Stronger Than the Shift

Episode 5: The Shift Doesn’t End When He Comes Home

• Emily

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What happens when the person you rely on most is gone for 24, 48, or 72 hours at a time—and you’re left to handle the kids, the house, the emergencies, and everything in between?

In this episode of Stronger Than the Shift, I sit down with Nikki to talk about the realities of being married to a firefighter and raising a family around the shift.

In this episode, we talk about:

  • The reality of parenting alone while your spouse is working a long shift
  • The mental shift that happens when your firefighter comes home
  • Marriage, resentment, and finding your way back to each other
  • The anxiety that comes with knowing your spouse’s job is dangerous
  • What it’s like when your spouse works both fire and EMS
  • How difficult calls can affect the firefighter—and the spouse waiting at home
  • The importance of having people who truly understand the fire-family life
  • Building your own support system and finding your “people”

This conversation is honest, funny, and incredibly relatable. Because sometimes the hardest part of being a fire wife isn’t the 24, 48, or 72 hours they’re gone—it’s figuring out how to navigate everything when they come home.

And sometimes, thriving isn’t the goal.

Sometimes, you’re just trying to make it through the shift.

And that’s okay.

You are stronger than the shift.



🎙️ Stronger Than the Shift is hosted by Emily, from Coffee Calls & Carseats, and created for the spouses who love someone who serves.

If this episode resonates with you, share it with another fire wife who needs the reminder that she’s not alone.

SPEAKER_00

Hey friends, and welcome to Stronger Than the Shift. I'm so glad you're here. If you're married to a firefighter, a first responder, or really anyone whose career means missed holidays, sleepless nights, solo parenting, and learning to carry more than you ever expected, you're in the right place. I'm your host, Emily, and every week we'll have honest conversations about the realities of what this life looks like. The good, the hard, and everything in between. We'll talk about marriage, motherhood, mental health, resilience, finding ourselves outside of the job, and hear stories from spouses who truly understand what this life looks like. My hope is that when you finish each episode, you'll feel a little less alone, a little more understood, and a little stronger than the shift. So grab your coffee, fold that never-ending load of laundry, take me along on your walk, or listen to the school pickup line. However, you found me today, I'm grateful you're here. Now, let's check out today's episode. Welcome back to Stronger Than the Shift, the podcast where we share the real stories behind life with firefighters. Today I'm joined by Nikki. She's a pediatric nurse, a mom to two little girls, and has been with her firefighters since high school. I have a feeling that a lot of listeners are going to resonate with a lot of what you say today. So welcome, Nikki.

SPEAKER_03

I'm so happy you're here. Thanks. Thank you for having me. I'm excited.

SPEAKER_00

So I always like to start with something pretty easy. We talk about the firefighters a lot. Um, but tell everyone a little bit about yourself outside of being a firewife.

SPEAKER_03

Sure. Um, so I like I said, I'm a pediatric nurse, so I work at our local uh pediatric hospital. I'm trained in both of those departments. So the pediatric um med surge floor and then also the ICU. Um I'm a mom of two crazy chaotic girls. They are four and two. So I feel like my identity is totally taken up by those two. Um, I'm a crafter, so I do some sewing, some cricket work, some of that kind of stuff when I have the free time. I feel like I hardly have the free time for it. It doesn't exist.

SPEAKER_00

It's a no no free time is a blurred idea that happened in your 20s before.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. I was gonna say, I think we had free time maybe before the two curls, and then now there's we get nap time and bedtime. That's it, and that's maybe an hour or two a day. So it's not existent now.

SPEAKER_00

Yes. Oh, yes. What keeps you busy most days, aside from your kids? Because I know they keep you god so busy.

SPEAKER_03

I truly I think that my life is involved with my kids. Um, I do a little bit of crafting here and there. I'm a huge, huge family person. Um, so that's really about it, is we just do some crafting and I hang out with my family. We're all super local to the area. Um, so my life is is my kids and my family.

SPEAKER_00

So I loved reading that you and your husband met in high school. That seems like at the beginning you knew he was pretty much it for you. Is that the case? Or did he did you take a little time to warm up?

SPEAKER_03

Well, so my husband was a freshman when I was a senior in high school. Yeah, I know. So we met um probably in the wintertime, if I remember correctly. It was like spring winter time. Um, I was in our high school musical. So he was on the tech crew, and I was in the musical side of things. Um, and we just started a friendship from there. So we remained friends even after I graduated from high school. We didn't actually start having a relationship until I think we were both in our 20s. We had both had other significant relationships. Um, I was with somebody for a long time before I went with my husband and went on a date. Um, and my husband actually, this sounds so silly and so romantic, but he wrote a letter and had sent me a text message and said, I've got something for you. Will you come pick it up? So I drove into our local town, picked up the letter from him, and he's like, You can decide to read it if you want to. I'm not gonna force you to read it. And I was like, Okay, whatever. Put it in my glove box for like a week or two because I was still in a fairly serious relationship. And I was like, this is just really weird. I don't understand what it is. So finally one day I was like, oh my gosh, I still have this letter from Justin. I need to actually read it and see what's in it. So I sat at my local coffee shop and I read the letter and I was in tears from reading this letter. He basically was like, I want to have more than just a friendship with you. I really want to start to have a relationship with you. So of course it puts me between a rock and a hard place because I'm still with somebody else. It wasn't the best relationship, and ultimately I knew this is not where it needs to go. Um, and so Justin sent me a text message probably about two weeks after I had the letter, and he had asked, Did you ever read the letter? And I was like, Oh, shoot, what do I say to this guy? Because I've known him for 10 years. I don't even know what to say. We've just been really good friends. We always knew that there was something between the two of us, but we did never know what to do with it because we were both in significant other relationships. Um, so I lied to him. I said, nope, didn't read the letter. Oh no. Like, oh my gosh, what did I just do? He ghosted me. Sincerely. Oh no. He was so heartbroken. And I really, I truly didn't think that he was being serious because we a hundred percent, we were in other relationships. And I just put the letter aside, told him, Nope, never read the letter. I'm so sorry. And he 100% ghosted. He was gone for weeks. I didn't hear from him for quite a while. And then I went through a really, really rough patch with my relationship. Um, and so I reached back out to him because he was truly a really good friend of mine that I could always reach out to and say, you know, I'm having a really hard time. What's going on? And he would always pick me back up. So I finally texted him one night that I was working a night shift. And I was like, hey, how's it going? Haven't heard from you in a long time. And he just sent back one-liners after this. Hi, I'm fine. How are you? And I was like, oh man, oh no, I just ruined this friendship. Um, but he basically, again, through this whole conversation, was like, I see myself with you. I see a future with you. Um, and we had always joked for so many years, there's such an age gap between the two of us. I really don't feel comfortable with this age gap. Um, and he said, I don't think you understand how serious I am and ready to settle down. And I want to try this with you. And I see myself being with you for forever. So after he had that conversation with me over a night shift, it was literally two or three o'clock in the morning that we were having this conversation. Perfect. Um exactly. Um, and then I did end up uh breaking things off with this other guy, and I moved back home with my family. I moved back in with my parents. So here I am, finishing nursing school, um, working the night shift, breaking things off with another guy, and I moved back home. I never told him that I had moved back home. Um, I think like a week or two went by, and I said, Hey, I'm home. You want to come over? And he goes, What do you mean you're home? I was like, I broke up with my boyfriend. I'm back home. I live down the road from you again because we didn't know this for so many years that we literally lived less than a block away from each other. Um, I said, Do you would you like to do something? Do you want to come over? What have you? Um, and it was the Fourth of July weekend. And we live in a really small area in Michigan, so it's just a couple little villages. You can't even consider them a town. Um, because we're in Michigan too. Uh Madawan. So southwest, uh, southwest bottom portion corner of Michigan. Um, there's a lot of you really, everybody calls them towns. You there, you really can't consider them a town. They're so small, they're considered a village still. Yeah. So our local area was doing 4th of July celebrations. We had the parades and the fireworks and everything. Um, and there was a grape vineyard that they do the fireworks off in our area. So he's like, you can come watch the fireworks with me and the fire department. Um, so I went up there and we sincerely did not see a single day between where we were not hanging out with each other again. And it just our relationship went from there. Um, he was finishing up uh paramedic school, I was finishing up nursing school, and the rest is history. We've been together for 10 years now, so we had a true bonded friendship with each other before anything else.

