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What to Expect as a Trucker’s Wife

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Partners standing together
Being a trucker is not an easy job, and being a trucker’s wife isn’t either. Especially if your partner is just starting a new job, you might be wondering what to expect while they’re on the road. How will your routine change while they’re gone? What should you expect from home time? How will your kids handle having just one parent around most of the time? We talked with a few trucker’s wives about what to expect and how to keep a strong relationship through it all.

1. Trust Is Everything

All marriages live and die on trust, but that’s even more true when you spend a lot of time apart. Even if you talk regularly, a lot will happen in each other’s lives that you won’t be there for. It’s important to trust that the other person is still your teammate and you’re working toward a shared life vision. Consider sending your partner good morning and good night messages or packing several days of home-cooked meals when they leave. These are little ways to say “I love you” even when you’re not together. 

Even in committed relationships, the days and weeks can seem endless at times. Talk with your trucker and have a plan for short and long-term career goals. That way, everyone has clear expectations for the situation. It’s easier to make sacrifices in the short term if you know what you’re working toward. 

2. Find Your Communication Sweet Spot

Communication can be a tough one when you’re a trucker’s wife. You might be on vastly different schedules, and you don’t have the natural proximity of evenings or weekends together to catch up. As a result, communication has to be intentional. For many couples, that’s actually a gift because both people are being thoughtful in reaching out to the other. 

Trucker's wife Rebecca

Rebecca, Trucker’s Wife and Return to Amish star

We spoke with Rebecca Schmucker, former Return to Amish star and veteran trucker’s wife, and she shared this advice for other women with a trucking partner:

“Communication is key. My husband bought me a headset like his so I can work around the house and drive safely and we talk for hours. It’s so nice!”

To find a communication pattern that works for everyone, agree on a specific schedule. You won’t be able to talk all the time, but text, phone, and video conversations should be frequent. If you’re a parent, find time for the kids to talk with their favorite trucker and save time for just parents. Learn some trucking lingo so that you can swap stories about each others’ days and be part of each others’ lives. It might take a little while to find the right rhythm, but it’s well worth the effort!

3. You’re In Charge of the Day to Day

As an OTR trucker’s wife is that the ball is in your court for taking care of everything at home. That can mean everything from getting kids to school, soccer practice, and everywhere else to fixing the running toilet and patching that bike tire that always seems to leak. 

Rebecca also shared her perspective on being home without your handyman husband. She said: 

“For the women, be prepared to do things you never expected to do! I have had to fix our furnace in the middle of winter, change out an electrical outlet and take care of EVERYTHING at home!” 

She continued, “It’s empowering to learn how to be self-sufficient but it can be overwhelming too. It’s not a bad life at all if you have trust and stay open and honest with each other. We appreciate our time together a lot more and make the best of it.”

Sometimes the amount of responsibility may feel exhausting or overwhelming, but many trucker’s wives also find it empowering. You are wildly capable and you’ll feel like superwoman when you’re done!

4. Maximize Home Time

Home time is incredibly important for OTR drivers and their families, and you’ll want to make the most of your time together. That said, it’s easy to let expectations skyrocket and sometimes home time won’t be everything you’ve built it up to me. You might feel a mix of excitement, sadness, and even frustration when your partner is home if things aren’t like you imagined they’d be. The best thing you can do is try to take things as they come. 

Trucker's wife Buffy

Buffy, Veteran Trucker’s Wife

We also asked Buffy Olson for her advice for other trucker’s wives. She emphasized the importance of home time. 

“One of the things I live by is, when he’s on the road it’s about me, my kids, the house, etc. I exercise, I watch what I enjoy, I clean, I spend quality time with kids. When my trucker is home it’s all about HIM! I cook his favorite meals, dress up, plan special things, some big, some small. But I allow my world to evolve around my husband. I think this is important because it keeps us both happy and almost in a honeymoon/young lovers phase.”

