Last week I left my husband home alone to handle the kids, packed my stuffed polar bear in my suitcase and went to New York City for the weekend.
Hi, my name is Amy and, yes, I sleep with a stuffed polar bear.
My roommates for the weekend, both military spouses, thought this was hilarious. They made fun of the bear (no, he doesn’t have a name – thanks for asking) relentlessly. But I didn’t care. That polar bear helps me sleep when I’m away from my husband – or when he’s away from me.
Military spouses spend a lot of their life sleeping without their husbands. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people complain that they have trouble sleeping during deployment.
“I just don’t sleep well while he’s gone,” they say.
But since not sleeping for nine months straight isn’t a viable option, they come up with solutions.
Some fall asleep with the TV on just so they feel like there’s someone else in the room.
Some people sleep with their kids, even though it guarantees being kicked constantly all night long.
Both my NYC roommates sleep with a giant body pillow when at home.
Jacey, our editor here at SpouseBuzz, sleeps with a cashmere sweater.
These people would have sleep with your spouses heartbeat embedded in a creepy heartbeat pillow.
And I sleep with my polar bear.
I don’t feel like my polar bear deserves all the fun that was made of him last weekend. He’s a nice little guy, for crying out loud.
So I’m curious – do you have trouble sleeping while your spouse is gone? And what do you do about it?
