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| By Safe Call Now |
Yes, I have to admit it.
I had a torrid, sensual and illicit love affair. It lasted for 23 years and I thought it would
never end. At the beginning it was so
incredible, so romantic and so sensual and towards the end it was so hard to
conceal and cover up with lies. My love
affair ended up destroying my marriage, my children, my career and my life. I
will explain more later…
So you’ve read this far, you must be interested… There are
many studies out there that indicate that first responders have a much higher
divorce rate than the general public. I
always have to ask myself why is this???
You truly are healthier than the general population when you are hired,
you are vetted out to be so. Somewhere
along the line (usually the 7-10 year mark) studies and my experience tell me
that there is the potential for us to start to lose our way. As I travel the country I find it very
interesting that there is so much help for the first responders and how to
“love” them and how the family learns to adapt to their new jobs. It just amazes me, why does the
family system and dynamics have to change for the first responder? Who made up that rule? Talk about reinforcing dysfunction.
One definition for a love affair is “a
romantic relationship or episode between lovers”… Oh I had this incredible affair for so long
and I thought it was wonderful. It
wasn’t with a woman, it was with my job and addiction (alcohol and pills). She was a seductive mistress and I fell hard
for her and the attention she gave me.
As I got more and more into my life as a “Cop” and detached from my
family I attempted to fill the void of my inability to have healthy interpersonal
relationships with those I supposedly loved.
I had great superficial relationships with those that I worked with and
had their backs. Actually looking back
on it, they were all pretty fake relationships.
But the job and the drugs fed my ego, they loved me and they were always
there for me. So I thought...
All the studies were right I thought and just
like they told me at the academy, you’re more likely than not to get a
divorce. It’s normal, they told me
so. Reflecting back on it, that’s the
biggest piece of bullshit advice I’ve ever been given. I still hear it at academies today in their
family programs and I challenge anyone out there in the first responder
community to engage me on this subject and make sense of why it has to be this
way.