SPEAKER_00

That's great because it gives you guys a foundation to kind of stick with.

SPEAKER_03

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

He he was in the fire service when you guys actually got together.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. So Justin's actually been in the fire service since he was a little kid. Um, his grandpa and his dad were both on the local volunteer fire department where we live. So Justin has sincerely been around it since he was a baby. Um, he could pump a fire truck before he could probably even say the word fire truck. Um so he he joined the local fire department when he was in high school still. They've got a program where you can do cadets. Um, and then once you turn 18 is when you can go get your fire one and two. So he had been on the local fire department way before him and I had even gotten together. Um, so I married into the fire department service.

SPEAKER_00

So you knew this about him from the get-go. None of this was a surprise. There was no career shift, no nothing. He just jumped right in. Nope.

SPEAKER_03

Nope. He's been in it 100%. So I knew nothing of what I was getting myself into. Um, but he and his family knew everything. They had already made the life adjustment and the life change. So this was huge for my side of the family. Right.

SPEAKER_00

So you kind of had a vague idea of what it would look like because you've obviously watched your in-laws kind of navigate it.

unknown

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

One thing you didn't expect when you married into a firefighter family. The drama. Oh my god, yes. I probably shouldn't have laughed as hard as I did, but no, it's so bad.

SPEAKER_03

I always joke with him and say um a group of guys working together is 10 times worse than a group of women working together.

SPEAKER_00

I I don't understand how it is that way, and I'm trying to brace myself because we have three little boys, and like I feel like that's gonna be exactly how they are when they grow up. Yes, is there's gonna be little like nitpicky drama. But why are these fire stations so dramatic? I don't know, it's so bad. It's so bad. My husband, I'm like, we need like a sitcom about your fire station because some of it is like actual drama, and some of it is just you guys being ridiculous.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, we could almost create a reality TV show based off of the both fire department things on it's so bad. Um, I do feel like it was a little bit unexpected for the politics that goes into it as well. Um, and trying to find when is it okay for me to say something? When is it not okay for me to say something? Um, because there were a lot of changes in the volunteer fire department. So Justin does both. He does volunteer fire department and career department. So if our life isn't chaotic enough with the two girls, now he also does both. Um, so he's on call 24-7 for the volunteer. And then he also has a shift work for his job. Um, but the big thing with the volunteer department is you are my husband, you are my best friend, and this is your life. This is your like truly, his his life revolves around the fire department and the fire service. And he loves it. He sincerely he loves it. And to see some of the negative changes that happened with the volunteer fire department, it was hard for me to figure out who do I say something to, who do I get advice from, when do I not say something and just let him vent? When do I defend him? When do I let him defend himself? And it's still a navigator for the both of us because of the changes that have happened in the department. Ultimately, some of them are good changes and did need to happen, but some of them have pretty negatively affect um some of the things that he does for the department. And it's hard because where he came from and what I saw, how dedicated he was, even when we first um started dating and me seeing him in high school and how much his life revolved around it, and how much has changed for him because of some of the changes for that department.

SPEAKER_00

It's the politics that, like you said, were something I wasn't really expecting. Because you think mature adult men can, you know, and women can handle the different things, but there's so much like you said drama, so much like interlocked, and then there's a lot of like local community politics that go into it as well. There's so many things feeding into it from so many different avenues, and those changes can have such a big impact on like their mental state with everything, yeah. It goes from being a job that they really enjoy to small changes can just make it like everybody else. Like, I don't want to go to work, I don't want to go to my shift today.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah, and that's hard. And I I feel like he's lately he's gotten a little bit better when the changes first happened. So his dad was the fire chief of the volunteer department for I think 15 years. Um, and their department is all it is 100% volunteer, so they're not even paid to run a call, they're not paid to be a fire chief, they're not paid for anything. Um, so his dad, they do votes every year for who all of the the chiefs and and the captains and all that. Um, his dad was uh voted off as fire chief, and it became a huge surprise for everybody. Um, and it truly some of the thing a little bit. Yeah, yeah. It was it was kind of sad how it happened, to be honest with you. Um, both of his dad and Justin are still on the department though, but I think they're there to kind of be a little fly on the wall and watch what changes happen and kind of be a thorn in the side. But um, I've seen him shift and even going to some of the trainings. Um, does he want to go to the training? Do you not want to go? And he's it's kind of like a high school of well, so and so is gonna be there. So I don't want to go because this person's running the training. Like you are just ridiculous. You have to remember, just go to the training to learn. Um, but I think it's hard too because he forgets that he's no longer the young one on the department, he's now more senior on the department, so he has a lot under his belt, whereas these older or younger guys don't. Um so he kind of forgets that they need that training. You might not need it, but they need that training.

SPEAKER_00

Um, and a lot of that an example, yes, as much as he probably doesn't want to. Yes. They're gonna look to him for how they should approach things.

SPEAKER_03

Approach, yes. And I think he struggled too because a lot of the senior guys that were on there when he was younger retired. Um, and he really looked up to a lot of those senior guys. So he's trying to find his way of now I'm a senior guy and I need to be a mentor. Um, and what kind of mentor do I want to be? And that's he's getting there with it, but that was also something I was not prepared for is the fact that he's not a young one on the department anymore. Um, you're you're now a senior one. You might only still be in your 30s, but now you're a senior senior firefighter.

SPEAKER_00

What do you remember from those first few months of your relationship trying to kind of adjust to the lifestyle? Um I'm thinking myself like that's so long ago. Don't even make me think about that.

SPEAKER_03

Gosh, that was 10 years ago. Jeez. Um, well, I remember one of the one of the first calls that I ever got to run with Justin. Um, because with our department, that if you're not on the department because they run in their um personal vehicles, you have to ask the passenger, you know, can I run code? Do you want to go to this call? What have you? Um, when we were first together, he was on two different volunteer departments. Um, and he there was a field fire, and I was still studying for one of my classes. And he goes, Can I go on the field fire? And I was like, I don't care. I I'm just sitting here studying. There's nothing exciting going on. And he goes, Well, do you want to go with me? So I feel like the first thing that I remember is being excited, actually being able to watch him do the thing that he loves to do, um, and seeing the passion that comes out of him. I feel like that was one of the big things that I remember is how fast he responded to stuff and how excited he was to respond to stuff. And that excitement in me to see the one that I love have that passion for something that he loves.

SPEAKER_00

My husband gets so excited if they think a fire call is coming because they because he's a paramedic firefighter and he never gets to go on fires. His shift never gets fires, and they get so bitter. We stopped by the station yesterday because his station is right down the street from my best friend's house. We stopped to say hi to daddy, and he's like, We thought we had a fire, but you know, the energy company put it out. He they're so, and there's five of them that are like pouting.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, they're so annoying. They are so bitter towards other shifts. Um, so Justin's uh career department, he's like, we always joke and say that there's white clouds and black clouds. So black clouds are obviously the bad fires or the bad calls, and Justin's a white cloud. They don't get fires on his shift, they still do. I compared to the other two shifts that are on there. I'm pretty sure that the other two shifts are in the double digits for how many fires that they've ran this year, and he's maybe had five. Maybe, maybe, and that's like that's being generous. He might run a few fire calls, but for them to actually be anything, he gets so bitter about running the medical calls.

