Howdy gentlemen,
I'm Gash, Orkan's wife. I'm going to preface this by saying this isn't a "run to Orkan's defense" type post but rather a response to the same responses over and over and over again, anytime Orkan ever brags about our relationship or dare mention anything of it. I don't regularly post on forums but I do frequently watch/read them. All these things y'all are saying have been brought up so many times over the years it's really tiring. I haven't been brainwashed in any capacity to where he needs be worried that one day I'm going to wake up and set out for revenge. I chose this life I live and I love every moment of it. If for some reason I woke up one day and didn't like it well I know where the door is. When we got together we both wanted a very traditional family...husband works, provides for the family, mom stays home takes care of home stuff and kids. Take a look back before the 1960's and look at those households. Normal house was the husband was gone all day, typically long hours providing for his family, while his wife stayed home, cooked, cleaned, took care of the kids and so on. She still had a very social life and fulfilling life. She saw friends and family, it's just her focus was ON HER FAMILY not other things like a professional career, status, money and so on. It took me a bit to break free of the typical woman behaviors of today, needing a career, my own status and so on, and I'm so very thankful I did break free of it, with the help of Orkan of course. I can say with 100% this is the life I dreamed of, [beeep] I even wrote about it in grade-school, and I 100% chose this for myself. My life has never been more full and satisfying being a stay at home mom, homemaker, homesteader, home-schooler, and so on. I have more meaning in my life taking care of my family than I did chasing up the BS corporate ladder. Things I do now actually have a long lasting affect that will be seen for decades vs the temporary junk in the job world.
I absolutely love to cook and it brings me great pleasure to feed Orkan and our kids homemade meals from scratch. No I don't mean a Betty Crocker boxed cake from scratch, I mean flour, sugar, eggs, baking powder, and so on from scratch. I don't mind spending a good part of my day in the kitchen preparing meals that may have taken an hour or more to cook, only to be devoured in minutes by my family members. I love knowing my family is eating quality food, my kids have a mom who knows how to cook and enjoys it. Cleaning isn't my favorite thing to do, but it is one of my responsibilities that I must do to maintain harmony in my family. It doesn't take long to do, when done right and why any stay at home mom would ever need help from her working husband just floors me. Taking both my kids grocery shopping happens all the time. Rarely do I ask Orkan to watch one of the kids so I can go grocery shopping. Rarely do I ask him to watch them period. Fact is I can't imagine my life without my kids, it feels very strange on the rare occasions I don't have them in tow. Helping make our lives easier brings me great satisfaction. If it means I slip in and out of the gun-room as Orkan works, bringing him food, beverages and check in on him if there's anything else he needs, I'll do it. If the kids and I need to leave him alone in the gun-room and act like he isn't home, then so be it. We'll do that. He works long hours at the office to provide what we have and if he's home but holed up in the gun-room, no problem. What counts is he's home, his presence is felt, he's available if the need arises, instead of being 15 miles away. It's nice having him home, the kids love having daddy around even if he isn't directly involved in what we're doing and I love having him around. Orkan's gun stuff isn't just a hobby it's a way of life, it's a way he brings revenue into our home and well before he was making money off it, it was his way of life. I wouldn't dare dream of trying to change that. Changing that would be changing the man I fell in love with.
We have many luxuries in our lives. Ours don't include a 10,000sqf home or a brand new SUV or shopping sprees every other weekend or fancy vacations. Our luxuries are simple: a small country home on some acreage, running water, power, heat, a bunch of farm animals which provide great joy and they also provide food for us. We have nice clothes but they're not name brand trendy stuff. I don't have a giant diamond on my finger or any jewelry for that matter either. I hate jewelry. I bought a cheap ring years ago to see if i could get use to it because the thought of wearing a wedding ring sounded nice, reality is they get in the way of everything you do and if you fall just right the thing will rip your finger off. Our kids aren't spoiled rotten, they have what they need, they have great toys to stimulate their minds and they have plenty of green grass to run on, bikes to ride, animals to play with and stuff to play on outside. I'm not one of those gals who needs anything fancy. I have always been practical when it comes to the things I buy. A brand new SUV isn't my thing. Trust me I know this for a fact because last year we test drove a lot of vehicles before replacing my old Buick Regal. I chose a minivan over everything because it was the most practical thing for me and my family. It was more room than the SUVs, more versatility than the SUVs, the ease of getting things in and out of it are fantastic and for the money you cannot beat it. I always swore I'd never drive one, but the practical side of me got the best of me
Oh and yes, I do take care of all my critters too. Hauling bags of food in and out of the barn, cleaning pens, and so on I do all of it. I also slaughter the chickens from time to time, clean them up and butcher them, I will be breeding my rabbits to provide meat and will process them in their entirety and so on. With that said,if you haven't caught on at this point...No I am not like the 99.5% of the other women out there...period. Women like me do exist, rare in deed, but we are out there.
Instead of continuing my rambling on and on about myself so you have an inkling of who I am and what I stand for and how Orkan and I could have the relationship we have and neither of us be brainwashed *cough* mainly me. Let me say this. I will never understand the split finances, I truly don't get the need for two separate incomes and have the wife out of the house while someone else raises your kids. I don't understand why husbands feel the need to air their dirty laundry about how their wives step all over them and by not letting them bring their toys/guns into the house, let them have one room to be their own for reloading and all their stuff, or how they have to clear everything with her before purchasing stuff, or say their wife would kill them if they had this many guns or in fact this many of anything. I don't understand why everyone settles to being tossed out where ever the wife deems you need to go. To me that seems like she doesn't respect you and you don't have enough respect for yourself to stand up for yourself. Orkan and I respect each other, we trust one another, we are comfortable in our own skins and in our relationship to allow the other person to be themselves and not feel the need to control one another or manipulate each other. Sure it may seem on the surface that I'm in a "stupor", as someone put it, because my role isn't the normal role these days. However as I stated before what I do is very fulfilling and furthermore it is my duty to my family to do what I do. Woman wearing the pants and being head of the home is just a bunch of hogwash and not how nature intended our lives to be. Instead of slinging insults at the wife who isn't on the forum or thinking the man who has all that Orkan does, can't be telling the truth, try a simple congratulation.
All this griping about spouses sure does leave one to wonder why the heck you all married her in the first place. I 100% believe gripes shouldn't be made public, that is a private matter between husband and wife. Supporting one another 100% doesn't including badmouthing one another to anyone. I know it's become the norm these days to gripe about anything and everything, a wonderful little secret is if you stop griping about it and actually put forth some effort to solve it you'll have a blissful life.
Perhaps there'd be less divorces these days, perhaps there wouldn't be so many dysfunctional families and kids, if this kind of stuff ceased.
On topic...that is a mighty fine reloading bench and gun-room and I'm so thankful he finally has a very comfortable place to do all of this in.
On a lighter note...I also love to shoot. Shooting rats and other small vermin in the head is a favorite past-time of mine, hehe. Gotta love the trusty .22lr. I'm also known to be out along the shore of a body of water casting a way for fish from time to time, then coming home to clean my catch and cook it up for our supper.