Editor’s Note: This week’s essay comes from PoliceOne Member Daniel Burns. In PoliceOne “First Person” essays, our Members and Columnists candidly share their own unique view of the world. This is a platform from which individual officers can share their own personal insights on issues confronting cops today, as well as opinions, observations, and advice on living life behind the thin blue line. If you want to share your own perspective with other P1 Members, simply send us an e-mail with your story.
By Daniel Burns
Police1 Member
If you’re reading this, odds are you’re a cop. If you’ve got more than a year on the job, you already know, through experience, exactly what I’m going to talk about. As for the rest of you, just know that this is one of those “shut up and let the old guy talk, you may learn something” moments.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I loved my career in law enforcement. Yes, loved.
Perhaps a strong word but none the less a good way to describe how going to work every day made me feel. Police work gets in your blood. Most of your waking thoughts are about your job and it becomes a switch you can’t turn off. It you think that maybe you’re not married to the job?
Take this simple test. Better yet, let your spouse take it for you.
1.) Can you go to the grocery store without your hypersensitive radar spotting that suspicious looking kid eyeballing a woman’s purse in aisle six?
2.) While driving down the highway do your eyes automatically scan the road checking for other vehicle’s valid registration?
3.) Have your vocabulary words for “car, bad guy and got-out” been replaced by “vehicle, suspect and exited”?
4.) Do 90 percent of your personal T-shirts, sweatshirts, coats, boxers, etc. have some sort of badge, emblem, or gun brand imprinted on them?
If you’ve answered yes to any of these questions, it’s in your blood. You’re in love and married to the job.
Whether you are born with great instincts or they’re learned, you depend on your “Spidey sense” to make good, informed decisions. There is no dispute that quite frequently those good decisions are what keep you safe and alive. Those of us who have been there know that law enforcement is 98% mundane, mind numbing boredom punctuated by two percent insanity. Sometimes it’s during this boring tedium that our mind wanders, along with other things and bad decisions are considered and made. This is when we forget what’s really important.
Show me a cop who has a happy marriage, loving family, and a strong faith that binds them all together and I’ll show you two who are divorced or at least on the brink of a break-up.
Unfortunately, statistics show a continuing increase of this fact every year. According to a university study done in 2010, the most adverse effect of a law enforcement career is divorce with alcoholism and suicides follow closely behind. Being a male dominated industry, the study also concluded that the most popular belief for this statistic is the existence of “badge bunnies” or “holster chasers.”
These are the female cop groupies who buzz around those in uniform, bat their eyes and flatter egos. The reality is that frequently, those who are married and give in to the temptations of these sirens of the siren boxes are doing so to mask deeper personal issues.
A phenomena among law enforcement families, common but rarely discussed, is a wall that is built between couples. Industry psychologists and other experts deem these walls as a defense mechanism that works like this:
A wife, whose husband goes to work in uniform, constructs an emotional barrier between herself and the man she loves. This barrier is meant to keep out the bad things by creating distance between the two of them. In her mind, this wall will ease the blow of that late-night knock at the door when she’s told that the love of her life and the father of her children has been taken from her. With this barrier, the news doesn’t hurt as bad as it would if they were close.
This distance does, however, create an ever-widening void that eventually becomes unbridgeable and the couple splits.
Another factor that leads the failure of many police marriages is one that most of us are acquainted with. It’s the “I don’t want to talk about it because you wouldn’t understand” syndrome.
I remember being told by an instructor in the academy that it won’t be long before all of my friends are cops and only cops. It took about a year but sure enough, I found that the only people that I hung out with were my co-workers. You’d think that you spend enough time with these people, but no, you choose to continue to surround yourself only with the ones who can “relate.” No one else understands the stress, the pressures or the emotions that come with the job. Police work is an emotional rollercoaster and who wants to go on that ride alone?
It sounds like a great support system but there’s the down side: you unknowingly, or perhaps purposely, alienate all others.
Everyone else start to become outsiders and sometimes they include your spouse and the ones who care about you the most. A few years ago, I wrote an article about life after law enforcement and having a “Plan B” upon retirement. It is just as, if not more important to have that plan or second life outside the job. Let’s face it; peace and harmony are hard to come by without the stressors of police work. It’s so easy to bring the job home with you to your family. You have to remember that you may have had a bad day but because your family loves you, your bad day is always theirs as well.
Never lose sight of the fact that your spouse and family love you more than anything. If not, they wouldn’t tolerate your “Type A” personality, the crazy shifts and all the other sacrifices that come with the job. So, at the end of the day, it’s ok to clue them in on what’s on your mind. Tell them how the shift went, leaving out the gory details, of course. Your loved ones are NOT outsiders. As you are married to the job, so are they through you. Don’t become a hermit crab that will eventually, over time, create an impenetrable shell.
If you have children, spend as much time with them as possible. They too feel the stress of the job and it they are old enough to watch TV and process what they see, they too live with the anxiety that mommy or daddy could get hurt at work. We live with the possibility that there may be a day that we don’t make it home. Our loved ones live with that fear as well.
To reduce these stresses at home, so simple things you can do include minimizing the “police stuff” usually found strewn about the house. These are constant reminders to the family of what you do when you’re not home. A friend of mine has his cop blanket, framed academy photos, a policeman’s clock, (the little hand has a pistol in it) and shooting trophies in his den.
Another suggestion is to outlaw the scanner.
When you’re off work, stay off work. Don’t listen to what’s going on during the other shifts. Lastly, do things with the family not police related. Unless you feel that the family needs practice because the zombie apocalypse is truly upon us, taking the wife and kids’ shooting every weekend is not the end-all to family fun. You don’t need a week long out of town trip to get away. A day trip of fishing or overnight camping is a great distraction for you all.
Instincts, based on what we perceive, keep us alive. They help us formulate the basis for making good decisions. These decisions are based on what we see around us: our options, those affected and possible outcomes. Use these instincts at home and in your personal life as well as on the job.
Your success as a spouse, partner, or father may depend on it.