SPEAKER_00

My husband complained about it so much. I went on Etsy one year for Christmas, I think it was like two or three years ago, and I got him this candle, and it was called structure fire, and it had a label on it that said for the medics that only ever get for the firefighters that only ever get medicals. And it he like opens it up, it smelled so bad. And he's like, Oh my god, it really does smell like a structure fire. Structure fire, yeah. And that's like smell like a candle in this house. This was a family. Well, now he gave it to another firefighter who was complaining a lot about the fact that they never get calls. Now it's been passed around where it's just this obnoxious candle, and I'm like, whoever made this deserves an award because this is a tremendous smell.

SPEAKER_03

It's yes. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's he truly is. He's the white cloud on his shift. Um, and it never fails that if he takes a day off or we are out of town, never fails. His shift will run a fire call and it'll be an actual structure fire. And here he is sitting listening to it, just so bitter about the fact that he is gone. Why can't they do that?

SPEAKER_00

Why do they check it when they're out of town? Because my husband will be will be literally driving up to my in-laws' house two hours away because they live in the middle of nowhere. There's no way he can get back to this. But he sees the alert come up on his phone and he immediately starts looking at it. I go, Why bother? You're just gonna get annoyed. You're gonna be so frustrated. Yes, so mad.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

We made it getting a fire at your parents' house because your brother's set something on fire.

SPEAKER_03

Oh my gosh, yes. My brother almost did that while we were camping with him one year. It's like, Thank goodness I married a firefighter.

SPEAKER_00

When there's my father-in-law, is like your father-in-law, where he was on the volunteer fire service for a really long time while my husband's growing up. Because they also do not have a career fire department. It's just volunteers. And you're saying this, and I'm like, oh, yep. See all that.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, it's just it's you know, it's a never ending cycle. I feel like I could have so many stories of things that I've seen and heard and the pager. Oh my gosh. The pager. I want to have such a love-hate relationship with that pager.

SPEAKER_00

My husband he did paid on call at our local department when he started. And I hated his pager so much. Because it would always three o'clock in the morning.

unknown

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

Why is it going off at three o'clock in the morning? Yep.

unknown

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

And I remember telling him at one point because they had gone off like four times that night. I'm like, get out. Get out. Go on the calls or go sleep on the couch. Get away from me.

unknown

Yes.

SPEAKER_03

So does your husband's pager stay open and scan the county once his call goes out?

SPEAKER_00

So he doesn't have a pager anymore, at least not one that comes home. Because he switched to an apartment that's about 30 minutes away. Okay. So he's outside the radius where he gets paged in for calls, unless it's like something big. Big, yeah. Which I love because I was so sick of him just like jumping out at any minute. I know it's for a good reason. And I know he was very passionate about his work. I wanted to hurt him so much when we had plans and he just leaves. Yes.

SPEAKER_03

All the time. All the time. Our um volunteer department, the pager, when the pager goes off, it'll stay open and scan the rest of the county. So even if it's not his department. So if some other department gets called and it's in our county, you can hear it. So Justin's gotten to the point where, oh, there's been so many arguments about it the next morning. He'll take the pager and tuck it under his pillow so he can listen to it because he'll figure out, you know, if it's just a CO call, then he's not gonna go at two o'clock in the morning. Somebody else can handle it. But if it's a structure fire, of course, he'll go. But he'll leave the scanner open and it scans the rest of the county. And I will yell at him the next morning. If you're gonna listen to the pager, just go to the call. If you want to know what's happening, just go to the call. Also nosy.

SPEAKER_01

Why are they so nosy?

SPEAKER_03

It's so bad. And he will tell me, I was listening to it. No, you were not. You were snoring. You heard people cast out dead asleep, snoring. There is no way you were listening to it.

SPEAKER_00

Does your husband do this? So mine has like a special ear for his like pager in the calls and things. Oh, yeah. And I noticed it when we had our little kids, like when we had like new babies. I would ask him for help. I'd be talking to him. He does not move. Nothing registers. If I needed help, I'd be in the nursery. I would have to call his phone because the little vibration of his phone would wake him up immediately. But me sitting there going, Hey, hey, hey, nothing. Nothing.

unknown

Nope.

SPEAKER_00

Nothing.

SPEAKER_03

His pager can be yes, his pager can be on the the lowest volume possible because it'll vibrate and drop a tone. And the little vibration and the little tone noise going off, he is like spring up and out of bed in an instant. I always joke and say that a freight train can run through our house and he will not move. But the second that that pager goes off, he is up every time. It never fails, never fails.

SPEAKER_00

I've there's been a lot of rage related to that, especially like you're up in the middle of the night breastfeeding the baby and you're just watching them snoring intentively. They don't hear the baby that's right next to them.

SPEAKER_03

No, I always jump with Justin and said, I want to sleep on your side of the bed to see if you cannot hear the kids on your side of the bed.

SPEAKER_02

It's so bad.

SPEAKER_00

Oh my gosh. So what because you have two young kids. So what does a shift look like for your family?

SPEAKER_03

Um, well, it just depends because with me being in the healthcare, um, I work 12-hour shifts. Um, thankfully, I was able to get it to where I work part-time. Now I don't work full-time anymore. There's no way that with his shift work and my shift work, there's no way. Um, and we actually saved money from daycare finances, me dropping part-time. Yeah, which is insane. But if he is on shift and I am home, that is an incredibly long 24 hours. Incredibly long. Um, so he does, I don't even know, I don't even know how to describe his schedule except for just explain it because he's not like a normal 4896 or a 24. Um, so he works 24 on, 24 off, 24 on, 48 off, and then he repeats that with a 24 on, 24 off, 24 on, four days off. So it's really hard to keep track of his schedule. And it's not like everybody's like, oh yeah, you get Kelly days and you get Kelly shifts, and it's a 4896 with a Kelly. He has none of that. It truly is just a 24 on, 24 off, and then it just repeats and rotates.

SPEAKER_00

So it's my husband has a straight Kelly, and I have trouble keeping track of that. But it's like it's a repeatable pattern, but that just feels crazy.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, his is a repeatable pattern. I think I figured it out every 12 weeks is when it repeats. Um, so like this, I think he's in his now, I gotta think about it. I think he's in his Sunday patterns where he works like four or five Sundays in a row, and then he gets a like four or five Sundays off. So it's it truly there is a repeating pattern to it. Um, so there's days that uh like today he's on his four-day stretch. Um, so we're off for the next couple of days together, and then I go back to work. Um, so it just depends on if I'm home. Um, then I'm home with both of the girls by myself. And then if we both have to work, um, they'll either go to my in-laws or to my parents' house. Um we had mentioned doing daycare with the girls, and my father-in-law was like, nope, absolutely not. They're not going to daycare. I'm gonna still make a career change and they can come to my house. Um, and his mom actually retired, so she's also to stay home with the girls, too, which is amazing. Um, so yeah, it's it just depends on if we work together or if we're both off, or it's we have the most chaotic schedule I have ever seen.

SPEAKER_00

Trying to explain to someone else what the schedule actually is is impossible because they can't seem to quite grasp it. You try to explain, you're like, Yeah, he you know, he's off those days. Oh, so he works Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I'm like, well, this week, next week, it's this day, this day, and this day. Yes. And there it like blows people's minds.

SPEAKER_03

It blows their mind. And then when you throw in my 12-hour shifts, they're like, Whoa, wait, what? Who goes where and who does what? There are times that I can't even keep it straight. We have so many calendars to try to keep our schedules aligned to figure it out, and it's it's so bad.

SPEAKER_00

I've talked to a couple other women and they have this like big digital calendar because we have three different calendars. We have a shared Google calendar, we have a big handwritten calendar on the wall, and I think I have I have like a handwritten calendar that I keep on my desk for each week just to keep a reminder of who goes what where. Yep. And it's impossible. They have this like digital calendar that I really want to get where it just syncs up to the Google calendar.