When your partner comes home, find a balance that works well for the two of you. Look for a mix of shared responsibilities and leisure time while at home together. Trucking is hard work, so your partner will probably be pretty tired some weeks. Build in some downtime, and focus on the things that are reenergizing for everyone. If you love family gatherings, go to that holiday party, but if what you really want is a quiet evening together, don’t feel shy about turning down invitations. 

5. Flexibility Is Key

Even when you know when your trucker has their next scheduled home time, it’s important to stay flexible. Things like home time don’t always go as planned. Your trucker might get stuck delivering their final load only one hour away but get held up at the dock. Or, the weather might turn bad, keep drivers on the road, and then require drivers to take a 30-minute break to stay in HOS compliance. It’s easy to get disappointed when unexpected delays come up, but try to be patient and flexible. No one is happy about the situation, and making the extra effort to show a good attitude goes a long way toward starting home time off right.

Trucker's Wife, Buffy

Trucker’s Wife Buffy with Family

6. Keep Yourself Busy

Especially when you’re a new trucker’s wife, it’s important to keep yourself busy. That’s also true for your trucker! Keeping busy might sound like no problem if you have kids at home, but make sure you create a little time for yourself as well. If you have a lot going on, that could be as simple as a 15-minute walk or an extra 5 minutes in the shower. If you have too much time on your hands and are stuck missing your partner, dig into a new hobby. In both cases, this is a time for strong social networks. Make time for your family and friends. They’re the people who will support you when things get tough or you need a break.

7. Consider Going OTR

Jumping into the cab and trucking with your partner isn’t a good fit or even possible for everyone, but some people love it! If you’ve always wanted to see the country, ask about rider programs so you can go OTR together. If you can’t go OTR, see if you can join for one route together. This will give you a taste of your partner’s day-to-day life and helps create shared experiences. 

Becoming a trucker’s wife is not an easy transition, but there is a community of women who know the ropes and are ready to support each other. Check out #truckerswife on Instagram or Truckers Wife Support on Facebook to hear from other truckers’ wives on how they make their relationships work.

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5 Parenting Tips for Truck Drivers

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5 parenting tips for truck drivers

No one understands the joys and pains of regularly coming home and turning right around and leaving again like a truck driver with a family. Life as a parent and a truck driver is a challenging but rewarding combination. For regional and OTR drivers, a few days of time in person has to sustain drivers through days or weeks away. Even when you’re home, as a long haul trucker, the transition home can take its toll.  Make time for yourself and your family while you’re on the road and when you come home. Here are a few parenting tips to help you make the most of your family time.

1. Master Good Communication

Facetime, Skype, and Zoom are all great video calling platforms that have a free plan for users. Especially with younger children, being able to see and hear each other is huge. Even when you’re away, your kids will know your voice and be excited to see you when you walk through the door.

Connect with your children in a way that works for them. If you have small kids, read them a bedtime story every night. Or, have a family movie night once a week. If you have older children, they might not want to video chat. Instead, send them messages throughout the day. Find out what’s going on in their lives and stay on top of the little things as well as the big ones.

Bunni

For many drivers, spending time with loved ones has gotten even more difficult since the COVID-19 outbreak.

Bunni, an OTR driver and mother shared, “I have one daughter. Before Coronavirus I was seeing her at least every other week. Now, she’s self-isolating at her grandparents’ farm. I probably won’t see her for a while because of that. We talk on the phone daily. We use Marco Polo, house party, Instagram, and snap chat as well.”

She added, “Kids will tell you everything if you’re a safe space for them. And sometimes you have to ask better questions than “how was your day” and “what did you do”. Try deeper questions. Ask how they feel about something they did. Or if they had anything happen that made them happy for someone else. The more specific the question the better. And once they start talking, stay engaged. Don’t just “mmhmm” their stories.”

2. Make the Most of Home Time

Even superhero parents can’t do everything. When you come home, you’re probably sharing time between a partner, your kid(s) and trying to rest up for your next shift.

Before you get home, prioritize the most important events & make a schedule. A schedule helps you make the most of your time while also allowing yourself recovery time.

