Your spouse reservist is gone again, and being a single mom was tough. Anything can be a crisis of not being able to locate the tape from the hair of his daughter of her cheerleader uniform ten minutes before the game, frankly threatening events. Example You have been diagnosed with stress-related singles and after a week of seclusion at home to leave in your car to run some errands with one of his teenage daughters who just fights with his sister about whose boyfriend is the biggest idiot.

As you stand at a stoplight on the way home, he begins to shed the rain and tells her daughter that it is better to get home by car, because the crazy people in time. At the same time a pizza delivery vehicle reaches the car behind you, creating a chain collision with you in the center. After hours in the emergency room, you discover that only a whiplash, and a car crashed on.

They talk about having a bad day. Where is your wife In Kuwait.

That was the situation faced recently by Brian Myatt Clovis, CA, who works night shift as an airplane mechanic, while his wife, Lisa Myatt of AVCRAD SFC 1106th was deployed in the Middle East. So, in general, how are handling all this

There's always a crisis in progress, and all I can do is take one at a time and deal with them as best I can, said Brian Myatt. With the help and support of her mother, godmother of his daughter and his wife, the support group of family unity, the fields of Brian problems as they come.

As the Guard  Reservist spouses go, Brian is a little unusual because of their gender, but not their attitude. Tylitha Paden, Terrance L. wife of SFCPaden of New Mexico National Guard, said that while her husband was deployed to Iraq, the Albuquerque salon she owns, in addition to talk to God, work, and not to think, and Friday night Cinema , helped him cope. Annie S. Williams, Huntsville, AL, wife of Maj. Michael D. Williams, who spent 10 months in Kuwait, it also recognizes that prayer and the interests of his daughter with maintaining their constant and busy, I filled my time with extra-curricular activities ... Gymnastics, dance, Kindermusik, piano , children's choir.

Hope H

If anything characterizes tight spouses of Guard members and reservists, which is hope. These are people whose emotional attention is the size of a mailbox, for whom You've Got Mail is the world's sweetest music. Communication, like the older definition of faith becomes for them the substance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Hope alone is not enough. But the rest of the letters of the acronym HOPE demonstrate how these spouses - and experts who analyze such spouses - can advise others on how to thrive in the deployment of a guard or fellow reservist.

Or order

For Williams, life is more manageable when sorted. While many spouses swear to keep a calendar countdown of days until the deployment is over, Williams soon abandoned because the time seemed to pass more slowly. But she kept her husband's memory alive in the minds of his daughter by the constant sending and receiving pictures, talking on the phone, and watch videos of past family events, when her husband and daughter interacted.

In the absence of presence, so to speak, sometimes something as simple as senseless and numbering the cards can be comforting. You can not control what happens where her husband is, says Ask April advice columnist April Masini deployed spouses, but you can have in your life and your writing on a regular basis, if you hear it and the numbering of the envelopes and letters to let you know if it was lost or not.

To Myatt and Williams, who is an elementary school teacher, often meant to maintain law and order ahead of chaos. Each had previously relied on their spouses to help get children to school and extracurricular activities while maintaining their own full-time employment. Rearranging schedules and enlist the help of friends and relatives worked for them, but others are not so lucky. While many studies examine the cost of career and financial implementation of a guardsman or reservist, which is often overlooked is how many spouses to compromise their own jobs and careers to support military wives, says Dr. James A. Martin, Col., U.S. Army (Ret.), a professor at Bryn Mawr College and the senior social work in the theater of operations in the Persian Gulf during the first Gulf War. Requirements for child care when a spouse is deployed is an example where civilian employers need to be more understanding.

P is for Pro-Active

Without doubt - you have a deployed spouse is stressful. Texas Myatt and persistent skin rashes Paden join what experts say are other symptoms of separation anxiety, which include loss of appetite or eating constantly, unexplained weight gain or loss, stomach pain, and altered sleep patterns. Axiomatic Some guard and reserve deployment is financial and career uncertainty, with the nerves that accompany the statistical implications rattle third of deployed personnel must have a pay cut to complete their service obligations and long-term away from home.

