to leave. Depot is turning out to be more of an emotional experience than I thought.

The upside is that it’s starting to feel like the end of training will come; it feels a lot more real now. And, now I have a zillion things to do, which is keeping me busy. This will be our third cross-country move – am I good at it yet?

First Visit, Check

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I just got back from my first thrilling visit to Regina. It was great to see the Mountie again, but it was also a very emotionally ass-kicking weekend. There is so much build up to seeing your spouse again that it’s a miracle I didn’t burst into tears as soon as I saw him. You’re hit by two extremes of being so happy to see them and so sad that you can’t just see them all of the time (a little angry about the latter as well).

I’m really struggling with how he’s changing. This seems to be something everyone left out while telling me how difficult it would be to be an RCMP/police wife. I know it will be incredibly hard to send him out on the street and worry about him coming home safely, and I thought the hard part about this stage was just the separation. But it is incredibly difficult and confusing to try to reconcile my perceptions of a police officer with the guy I married. I have the utmost respect for police officers – but how do you joke around with one like I joke around with my husband? With this guy who does silly things to make me laugh and gets on the floor to play with our dog like he’s a dog too?

Things got better as the weekend went on and we fell back into old routines and comfortable silences. I know it’s going to be a long time, but I can’t wait until he’s back in our home, even if it isn’t for long.

Listening to:

50 Days

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My Mountie has been gone for 50 days now. Good news, I’ll get to see him in less than two weeks. Bad news, he’ll be gone for 189 days (at least). Realizing I have another 139 days to do is pretty depressing.

 

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10 Things That Changed When My Husband Went To Depot

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  1. I have to actually watch the expiry dates on eggs. We used to buy two 18-pack cartons every time we got groceries – now, a single 12-egg carton lasts me a month!
  2. I leap across the room when I get a text message.
  3. I discovered just how much dishwashing the Mountie did when he lived here. Washing dishes is the worst.
  4. My dog-mom guilt skyrocketed. My poor little pup doesn’t understand why his stay-at-home pal isn’t here anymore and why I leave him for so long during the day.
  5. I’ve discovered that I hate silence.
  6. My life is now broken down hourly. “3 p.m., drive home, 4 p.m., take dog to the park, 5 p.m., gym, 6 p.m., make dinner…”Also, weekly and daily: “4 more weeks until I visit the Mountie, 25 days until I visit the Mountie…”
  7. I realized just how much I took having my husband around for granted. The pleasure of falling asleep next to the person you love, of having someone there when you get home. Walking the dog together.
  8. The Mountie was responsible for easily 75% of the laundry in our house. It is ridiculous how little laundry I generate myself.
  9. Missing someone can be physically painful. I had forgotten that part.
  10. I’m remembering how self-sufficient I can be, but that doesn’t mean I can’t wait to be back with my Mountie.

Gaining Momentum

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There’s this thing that happens when you start a new fitness program (and as a person who has started more than I care to share, I’m pretty much an expert). After about 3-4 weeks, you start to actually feel different. A bit stronger, a bit slimmer (if that’s your goal), and a bit more capable. Those first few weeks are really hard because it feels like your efforts aren’t getting you anywhere, then all of the sudden, you start to notice that your pants fit a little better, you’re a bit more flexible, you’re a bit stronger.

I’m finding the Mountie’s time at depot to have a similar pattern. It’s starting to feel more habitual and less flounder-y (scientific term). Even though I’m still five weeks out from visiting the Mountie, as I get up to this halfway point between when he left and when I’ll see him, it starts to feel like I’m heading down the other side of a hill. Like how when you’re going for a run, the second half always feels easier.

Here’s hoping the back stretch goes by quickly.

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The First Three Weeks – Advice for a Depot Spouse

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When a new troop comes into depot they are assigned a “big brother” troop – one that has been there for a few weeks already and can show them all of the important things like where the mess hall is and what food is the most delicious (when you work as hard as they do, it’s all about the food).

The Mountie’s troop will become a big brother troop next week, after only three weeks. So I started thinking, what have I learned during this time that I would share with a depot spouse?

Advice for a Depot Spouse (First Three Week’s Edition)

  1. You will not hear from your cadet much.
    As in, maybe a text once a day and a 3 minute phone call on the weekend. This will be tough – really tough – because you will miss them and want to hear from them.
  2. You will feel left out.
    Your spouse will be having this brand new life experience and you won’t. Not only that, but the lack of communication combined with the rules the RCMP has about what cadets can even share with you about depot will make it nearly impossible to understand what their new reality is like. This feeling seems to be amplified by the fact that you’ve continued the life you shared without them – so they will intimately know exactly what you’re doing, and you will know basically nothing about what they’re doing.
  3. Your cadet will be stressed out.
    You will hear it in their voice. They will be distracted during the precious few minutes they are on the phone with you. It will kill you that you can’t help, that you can’t be there to hold them or comfort them.
  4. It will be hard for you too.
    It’s hard to run a life for two by yourself. It’s lonely and frustrating to feel cut off from the person with whom you’ve shared everything up until now. If you’re like me, your house will be far too quiet.
  5. It will get easier.
    Three weeks in, the phone calls are a little longer, the texts a bit more frequent, but most importantly, he sounds more like himself then in the first few weeks. It will still be hard, but you will find a rhythm and a schedule that works for you. You will still look forward to hearing from your cadet, but it will feel less like oxygen and more like a nice surprise.

Hang in there.

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