When you make that schedule, there’s one very important rule. Be realistic, even when it’s hard. Kids will be disappointed if you can’t make it to an event. But, they’ll be devastated when you say you’ll be somewhere or do something and then cancel last minute. If you do have the energy to squeeze in an extra little league game or dance recital, they’ll be thrilled when you surprise them and show up.

3. Involve Your Kids

One of the best ways to be a part of your kids’ lives is to let them be a part of yours. If you have a take home truck program, show them your truck. Let them ask questions and sit behind the wheel. As they get older, tell them about the places you go and what it really means to be a truck driver.

Before you leave for your next load, let your family help plan your time away. Even if you don’t follow it exactly, they’ll love mapping your route and know where you are when you next call. You can even give each person a special job for while you’re out. It’s a great way to start conversations and connect.

Marion

We spoke to Marion, a truck driver who shared her parenting tips from driving OTR with 3 children and 6 grandchildren.

“[When I was raising kids] I did regional, home on the weekends. My advice would be to listen to your kids. Especially to the things they don’t say. Make electronics your friend and video chat with them daily,” shared Marion.

She continued, “Teenagers are difficult no matter what. Don’t let things go by because you might have a bad conscience not being there. Stay in touch, let them know they can talk to you. Be a parent, even when you’re not physically there. It’s hard at times, but they will thank you later.”

4. Don’t Forget about Your Partner

Not all parenting tips are about the kids! As you share time with your children, don’t forget to make time for just you and your partner. It’s important time for both of you, and it’s good for your kids in the long run.

Set honest expectations about the shortcomings of trucking jobs. Your partner is sharing in the good, the bad, and the ugly, so be frank about what you both need. A key part of your communication is conflict resolution. Establish a healthy way to discuss conflicts before you need it. That way, you won’t spend your time at home solving all the problems you didn’t want to talk about.

5. Be Kind to Yourself

Transitions are hard and you’ll be making a lot of them. All the parenting tips in the world won’t help if you aren’t taking care of yourself on the road and when you’re home. Be kind to yourself and your family.

Take time for sleep, exercise, and healthy meals. Find your balance between time together and time by yourself.

Know that you’ll make mistakes sometimes. Decide what you can do differently next time, sincerely apologize if you need to, and then move forward. Make sure you do what you can both on and off the job to be the partner and parent you want to be.

Single Parent OTR Trucking

If you’re a single parent ready to start driving, you have a few extra considerations. It is definitely possible to work OTR, but it’s important to consider preparation and timing. All long haul families need a good support network, and that is particularly true for single parents.

Both you and your kids will need help from others sometimes. Have those people in place before you get started and know who you can count on in any situation. You should also think about the timing of your decision. Older kids can be involved differently than young children and may be more understanding and supportive of your decision.

Separated Families with One OTR Parent

As with single parenting while an OTR driver, life over the road as a divorced or separated parent has unique challenges. No matter what, the most important thing you can do is prioritize your child. That also means working to maintain good communication between parents (even when it’s not easy). As much as possible, strive to be consistent in your home time.

Even in the best situations where both parents are trying to make the connection work, scheduling is hard. You’re both working around each other’s schedules and sometimes you may have to make hard compromises.

At the end of the day, make sure you weigh the cost of an OTR vs. a local job. OTR jobs typically pay more, but you give up a lot of time in your child’s life. If OTR is still the right decision for you, be prepared to work closely with the stay at home parent and use these parenting tips to find creative ways to connect with your child both on and off the job.

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Dealing with Homesickness Over the Road

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dealing with homesickness over the road

A professional truck driver might spend a significant amount of time away from home. They miss out on family events, children’s milestones, and spending time with their friends. After driving for a while, it can become a part of a driver’s normal day-to-day reality. But for a new driver, or a driver new to being gone for days or weeks at a time, homesickness over the road can be a tough thing. If that’s something you’re dealing with, here are 4 helpful tips for dealing with homesickness over the road.

