When I was writing the book, I was nervous. Mostly because I used a lot of stories from my relationship. Ironically, one of the biggest compliments I have gotten about the book is that the weaving of our stories really personalizes it and that people weren’t able to put the book down! The experiences that are in the book, give it more credibility because they actually happened. There were no hypotheticals. It was all real stuff.

I asked Bobby what it was like for him as he read what I was writing. “Enlightening. Surprising. Once I understood what you were writing about, I would go ‘I remember that’ and then there were oh no moments. I was like ‘Wow, that’s how she felt when that happened. I did not know and probably didn’t care at the time.’ That’s the honest truth. I wasn’t embarrassed. Some of it was just new to me. Then I could understand why you felt the way you felt.”

In the book, I talk a lot about how I just didn’t share things. Here’s a story that I didn’t share in the book that I think about frequently. It really influenced me not to reach out to my husband. I think he was in his first or second year as an officer and I was at the dry cleaners picking up my dry cleaning. My car battery died so I called Bobby just to share the information. Well, he responded with, “what the f$%k do you want me to do about it. I have to go to work.” I was so mad because all I wanted was a comforting statement and some acknowledgment. Instead, I got such a hard pushback of an aggressive statement. That call was such a monumental moment for me to express when I was struggling. That’s when I stopped sharing things. It was a slow slide of me not telling him things. That’s something that I take ownership of throughout the book and make sure that in my writing there is no blame on either party. Our stories are written in a way where it states what he did, what I did, and then what we both did to get through the situation.

After doing the research, I can now explain to another spouse what is happening behind a response, or a reaction based on the conditioning of the job. For instance, in the story about my car battery. Bobby was so focused on getting ready for work and what he needed to do to prepare his mindset for his shift. When I called, I interrupted the start of his hypervigilance cycle and in return, he forgot his gun at home. Now after writing this book, I can take a step back and go “Okay that’s what was going on in his brain to give me a reaction the way he did, and he forgot his gun because I interrupted his before-work ritual.” It doesn’t mean that either reaction was ok but understanding the why was important. Why did that happen and what can we do about it? I have the responsibility to extend the benefit of the doubt or the understanding. I can understand what part of the hypervigilance he was in. I also still have the responsibility to tell him the situation sucked and not hold it against him. Bobby has the responsibility to take ownership of what he said.