Probably more than half of my friends don't know that I was married to a police officer for fourteen years until six years ago, and even now I still have a lot of friends and their family who are in public safety. Being in law enforcement changes some things about your personal relationships, and I thought I would write a little about it here.
It is difficult for a civilian to understand the life of a police officer or other types of law enforcement. The hours are tough, and your days begin to run together with the stress of going home and having to find a way to relax and rest before dressing and doing it all again. Your life becomes fully invested in your work.
Many cops don't have family at home to go to, and those that do have to face people at home who can't grasp how they feel, facing the type of danger they do. You never really leave the law enforcement mindset once you have lived in it for 14 years. I was fully immersed in it as a cop's wife, and there wasn't a single day that went by that I didn't stop and gasp to myself and think quickly to where he would be at that moment - was he at home sleeping, out for a run, or was he walking up to a car full of drug dealers with guns hidden under the seat? I was committed to him, and I made a conscious decision to sacrifice myself and the comforts of family for the sake of public safety.
When you have lived with that sort of stress, you always weigh the danger of a situation the people you love are faced with. You always consider what the possibilities are, but you stick with the probabilities. You can't afford to fear the worst. You have to stick with what is most likely. You also can't afford to delude yourself, either. You know what sort of temptations law enforcement officers face, if you are a smart person. You know that there are a lot of things he must deal with in his job that you don't want to know the details about.
You also learn how to give people space, and that space becomes a comfortable buffer zone between you and others, as well. It took me some time to learn to be reserved in my thinking and in my conversation. That is a requirement in Midwestern culture and in police work, too. It leaves a place holder between what you know, what you think, what you think might be and what could be the best and worst case in a situation, and you learn that deep conversation doesn't allow for all of the unknowns.
Law enforcement officers have an extremely high divorce rate compared to most other vocations. It takes a tremendous amount of encouragement and understanding to develop a good relationship with anyone who works on the street in this fashion, and cops typically cannot offer it back. So hug your police officer and spouse today, and tell him or her you read about the challenges they face. Trust me, they'll love you for it!
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