The Barrage of "Why Didn't You Just" Questions

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Here's one right out of all the best deployment handbooks - When a service member returns from deployment they should refrain from repeatedly questioning their partner about why they did things they way they did. This can range from how one handled the checkbook, took care of the cars, raised the kids, moved the furniture, took care of themselves - oh there are just thousands of possibilities here.

I'm not sure why, but people in a deployed war zone seem to imagine the rest of us with nothing much to do, no stress, no financial worries, abundant amounts of time to get anything needed or wanted done and always feeling like a million bucks. They don't seem to get that the worry about them alone is enough to kill every one of us from a heart attack or stroke!!! Am I right?! They don't see that we don't sleep well the entire time they are gone, often have kids waking us up in the middle of the night.

They seem to forget that we have kids climbing on us 24-hours a day. The great part about that one is that it's a rude awakening when they get home. Huge amounts of kid energy bombarding them is a real humbling moment for them when they realize how exhausting it is after just a few minutes when you've been doing it alone for a year. They seem to forget that we have three meals to put on the table every day by ourselves and have limited amounts of time and energy to spend on the phone with insurance companies, doctors, lawyers, repairmen, banks, schools and airlines.  

I was ready for this one. Remember, I'd read all the books! But even then I still felt pretty defensive when questioned repeatedly, the first few days about how I handled things for A YEAR while he was away. (Let't not forget here that he was away for most of the two years before that as well.) I tried a variety of approaches all of which didn't satisfy him and made me feel like a little kid trying to come up with some reason to not be in the dog house. When in reality I didn't think I'd done anything wrong in the first place. No I hadn't done everything perfectly while he was gone, but by hell, the ship was still afloat and we were all still alive and the house was clean when he got here.

There is no way to ask "Why didn't you just ___" without it sounding like a put down - as if any moron could have done it better than you did. I think they think they are helping because they believe their idea would've made life easier for you. Unfortunately again that implies you made a poor choice that wore you out more than it needed to. Insulting again.

Finally, about the third or fourth day he was home I'd had enough of all the Monday Morning quarterbacking. In a moment of sheer frustration or perhaps inspiration I turned to him and said, "I can't changed anything about how I handled our home life during your deployment. It's too late now. I did the best I could do. Questioning me about how I did everything now, my dear man, is a one-way ticket to hell for you, for me and for all of us. No good can come of this."

He looked at me and said, "You're right. You're right." And that was the end of it. We have not had that conversation again since. It was amazing how he just let it go. I was seriously impressed! Sometimes you get lucky and find just the right words to diffuse a situation permanently. Whew! And now we return to our regularly scheduled blissful reintegration. I love him even more for choosing the best outcome for me, himself and our family!