A: Actually, very few people - cops, docs, clerks, or truckers - share everything about their work life with their mates. A little discussion along the lines of "how did your day go?" is appropriate, but a close relationship doesn't necessarily require full disclosure of the day's activities.

For police officers, there are three main reasons why they may be reluctant to talk about their day.

The first is protection: cops see a lot of grim stuff on the job, and they may not want to expose their families to full putrid reality of what they may deal with on a given day.

The second is compartmentalization: the home is often regarded as a refuge from the pressures of police work, and the officer may not want to "contaminate" the home environment with shop talk.

The third reason is saturation: after spending a shift patrolling, surveilling, ticketing, arresting, and resolving petty and mundane street squabbles, the last thing the officer returning home wants to do is rehash it.

So the moral is: be available to listen and discuss your police spouse's day, but don't regard sparse information-sharing as sign of a dysfunctional or noncommunicative marriage. There are plenty of other ways to nourish a healthy relationship.

The only caveat is this: if you notice a significant change in your police spouse's behavior - including a sudden drop in communication - this may be a sign of emotional distress taking its toll. In this case, gentle prodding may yield the source of the problem, but if your cop mate still clams up, encourage him/her to get some kind of help, through either peer counseling or departmental mental health services.

Laurence Miller, PhD is a clinical, forensic, and consulting psychologist in Boca Raton, Florida, and police psychologist for the West Palm Beach Police Department. Dr. Miller can be reached at (561) 392-8881, or online at:
www.practicalpsych.com