SPEAKER_03

And they're so expensive. They are really expensive, but I feel like it would be nice, especially once the girls start school and they they're more into sports and things like that. I cannot try to do that.

SPEAKER_00

My oldest son goes to school and he had T-ball this year and he's had you know karate and stuff before. And I'm like, I'm getting confused. I don't know who, I don't know what day this is. Which doesn't make sense because I work from home full time and I have so I keep all three at home full time with me. I have all three unless my son is in school, which he's in summer break vacation now. I'm so ready for him to go back to school. Oh my god, I love him so much, but I'm so ready for him to go back to school. And I get so overwhelmed because I'm trying to juggle everything, and it's yeah, so what are your biggest challenges? You said keeping everything straight. What are the challenges that you guys have?

SPEAKER_03

Um I think the biggest challenge, and this is gonna sound so so bad, and I'm sure so many other women can relate, is just keeping the household together. Truly, just keeping the household together because having a four-year-old and a two-year-old, it just it's it's undoable. It truly is undoable. Um, the it the chores and the laundry and the I so when he's on shift, I am responsible for everything. The cooking, the cleaning, the daycare, the this person goes here, this person goes there, and the naps and the bedtime, the solo bedtimes. Oh my goodness, the solo bedtime.

SPEAKER_00

That's the seventh circle of hell. I will just straight up say solo bedtime is horrendous.

SPEAKER_03

So bad, it's so bad. Um, I truly I feel like that. That's my my biggest thing, and I'll send him text messages before I go to bed. Don't judge the house when you come home because nope, just no. It looks like a tornado went off and I'm not touching it. And I just no.

SPEAKER_00

There are some days I warn my husband, I'm like, you may come home to Betty Crocker with fresh baked goods in the house, and the house is clean, or it could look like I fed gremlins after midnight. Everything is it's 50-50. You just gotta break for impact when you walk through the door.

SPEAKER_03

Yep. Nope. And I think he figured that out pretty quickly with our oldest. Um, that it just you never know. You might have a fresh pot of coffee brewing when you get home, and that's great. And otherwise, you're probably gonna have to wait until nine or 10 o'clock until I have time to make a pot of coffee. I feel like that that was our biggest adjustment. Obviously, when it was just the two of us, it was fine. I could keep up with things, um, find things to keep myself busy. Um, but I was not expecting for those 24 hours by myself with the two kids and trying to keep them entertained. So I feel like that's how women can relate to that though.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And the one thing I keep hearing is that the shift between the mentality on off days and the mentality on on days is difficult. Because when you are on shift, like you said, you're managing everything, everything is on your plate. You have to try to make sure that you're sticking to the schedules because that's the only way that the little feral goblins are going to actually get through everything. The only way you're gonna stay sane, and then they come home and there's another adult that's able to help with stuff, which is fantastic, but we're still locked into the having to have everything go on a schedule the way we need it to go. And we know all those little details, they don't know those.

SPEAKER_03

Yep, yep. I think the two of us, I think Justin's a little bit different because I I leave the house for 12 hours. Um, well, I wouldn't say 12 hours, I'm like 15 hours by the time that I get up and get home. So he had to figure that out pretty quick for himself. That he had just to learn how to switch his shift mentality for himself. And I think he's picked up on that a lot faster than what I can. Um, because even with that that shift mentality, it's like, okay, we're up by eight, we're out of the house by nine, we're at the park by 10, we're lunch at 11, naptime at this, and I'm I'm constantly having to remind him, hey, it's time for lunch. Hey, they've been watching TV for 45 minutes too long. Come on. And it's it just it doesn't switch off. Um, because like you said, we're so used to having those 24 hours on, of it's all our responsibility that to make that shift mentality for us as moms and firewives is it's it's practically impossible. And I think for myself personally, I think I finally get it by like day three of him being off for his four in a rows, and then day four, I'm like, yeah, this is awesome.

SPEAKER_00

I got somebody else who's here to help me, and then they leave, and then they leave, and I'm like, oh shoot, now it's all on me, kids all on me again, and like I said, constant like fluctuation between like trying to remember, like, oh, they are perfectly capable partners here, yes, and then you're waving goodbye, and you're like, I am welcome to myself again.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, yeah. It's we I do feel like we do an okay job. It's taken a lot of work on my end to being able to say, Hey, I need you to step in. I can't do this on my own. I need you to to switch in and and to help me out. Um, but it's also hard too on those days that he's up all night and he comes home and he's like, Okay, I gotta have, you know, a couple of hours of rest where I'm like, I'm in that mentality, I'm ready to go, I'm ready to ask for some help, I'm ready for somebody else to switch in. And then he comes home and I'm like, okay, never mind.

SPEAKER_00

And it's hard not to feel a little bit of resentment at that point because we're so tired and we're we're touched out, we're tapped out. We're like, yeah, come take a little bit of this. And you want to be sympathetic and you know that they've been up all night and they've been doing a lot. But you're like, I just need 30 minutes of help. Now I understand you need a nap and I want to be supportive, but I also want to just put the pillow on your face a little bit.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. My biggest thing is I really just want to drink my cup of coffee while it's still hot and not warm it up for four or five times. And I'm like, just give me 20 minutes to drink my coffee, and then then you can go take a nap.

SPEAKER_00

That's that's one of the most underrated joys of life is hot coffee the whole way through. So, and I don't I tend on shift days are when I tend to get little ideas in my head um about things to do around the house, like projects or rearranging furniture or um completely forgetting that I cannot lift 500 pounds by myself. What's the most ridiculous situation you found yourself in on a shift day?

SPEAKER_03

I think the biggest thing that gets me every time, and it's just because of me, is I have really bad storm anxiety. Um, and I feel like all of the severe weather this year has hit when he's been on shift.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

It never fails every time. He's like, Oh, we're gonna get storms. I'm like, Oh yeah, are you home? Nope, you're on shift. Cool, there's a tornado coming. Awesome, you're on shift.

SPEAKER_00

I get super anxious because this is our first house that doesn't have like a true basement. We have a by-level, so half of the lower level is underground. It's under I've never not had a basement, and now, like you said, it's always when I'm by myself with the three kids, and like, oh my god, where do I take them? Because our rooms downstairs, every room has a window, and I'm like thinking in my head, I'm like, they said avoid the windows, away from the windows.

SPEAKER_03

There was um not too long ago, I don't know, a couple months ago, beginning of the summer, where it was like 5:36 o'clock during the evening that the storms were running through. And of course, Justin's on shift, like this. Just go figures and trying to wrangle those two kids downstairs during dinner. I'm like, oh, we're just gonna have a picnic in the basement. Just dinner with you. I don't know what I'll do. Explain, but yeah, I think that's the biggest thing is just the severe storms and the of course tornado warnings when he's on shift, it never fails every time.

SPEAKER_00

My kids always come down with stomach bugs when my husband's on shift, and then they pass the stomach bug for about two weeks. Yeah, I remember texting my husband at like 2 a.m. because my middle child had like projectile vomited all over their bedroom, and I'm trying to get because this I cannot I can't have the smell like lingering. So I'm trying to like, I've got everything stripped on, I've got him changed, tucked back in bed, and it's all over the rug. So I'm trying to get the rug out of the room without waking the other boy who also sleeps in the same room. And it's the rug is somehow under the bookshelf and under both bed frames. And I'm trying to like, I'm power washing the rug outside at three o'clock in the morning after heaving it downstairs, and I'm like, I hate you a little bit right now.

SPEAKER_03

Yes, yep, you're probably sleeping quietly and comfortably, and here I am rinsing out puke.

