I just got off the phone with a good friend. Like Joe, her husband went to Iraq back in 2003 but he had to stay for an entire year. During that year, he was injured in an attempted assasination, although he's fine now. He has been home for the last year, but is headed back to Iraq again in a few weeks for another year.

Since he came back, he has been an entirely different person - cold, distant, mean, and almost certianly suffering from PTSD. They have a beautiful 2 year old daughter and he spends almost no time with her.

It's so sad to me and I wish there was something I could do. How do you make a relationship work when you are never togethe (and the time you are together, you are planning to be apart again). This was my biggest fear for Joe and I, but at least in our case, we have talked a lot about it. My friend's husband has no interest in either acknowledgin the problem or doing something about it. He has changed so much and my heart really aches for my friend who just wants a loving, kind companion in life.

One of the reasons they were surprised Annabel was sunny side up was that I never had back labor.

Awww....

I'm married to a pedant: [link]

Since he came back, he has been an entirely different person - cold, distant, mean, and almost certianly suffering from PTSD. They have a beautiful 2 year old daughter and he spends almost no time with her.

It's so sad to me and I wish there was something I could do. How do you make a relationship work when you are never togethe (and the time you are together, you are planning to be apart again). This was my biggest fear for Joe and I, but at least in our case, we have talked a lot about it. My friend's husband has no interest in either acknowledgin the problem or doing something about it. He has changed so much and my heart really aches for my friend who just wants a loving, kind companion in life.

That's heartbreaking stuff. I wonder if he'd listen to somebody from his own unit.

That's heartbreaking stuff. I wonder if he'd listen to somebody from his own unit.

I think he might. Except that he's in a command position currently meaning that, as far as he's concerned, any inability to deal with his own life in weakness. He has recovered physically from the almost-death experience, but I suspect he still has a lot of baggage from that.

I think the biggest factor preventing him from trying to get help is the fact that he's going back there in a few weeks for another year. While I don't like his behavior over the last year, I can see how exploring feelings and opening oneself up to that might be hard in the face of returning to the "battlefield" for a year.

It's been almost an hour. I think I killed the thread.

I don't know what back labor is, and I'm too busy eating with my non-typing hand to google.

Was ist back labor, please?

I'm too busy eating with my non-typing hand

Ah, dinner at the computer, with the Buffistas.

Labor where you feel most of the pain in your back, with residual pain between contractions.

Or, as mother said, it felt like her back was being snapped in half over and over again.

Where your contractions start and maintain in your back and side, from what I know.

Back labor is a pretty standard plot device. You know, the heroine thinks she's had a backache all day, and then she's kidnapped or something, and her water breaks and she realizes she gonna have the baby RIGHT NOW, and the hero has like, 5 minutes to kill the villian, realize he loves her/is the father/isn't really an insane ninja vampire (or all three) AND delivery her baby in the middle of the desert/Arctic/crashing spaceship?

Back labor.