1. Recognize the symptoms of homesickness when they start

Feelings of anxiety or sadness can strike without warning. Or feeling sad when you’ve packed up and headed out for another week away from your family. One of the best ways to deal with homesickness is to recognize and acknowledge it as soon as it starts. Missing your home and family is normal. For many drivers it’s a reality of the profession. So it’s important to know that everyone feels this way sometimes, and it doesn’t help to try and push the feelings aside and not deal with them.

2. Stay busy with a new hobby

Find ways to keep yourself busy when you’re not driving. Picking up a new hobby is a great way to keep your mind busy. Learning how to do something new can help boost your mental state and drive away feeling of anxiety. Photography, staring an interesting collection or even picking up an instrument are great hobbies for truckers. Keeping your mind busy when you’re away from home can be a great help to your overall mental health.

3. Take your family with you

Make your home away from home, feel like home. Bring the family along with you over the road! Keep a few favorite pictures in the cab of your truck. Skype your family into scenic stops along the way. Or have them call you from special family gatherings or school milestones you’re going to miss. Make plans to call and check in each night when possible. Sometimes virtually being there with your family can be enough to help squash some of those feelings of homesickness while you’re away. In addition, some trucking companies also let you travel with your spouse. If this is important to you, be sure to ask this question when going through the interview process.

4. Travel with a pet

Bring your dog with you! If your carrier allows you to drive with your dog, bring him along. Travelling with a pet can help your well-being in many ways. It give you someone to talk to during the day, a reason to get some exercise each day, and a way to be social in an otherwise isolated environment. Having a constant reminder of home with you as you drive can help reduce those feelings of homesickness.

Also, by bringing your dog along with you, you have a perfect opportunity to interact with other drivers.

Having your dog with you when you’re at a truck, makes for an easy conversation starter with other truckers. Everyone loves to talk about their dogs and ask about other people’s dogs. This ensures a few times each day you’ve got a built-in reason to strike up a conversation with someone, even if it’s just for a few minutes.

As mentioned above, everyone gets sad and feels lonely sometimes. With any changes to your overall mood, it’s smart to be honest and open about your feelings. If you notice your feelings of homesickness are turning into something more extensive, be sure to reach out and tell someone. A little bit of homesickness vs. about with depression, could be better addressed with an honest conversation with your doctor.

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The Ultimate Guide for Truck Drivers to Maintain 3 Healthy Habits Over the Road

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Duty vs. Daddy: One Trucker’s Story of Finding Work-Life Balance

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With long stretches on the road and only short, intense bursts of time at home, maintaining work-life balance comes as a challenge. Veteran trucker Trent McCain took the extra time to connect with his daughter in the cutest way possible.

Shaun Cronin of Irish Examiner tells the story of How McCain’s 9 year old daughter, Joselyn, struggled to find a babysitter for her doll, Abbie, so she called on “Grandpa Trent” for help.

McCain reported on Facebook that “he didn’t want his daughter thinking he’d neglected the doll all day.”

McCain certainly made sure we wouldn’t forget about him or Abbie. According to the Irish examiner, to assure Joselyn that Abbie was in good hands, he posted pictures of his trip throughout the day. Read more here.

McCain isn’t alone in his efforts to balance work and family time. Countless drivers invest in both their jobs and families. Roadmaster Trucking School offers a few fun ideas for CDL truckers working on building and maintaining strong family connections.

  1. Postcards and letters: Handwritten notes are rare. So, taking the time to write a short, meaningful note brighten your child’s day.
  2. Social Media: McCain used Facebook to share pictures and moments from his daily life, with family and friends. Social media is particularly useful if you’re crossing time zones because you don’t need to coordinate meeting times.
  3. Home Time: When you are at home, use the time to do something memorable. In addition, avoid missing important moments in your children’s lives. Helping yourself and your kids savor the moments together make the moments apart easier.

A work-life balance is an important part of being a CDL driver.  Let us help you find yours. Drive My Way lets you select lifestyle preferences to find the best jobs that fit your needs. Register here to get started!