SPEAKER_00

Yes, I'm like, this is so this is so disgusting. I'm like, I'm leaving it outside. This is yours to finish. I have started the process, you need to finish this. I have it out now. The times he is home, it's kind of funny. Like when our kids get sick, because as moms, you see like a kid about to throw up, and for some reason, our instinct is like catch it in your hands. And I think it's because our hands are easier to clean than everything else in the room. Everything else, yep. My husband disappears, and all of a sudden he comes back with like a bucket lined with a garbage can, which makes sense, and he's snapping on like gloves, and he's got I'm like, I'm like, why did we have totally polar opposite responses to this?

SPEAKER_03

Because I'm holding a handful of puke trying to figure out where to put it, and he's like searching all the gloves, and um, he's done that with our youngest daughter um with her blowouts. He'll be like, Okay, hold on, kid, you've got a blowout. I'm gonna go put on some rubber gloves and then get a garbage bag. And I'm like, she's already stripped, the diaper's already off, she's already in the bathtub, just throw the clothes away. I'm done.

SPEAKER_00

It's not worth it. My husband would like, God forbid, the baby like spit up on him. Oh, you deal with strangers' bodily fluids. This is your child, but you should at least need like it'll land on his arm. He's like, get it, get it, get it, get it.

SPEAKER_03

Oh no, no, she can't Justin cannot do it when it comes to the kids' bodily fluids. Honestly, though, he does not handle that on medical calls with anybody else. Somebody says I'm about ready to throw up, and he's like, Here you go, here's some meds. You nobody's throwing up in my ambulance.

SPEAKER_00

No, thank you. So you have a a lot of kind of inside perspective because you work in the medical field too. So when he comes home like talking about stuff, some of it's gotta click. Oh, how does how does being a nurse affect the way you look at his job?

SPEAKER_03

We always we always banter back and forth about um nurses don't like paramedics, and paramedics don't like nurses. Um, so there's there really is a lot of banter back and forth. Um, but I feel like his job being a paramedic has given me a huge set of different eyes for when I'm in the hospital of how to, you know, he'll bring back stories of I brought so-and-so to the hospital, and this nurse just this nurse didn't want report, this nurse was rude, they weren't ready to go, um whatever, what have you. And it it gives me a completely different set of eyes of okay, I need to have this person ready to go. I I need to be organized myself as a nurse to be able for this to go. Or, you know, if they're bringing in a transfer to us, okay, I need to let that paramedic just give me a small report. I might already know what's coming, I might already know what to expect. But just out of respect for them, let me give them a quick second to say what they need to say and then be on our way. Um, I feel like we can share stories back and forth better than somebody who doesn't have the medical side of things. And it it relates a little bit more for the two of us. And I think with the two of us, it gives us more of um, hey, I had a bad day, or hey, I saw this and this was really rough for me. Can we talk about it? Or, you know, Justin's asked sometimes, um, did I miss something? Is there something else that I could have done for this patient? And with my side of the hospital, things of what we do for them in the hospital, you know, nope, you didn't miss this, or yeah, you did this right, or hey, that was a good catch with this. Somebody else wouldn't have thought to catch that because you've got a nurse and your nurse's wife can tell you some of these stories. So I think that that's our our nice thing for the two of us is being able to relate that way. And it's definitely given me a respect side of things for paramedics.

SPEAKER_00

They both work in jobs where you can bring a lot home, especially because you work particularly with kids. He sees a lot of situations with kids. How do you handle kind of separating that? Because I know it's a big concern for. For anybody in a medical field to not want to bring you know that weight necessarily into their family because it can impact a lot of different things, but you also don't want to like hold everything in.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

How do you guys balance that?

SPEAKER_03

Um, this is gonna sound terrible and and super dark, but you you just have to shut off home life when you're at work. Um you truly you just especially when we're both on shift, um, we just shut it off. Obviously, if something happens with our kids, our kids come first and we will leave work. Um, but you just shut off at home that I'm taking care of a two-year-old here at work and I've got a two-year-old at home. It's kind of hard to explain to somebody else who doesn't have experience with it, that it just comes with time and it comes with practice that you just shut off that emotional connection. Um, there are times when you come home and you the adrenaline wears off and you sit down and you think about it for a second, and it does get you. Um, but Justin's got somebody that, and I don't know who that person is. Um, I don't have that person's contact information. Um, if I can tell that Justin is struggling with something like a call that he ran or something that he saw, he's got that person that he goes and he talks to. Um, and that person is his sounding board. So number one, it doesn't come home. And number two, it doesn't come to me and it doesn't come in between the two of us. Um, and I have the exact same thing at work that I've got somebody that I talk to if I struggle with something. Um, so it doesn't, it doesn't come home. Um, it really is hard to explain to somebody else who doesn't have that experience of things that it just yeah, you just kind of shut it off. You just shut off the emotional side of things and you do what you need to do to take care of that patient in that that time and in that moment. Um, and then when you're done, you obviously take your time to reflect um and have that moment of emotional connection with it. Um, but you can't let it stay because when you let it stay, that's when you have a hard time continuing doing what you need to do in your career. And that's where people get in into trouble is when they don't have those separate people that they can go talk to and be a sounding board for.

SPEAKER_00

What do you guys do to support each other? Because I mean, having somebody that's separate from your family to talk to that can really relate is fantastic. I hope my husband has somebody like that. But when you know, because sometimes stuff does linger and you might, you know, just be in a weird mood or just need a little extra support. How do you guys handle that to make sure that you're supporting each other?

SPEAKER_03

We have really open communication. We sincerely, hey, I need to I need to talk to you about something, or hey, can we talk about this? Um, Justin's a little bit quieter. Um, he tends to just kind of stay within himself. And I can tell that when he's really quiet and disconnected, that something's bothering him and we need to talk about it. Um, but then also the complete opposite is when he gets really, really talkative, then I know it's also bothering him. And that's when it's really, really bothering him and he really needs to talk to somebody else. Um, and he needs to talk to me about it. Um, and I do the same thing. We just we let each other vent, we let each other have a moment, um, we let each other cry about it, and then we remind each other that we can't dwell on it and that we did everything that we can do. Um, and we just we move on. We don't, we truly try our best to not let it come in between the two of us and be that open communication and that open sounding board between each other.

SPEAKER_00

I feel like your husband and my husband could be friends because they have a lot of similarities. Like he's he's also like a very quiet person, and he was sitting and just kind of like the quieter he is, you know, the the more it's bugging him. The things he'll get really like talkative about are the things that make him like angry.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Because he, you know, if something really makes him just feel his absolute fire, yes, yes, otherwise he just kind of sits and like holds on to it, and you have to kind of like needle it out of him a little bit. Yeah, yeah. So you have two little girls who are still pretty young. How has motherhood changed your experience as you know the spouse of a firefighter? Because you it started from the get-go, and then you had kids kind of during that. So, how has that changed?