And then there's the toll on marriages and relationships. Dr. Walter Schumm, a retired colonel in the Army Reserve who is now professor of Family Studies at Kansas State University, says that no research largely on marital satisfaction in terms of implementation, but overturns the myth that only weak marriages crumble under a scenario like the one we saw in Desert Storm. He cites a study that showed a divorce rate of 21% and 6% of stable marriages at risk during implementation.

For those who seem to be coping well with the implementation, Schumm cites a recent study at Fort Riley and Fort Leavenworth showing that the spouse was directed frustration over the circumstances that their soldier, noting that were not happy campers, but were not directly blame their husbands for her. However, Sometimes couples fight a lot before deployment almost as a way to make the separation easier, he says. He warns that such emotional outbursts are sometimes irrecoverable, and is related to heartbreaking stories of women angry with the uncertainty of the deployments of their husbands who said or did things that hurt - with tragic results.

Schumm good news is that while long separations are more stressful, the implementation may have been repeated a positive impact. The spouses learn how to cope with the experience (number of implants), but not their spouses being gone for so long (many months).

Experts are unanimous about the salutary effect of connectivity as an essential element to keep the home fires burning mental health during deployment - to liaise with spouses, family, with clubs and groups faith with someone who is a positive and helpful influence. For the near bases and  or large communities, such help is great. But even in rural areas can benefit from programs like Kids military operation that allied organizations such as 4-H, Boys and Girls Clubs, and local extension services country to meet the needs of the children of the guards and deployed reservists who would otherwise fall through the cracks.

In addition to the local community support, a robust online community that exists in cyberspace. Just do a Google search on the phrase military spouse, 'says Martin. There are many military spouses support each other in the Internet community.

Proactivity may require creativity. When her husband was deployed for the first time, Paden Tylitha could not find yellow ribbons, so hand some of the cars, a move that led to new friends and supporters who wanted to tape as well. She put her experience with multiple deployments of her husband to good use by sending advertisements offering assistance for spouses of soldiers deployed through the local Churches of Christ in your area and created their own city in the whole group support. She felt alone (after 24 years of marriage, I felt like my other half was gone - and he was, says Paden) so the packages sent overseas to men and women overseas who felt lonely too .

E is for expectations

One of the most difficult facets of managing the hope is the element of expectation. For some Guard members and reservists who may have signed a little arrogant for what they believed was the duty of occasional weekend warrior with a potential for a national deployment of short-term, taking orders for Iraq was something that mentally had not signed it. The warning was the deployment, which shook the spouses, too, to the bones.

However, knowing what to expect can be an advantage, says Dr. Benjamin Z. Blanding, a retired Army lieutenant colonel and a clinical psychologist and director of the Counseling Center at Rowan University. He calls the deployment and return of the two extremes of life in transition that are the most critical stress points. Knowing that most people manage the time between these events quite well, Blanding says, can help relieve the last event - after all, if your spouse has already been implemented, and time is easier separation of the three , then you can concentrate on de-emphasizing the meeting time.

The deployment is also the time that a spouse can give the soldier's mental and emotional free pass as columnist Macini. Remember that no one knows exactly what is happening there, and he can focus on things that are telling you.'s Probably not about you.

The delicate balance between the need and independence is difficult to maintain. Annie Williams advises You must have faith. You must keep things for yourself, your children and your spouse to make proud. It's a fine line because you do not want your spouse to think that he or she is not required . On the other hand, you do not want your spouse to worry ... you want him or her know you can count on to do the job at home.

In the long run, be realistic in your expectations of yourself may be the key to success. If your husband is military abroad, by now a single mother, says author Mickey Michaels, author of the best divorce and single parenting. Do not try to be June Cleaver. She never had to deal with problems they do.

It all

Almost everywhere I go and people know my wife is deployed, the first things you say, 'Well, God bless her and do you need anything' Says Myatt as he reflects on traffic accidents, problems adolescent and deployment.