SPEAKER_03

Um I don't know. I feel like that's a really good question. I think that I'm a little bit more anxiety-ridden as a mom now. And it's a lot of the stupid simple things of what happens if he's on a call, what happens if this? What happens if that? And what do I tell the girls? How do I tell the girls? Um, the girls know that their dad's a firefighter. They they absolutely they're just as obsessed with it as what he is, truly he is. Our daughter, our youngest daughter, um, she's finally putting two and two together. She's behind in her speech, but she comes up with her own ways. And she'll look at you and go, Dada, woo, woo, woo, and just start making. I'm like, yeah, dad's on the fire truck. Dad's working at the fire truck. That is so cute. It's the best, but it's really annoying after a while. I call her my 10-second Tom because it truly is like every 10 seconds she says the same thing over and over again. Um, I don't the girls don't know how dangerous dad's job is. Um, and they obviously they won't until they're older. Um, but I want them to know what their dad does. And I want them to know how important their dad's job is. Um I feel like I'm a lot more um hurry up, we got to get all the experiences in now in case something happens. Right. We do it all now with the girls in case something happens. Daddy's off. Let's go to the zoo, let's go to the park, let's go do this, let's make up for those 24 hours that daddy wasn't here because you never know what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_00

Another woman that I interviewed kind of mentioned that, and she said that they were, you know, talking about their plans for what happened if one of them passed early in their relationship. He wasn't in the fire service yet, and they had to have that same discussion after he started the fire service. And all of a sudden it sinks in. You're like, this isn't a plan, you know, from when you're 80 years old anymore. This has to be a like tomorrow type plan, yeah. Which is horrifying, yeah, a little bit terrifying, and like you said, you have to figure out exactly like what your kids should know how all of that stuff it's hard again, it's another thing that's kind of hard to explain to somebody who isn't in that position because everybody could be like, yeah, anything can happen, you know, car accidents, whatever. Yeah, but it's not it's not as likely when you're in other fields than when you're a firefighter.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. I think I was a little bit different too because um it wasn't anything that was in the back of my mind because my family does Monday through Friday eight to five jobs. They do office jobs. My grandparents did office jobs. Like it wasn't anything that was discussed of what speaking of fire call, there goes his pager. Bye, I love you. Um, it wasn't anything that was in the back of my mind of we need to have a plan for the future. Number one, for us two in case something happens. And number two, now that we have girls. Um, you know, I always you just think it's oh, it's never gonna happen. I don't need to have that discussion. I don't need to know what the plan is. Um, and when we first got married, he sat me down and he said, No, I I don't think you understand how serious of a conversation this is. That if something happens to me, you you need to know. You need to know what my wishes are. Um, and you need to know how you're gonna be taken care of from the fire service. Um, my parents need to know what my wishes are, and so on and so forth. Um, you would never expect as a 25-year-old that this is the conversation that you're having with your newly wed husband of, you know, these are my wishes if I die on a fire call, or these are my wishes if something happens on a fire call, or this is my line of contact, this is my emergency contact. Now you're listed as an emergency contact, and my fire chief has your phone number in case anything happens. You sincerely, you never think that that's a conversation that you're gonna have as a 25-year-old newlywed wife. Um, so that was a huge, huge like eye-opener for me of holy cow. Um, and of course, when we had our first daughter to list her as a beneficiary on his information and she's an infant, I was like, holy cow, this is just crazy.

SPEAKER_00

When we're looking at, you know, health insurance information and all this stuff and like accidental death, all of the different insurances, and it like sinks in. You're like, oh my God, this is yeah, this is because again, you see it happening, you see stories about you know firefighters passing away on the job or accidents happening, and you're like, it'll never happen to us, but you have to be prepared for that, and it's humbling. Yep, yep. Because there's no guarantee that that time is going to continue. Yep, yep. And that's stressful.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, it it there's no other way to explain it besides stressful, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So, what's the hardest part of parenting on shift days when you're all by yourself? Survival.

SPEAKER_03

Survival. It's it's it's all hard. Um, I think now that our oldest realizes, well, our our youngest is starting to realize too, um, reminding the girls, you know, our youngest, the first thing that she asks for is daddy when she wakes up. Nope, daddy's at work today, daddy will be home in the morning. Like they're still trying to grasp that concept of daytime, nighttime, we go to bed, and dad will be home in the morning. Um, so there's a lot of reminders throughout the day, you know, when's dad coming home? Is dad gonna be home? Um, and I don't think the other thing that I was prepared for was um, oh, you want to call your dad real quick? Sure, let's call dad. Because when I was younger, we would, I would call my dad and he'd be able to answer in the office. Hey, what's going on? What do you need? Um, when the girls' dad doesn't answer, it's, you know, dad's on a fire call, dad's on a medical call, that's why he can't answer. Oh, okay, well, we'll just call him right back. No, dad's doing something important, you know, we can't we can't call him back. Um, I think it's sunken for my oldest a little bit more when we're at um his career job that when we go to the station to see him at the station, she realizes that this is where my daddy sleeps, this is where my dad eats his dinner, um, this is my dad's fire truck for the day. I think that kind of helped her grasp the concept that dad will be home in the morning. Um, but that was the biggest thing for me was trying to explain to the kids of dad's not home right now, dad'll be home tomorrow. Um, and the amount of times that they ask for dad during the day. You're like, hello, I'm I'm right here. I'm the one that's surviving the thickest of the thick, right here with you right now, but you want your dad. Okay. Um, I was not prepared to have to explain to the kids that, you know, it's a whole 24-hour process, they'll be home later.

SPEAKER_00

I think I struggled the most with patience on shift days because it's easier on days when he's home when I'm getting close to blowing my top. I can just kind of take a step, take a little bit of time. Like I go religiously on days that he is home during the week, most of the time, sometimes on weekends, I go to the gym, and that is my like come back to sanity moment. But on shift days, I don't get that time. Yeah. So trying to maintain patience when they're driving me absolutely up the wall and they all manage to have a meltdown at the same time. Same time, same time, every time that is so hard to like recenter yourself while you're still dealing with the tantrums. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah. It's so I I feel like that's another struggle of mine. Um, when I was younger, um, it wasn't ever really talked about, but my mental health. Um, I recently got diagnosed with anxiety. I never thought that it was a thing because I would just I it was never talked about. It's just a like back of the mind, nobody ever gets diagnosed with it. So I have really bad anxiety. Um, and I my anxiety comes out in and snapping, or if I get overstimulated, I always tell Justin it's like a light switch just flipped. That's definitely taken a lot of, you know, the TV's on, the girls are screaming, the girls are running, the dogs walking, the dogs panting, somebody's breathing, and I can hear it, and I'm like, oh my gosh, holy cow. That's been a huge thing, too, is trying to figure out how to adjust to I'm getting overstimulated. So what do I need to take away? What needs to be shut off? What needs to be, what do we need to do? Um, and that's when I actually look at both of my girls and I go, okay, we're going to the park. Let's go. Let's load up. You can sit in your car seats and nobody can touch me when you're in your car seats. I'm going to go get a cup of coffee on the way, and we're going to the park. And that's the biggest way. And I think the girls have figured that out too. That if there's too much going on at home, let's we're gonna go to the park. And that's my chance to finally run some energy out. And that's where I can be crazy, is at the park.

SPEAKER_00

Sometimes I would go pick up my son, and my my son's school is less, it's about a half mile away from us. So most days we walk to drop him off and pick him up. Oh, yeah. Sometimes by the time it's time to pick up my oldest son, and the other two have been driving me absolutely up the wall. I pick them up in or pick him up in the car, and we pick them up in the car line where they bring the kid just straight to the car because the other two are strapped in, nobody's touching me. I can bring a drink with me, and I just sit and have personal space for 20 minutes. And those those 20 minutes are invaluable. Glorious, they are fantastic.

SPEAKER_03

I always joke and say that somebody might be screaming in the car with the windows down and the music blaring, but nobody's touching me, and it's amazing.

SPEAKER_00

I will also admit my sons have an obsession with Danny Go. Oh, yes. They I will pull out Danny Go, and they call it brain breaks. So when they've been like playing hard or doing stuff, and I just need them to not touch me. I put on Danny Go because even the one-year-old will go, and now he's starting to try to do the dances, but he'll go stand with the big boys while they're dancing. And I will make a cup of coffee and they get 20 minutes of Danny Go. And I sit and I'm like, okay, I have to kind of like chug it a little bit, but this coffee needs to be done before Danny Go's dying.

SPEAKER_03

Mom's burning her mouth in the process, but it's fine. I got my cup of coffee in.

SPEAKER_00

When my oldest son, because he's six, so he's kind of registering a little bit more, and it's adorable to see, but also kind of like heartbreaking to see that sometimes when daddy's gone, mommy gets a little overwhelmed. Oh, yeah. And he is a very empathetic little boy, and he's a very much mama's toy. He yesterday I was cleaning up the kitchen after we had like bedtime snack. I'm starting like putting dishes in the dishwasher, and I had turned to do something with baby, and I turn around, and my oldest son is loading up his brother's dishes into the dishwasher, and then he goes walks around and he's picking up the toys off the floor that are in the kitchen. And I'm like, What are you doing, bud? I didn't want you to have to do everything by yourself. I'm dying. I'm dying right now. You are too sweet. That's amazing. He's seeing that those days when daddy's gone, mommy needs a little bit of extra help. Yes. And he's all on board. Balancing everything is a struggle. Yes. And sometimes, especially when we have young kids, our marriages kind of take a bit of a hit. So, what do you guys do to make sure that you're staying connected? Because it's very easy to slip into like a roommate situation at this kind of phase of life.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. I feel like we're still kind of in a little bit of a roommate phase. Um, because my youngest is not, would love her to death, but she is not the easiest kid. She really isn't. Um, she requires a lot of attention. Um so I feel like we're kind of still in a little bit of a roommate phase. Um, and especially having the kids so close together being four and two, we did not get much of a break between the oldest and and the youngest. Um, we strive to make sure that we have one, we call it a date night. It's not even really a date night, but we still have at least one night a week that we go and we get dinner, completely uninterrupted dinner. Um, we try our best to stay off of our cell phones, even though that's you know, that's the first thing that we both go for. We're huge guilty of it. Um, but having our in-laws and my parents in town and having that support with being able to go get at least one dinner a week. Um, that's been a huge thing for us lately. And we try our best to make sure that, hey, I'm off so and so today, and I know that you're off today. Why don't you go and uh take an hour downstairs and do your crafting stuff for an hour while I've got the girls? Or, you know, Justin's really big into fishing. Hey, why don't you go ahead and take the girls out fishing and I'll stay home and I'll get some chores done because it's 10 times easier when nobody's home to get that done. And then when you get home, we'll switch and I'll take the girls and you can go do your own thing for a little bit. So we really make sure that number one, we get date night at least once a week. Um, and then we're really big individually on making sure that you have some quiet individual time. It's hard as what it is most days, because that gives us that chance to just, I don't know, re-recoup, re-re-energize ourselves to being able to go back. Um, things have not been super easy for the both of us since having our second child, um, because she's just so stressful. She really is. Um, she's a second baby does that. I don't know what's wrong with that that happens. Everybody always warns you going from having no kids to having one kid is really hard. Nobody warns you about going from one to two. No one warns you about that. No one. We were we were not prepared. Um, so I I do feel like we're still in a little bit of a roommate phase. Um, and I think some of that comes from um hidden resentment on myself that I there are days that I really resent Justin because he's he can drop and just go, like the fire call. He can just drop and go. It's a fire call, he can go. The girls are napping. Bye, have fun. Whereas if I do that, I got to, you know, I have to make sure that everything's set and organized for him, but that's just a control thing on my end. Um, so we're we're struggling in a little bit of the roommate phase, but we're we're getting through it. We'll get through it eventually. We always do. Um, it's just a phase. It's a phase in life. And as dumb as what it sounds, after bedtime when both of the girls are finally asleep, our like together time is sitting and making sure that neither one of us watched an episode of our favorite show without each other. What is grounds for a giant

SPEAKER_00

They watch without you. Oh, don't even think about it. It's so bad. I think like the clear thing, communication is so key in so many different levels. Yes. But I think without clear communication, the marriage will suffer no matter what. I was feeling a lot of brewing resentment for a little while because we when we had our second, we pulled our oldest out of daycare because he had been in daycare, but you know, in order to save money, because it was going to be like $2,000 a month for a home daycare for two kids. Yeah. We I'm like, I work from home, so it makes more sense to just keep them. Yeah. The problem became, I started feeling resentment for him because when he goes to work, he's working. He's that's all it is. And I, when I'm home, I'm working, I have the kids, everything is going on at once. And even when I was home, I was still trying to manage everything and trying to control everything because I knew what had to happen in order for everything to go smoothly. And at this point, he hadn't had a lot of responsibility with the kid. Not that he hadn't had responsibility, he hadn't had a lot of like opportunity to steer the ship.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_00

I started feeling so bitter because he would come home and he's like, God, I'm so tired. Or, you know, I just need a break. And I'm like, you just had a 35-minute drive home all by yourself, nobody's touching you. Like you were at the station and you're downtime, you sat and you guys watched a movie. I could see it on the Disney Plus thing that you guys were watching a movie. And I'd get so mad. And I'm like, no, I have to actually talk to him. And we had to sit and discuss. I'm like, I need to get out of the house. Like, yeah, I don't want to work if I don't leave the house.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I'm still I'm working and I'm also keeping an eye on what you guys are doing, you know, with the kids. Yep. If I do not leave the house, I will kill you.

SPEAKER_03

Yep. Hands down. Hands down. Justin tells me all the time, um, because I want more time to do crafting, which it's it's fine, it's not a big deal. Um, but that's that's me time. That's my thing, and that's the biggest thing that I absolutely enjoy. And he always tells me, um, well, why don't you do it when the girls are home? Just take them in the basement and let them run ferrile. And I'm like, but but you don't understand. I can't. They don't leave me alone, number one. And number two, to do those kinds of things at home, I'm sitting in the back of my mind going, okay, I'm crafting, but the dishwasher needs to be emptied. It needs to be loaded. I need this for groceries. This laundry's done. That laundry's done. I gotta fold this, I gotta do this. So for me to sit home and do it at home is it's practically impossible. Um, whereas, you know, when he's home and he sits and does his thing, the girls are like, Okay, bye, dad. I'm gonna go, you know, run feral in the backyard or whatever. And he's like, Okay, have fun. And he has like no care in the world.

SPEAKER_00

It's why do they leave him alone? This battle every time he will take the kids out in the backyard to play. The whole time they're all tied together, they're playing contentively, they're leaving him be. Yes, every time. I try to do the same thing, and they're climbing in my lap, they're coming back every five seconds. Hey, mom, mom. But I'm like, why? Why?

SPEAKER_03

Why, why, yes, oh, for sure. He could be sitting in a lawn chair next to me, and I could be sitting there trying to do something, full laundry, whatever, what have you. And the girl's like, Hey, mom, hey, mom, hey, mom. Like, your dad is sitting right next to me. Go ask your dad. Your dad's not doing anything.

SPEAKER_00

We'll watch a movie together, like as a family. Would turn, you know, Bob and I sit on the couch and the kids are, you know, hanging out on the floor, and all of a sudden they all without fail will migrate over to the couch and sit on top of me. I'm like, You didn't realize he's two feet over that way.

SPEAKER_03

Every time, yep, every time. It doesn't, it hasn't. I literally I could be in the bathroom, going to the bathroom, and the girls are banging on the bathroom day. Hey, mom, I need like your dad's out there. Go ask your dad. I told my oldest today, I am not the only parent in the house. Your dad is home. Go ahead. But I think it's because they've come so accustomed to it's just mom. It's just mom at home for those 24 hours, or how willy-nilly he's able to just drop and run the call because he knows that I'm home. That the girls have just grown accustomed to. It's just mom. Mom does everything when she's home. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

See, sometimes I'll tell my husband, I'm like, I need 20 minutes and nobody touched me. I'm gonna go take a shower when he comes home. And funnily enough, the first person to pop into the bathroom while I'm taking a shower is him. Your husband, yes, and he's like trying to be funny, and I'm like, I love you. Get out, go away. Go away. Go far away.

SPEAKER_03

I have noticed too, and I don't know if you do this too. Um, I take all the keys for the bathroom and put them in the bathroom. Oh, that's and I lock the bathroom door, and I go I go as far as bringing the fan, the box fan, into the bathroom with me. And I turn the box fan on, the fan in the bathroom, like the bathroom fan, and the shower is running, so I can't hear anything. No one can hear me, and no one can get in.

SPEAKER_00

The other thing you had mentioned was that more firewives need to talk about the ups and downs that we see on a daily basis, and that there needs to be more community overall. Because we all have, you know, people within our own department and stuff that we can talk to, but not always are they people that we really mesh with. Like in any work environment, you know, you you like some people, you don't like some people. Why do you think it's so important for there to be such a big community?

SPEAKER_03

We need the support. If something I'm really big on, we shouldn't have the support only when something happens. We should have support all the time. We need those women of, hey, our our guys are on a structure fire, we're home with the girls. It's dinner time. We're probably all at home trying to figure out how to cook dinner ourselves. Let's just go buy a bunch of pizzas. We'll meet you all at the fire station. Our men can sit and shoot the shit while they're at the fire station when they're done with the fire call and we can all hang out and we can have that support of bring the kids to the fire station and let them run feral at the fire station. Here's some pepperoni pizza and let's do this together kind of thing. Because we don't have that in our um volunteer fire department. We've got it a little bit more in Justin's career department that they do a little more things. Um, but in our small, small local town, we don't have that. Um, because it's a lot of a lot of these guys went to high school together and they don't get along with this person, they don't like that person, their wife doesn't like this one or that one. Um, and we don't have that connection. And I I want to be able to have that person of, hey, Justin ran this call and this happened and he won't talk to me about it, but I need to know how to support him. How do you support your husband with that? Or hey, let's just all get together and go hang out and watch a movie on the garage door at the fire station while our guys are running the fire call. Because when something happens, obviously your community comes out to show you that support. And that's amazing. Do not get me wrong with that. That is, it is amazing to see the people that come out to show their support when it does happen. Um, but you don't have it on a on a general basis of our husbands are out on these fire calls. We know that you're at home struggling with the girls trying to hold it together or the kids holding it together. Let's figure out how to do it together as one big group.

SPEAKER_00

Um we've done that. We have a couple um families that we've become close with at our department who are close in age, they have kids close in age to ours. And me and the other wives, we were all talking. We're like, I'm struggling lately. I need to do something for me. I need to do something. And like we would talk back and forth, you know, just on like a daily or like weekly basis, and we named our group chat Sanity Circle, which um, but we set it up one day, we did a mud run because they do a mud run every year in Flint. So we set it up, we all went together and we brought the kids over to actually to my house, and we left all the husbands. We did it on a day where they weren't on shift. So all the husbands came over, everybody brought food, everybody had stuff, you know, for the kids to do, and the kids just went feral with all there were like three or four dads splitting all of the kids, and we left for like six hours. We're like, we're gonna go do this, this is gonna be fun, we're gonna see you guys later. And they got to like sit and chat. The kids kept each other kind of occupied, they got to sit and talk and hang out and bond, and we got to sit and hang out and talk, talk a little bit of crap about our community because they were annoying us, but it was so nice to have just on like a regular day have that support and have that, like you said, community. And we all have friends and stuff outside of the fire service, right? And they could be friends that have kids the same age who have been married the same amount of time, but they don't quite get what we're talking about, yes, and that can be a bit frustrating because you're trying to like vent to somebody and they can't relate a hundred percent. Right. And you just you want somebody who you don't have to give a ton of detail, you can just be like, I was really struggling, he was on a shift, you know, he came off shift, and then a volunteer call came up and he left again. And I was so frustrated. Yep. And somebody just is like, Oh yeah, no, I've been there. It's yeah, yeah, so refreshing.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, that's that's what our our community needs. And again, it's hard because we have this like really weird age gap on the volunteer department where we've got a lot of older people, um, that the you know, their kids are like grown, they're out of high school, they're graduated, and then you have my group where there's not very many of us, but there's my group that have um some kids, there's a little bit of an age gap there. And then you have the younger guys who just graduated high school and they're not married, they've got just girlfriends. So it's hard to find that community, but we need it here, and that's why I want it is to have somebody else who understands.

SPEAKER_00

What would you tell a brand new firewife who is getting into it? She's like, I feel like I'm doing this completely by myself.

SPEAKER_03

Reach out, reach out, don't be afraid to reach out, don't be afraid to say, even if it's to somebody who's been there for 20 years, don't be afraid to reach out and say, What do I do? How do I do? How did you do? Um, don't be afraid to ask because I was. And I was like, I know this, I can do this, this is fine. I've got it all on my own. And I had it so wrong. And I made so many mistakes and and put myself in a really bit of a rough patch because I thought that I knew it all and because I thought that I could do it on my own. Um, and you can't, you can't do it on your own. You have to, you have to reach out to find somebody that can help and support you through that. And you can't be afraid to ask, even if it's somebody who's states away or cities away, figure out some way that you can ask them for support.

SPEAKER_00

I think it's hard to ask somebody for help, especially if they don't kind of fit your demographic almost. Because we all tend to kind of reach more towards somebody who's close in age, who is living the same kind of phase of life. But yeah, there's such a wide variety of ages and experiences. We might not, we just went on a like a tubing trip with the department where we were it was really fun. Um but like the the only other couples that came were like not significantly older, but most of them were a bit older than us where their kids are grown, and their kids are you know either in college or you know, graduating high school, and they wouldn't necessarily be somebody that I would ask for help and advice all the time. For sure, for sure. But those are sometimes the best people to ask for advice because they've already through it. Absolutely. Ask somebody who's going through it too, like it's a good thing to commiserate and get ideas and stuff, but also to ask a wider net because they have input that you haven't considered.

SPEAKER_03

Right. It's it's exactly the same. And and don't be afraid to look close. Um, you know, I was blessed with having a family who had already been in the fire service. And again, being me thinking I can do this all on my own, I never thought to ask my mother-in-law, how did she do it? How did she get through it? Because she raised two young kids with a volunteer fireman, and he was a paramedic. So how did she do it? I never thought to ask of how did you do this? How did you do holidays? How did you do dinners? How did you do this? Because she was in a completely different stage of life. Her two kids were grown, her son was married. You don't think to reach that, out, reach out to that person. But those are some of the absolute best people to reach out to because they've already gone through all the trials and errors and they can help support you and help hopefully help you not make the same mistakes that they did.

SPEAKER_00

So, this is another question that I like to ask everybody. So, if another firewife is listening right now, feeling overwhelmed, lonely, or like nobody else is quite getting what she's going through, what would you want her to hear?

SPEAKER_03

You've got this. Yeah, you've got this. Breathe and take it one day at a time.

SPEAKER_00

I think that's the simplest and best advice is one day increments. Yep. You can do anything for, I mean, even if you have to split it up. Yep. You can do anything for 20 minutes. You can do anything for an hour, you can do anything for a day. Yep.

SPEAKER_03

Just breathe it through. Yep. One that was my biggest thing with the two girls. Um, one, we always I always split it up into I have four hours before nap time and four hours before bedtime. I can do anything before nap time, and I can do anything before bedtime. But just one one day at a time, one one shift, one shift at a time. Um, because I was really big on well, this next day is your next shift, and what do I gotta prepare for for this next shift? Nope. I'm I'm right here. I'm on this shift first. What can I do today to survive this shift? You don't have to thrive, you just have to survive.

SPEAKER_00

So, Nikki, thank you so much for being here and for sharing your story. I know the honesty that you've been able to share with everybody is going to remind so many people that they're not the only ones navigating these exact same highs, lows, and everything in between. And to everybody else listening, thank you for spending some time with us today. If this episode resonated with you, I'd love for you to share it with another firewife or any first responder spouse who could use the reminder that they're not alone. Until next time, remember you are stronger than you think. You're never as alone as you feel. And together we are stronger than the shift.