I Love Him More

Last weekend Jeremy and I went to one of his friend’s weddings. Jeremy was actually IN the wedding, he was part of the sword arch.

Every wedding I go to I always reminded of my own vows, the ones that I made to Jeremy 5 1/2 years ago. When the new bride and groom are up there exchanging their vows and rings, I imagine that I’m saying those words to Jeremy again.

I’m often overwhelmed by how much I love him in these moments; when I really concentrate on my feelings rather than just experiencing them under the surface of all the other responsibilities of my daily life.

I honestly think that I love him more now then I did when we got married. I’ve experienced and lived those vows with him now; they aren’t just words.

Roots of Love

Like most normal American women, I grew up watching romantic comedies and reading sappy Nicholas Sparks novels; all of which shaped how I view love.

I so easily accept the physical representations of love; seeing my co-workers boyfriend hand delivered her flowers on Valentines Day from her boyfriend and thinking to myself that “he must really love her”.

There is nothing wrong with those superficial expressions of love. In fact, most healthy relationships are based on some expression of each partners “love language”: gifts, words of affection, touch, etc.

But I’ve come to realize that there is a deeper, more hidden, level of love.

One that is even more powerful and strong than the gifts and “I love you” that make it to the surface.

The roots and foundation of a true love.

That is what I see in my husband.

He has very few “sprouts” that make it to the surface; but his network of roots is so vast and deep that it will never be broken.

He is reserved and contained in his love. Not very affectionate or easy with words of affection.

His love is a part of his core; part of who he is on a fundamental level.

He isn’t always an easy person to love, missing the surface expressions of love that society has conditioned us to accept and expect. But to be loved by him is to know true commitment.

I am so very blessed

Romance is Boring

A friend of mine posted this link on Facebook last week…I cried when I read it.

I’ve written before that my husband is not a romantic of flashy man. He is boring.

But to me, boring isn’t a bad thing. And this article describes it perfectly.

To me, romance isn’t about a fancy proposal or a big wedding…those things are only minutes in a lifetime of marriage.

(Romance is) a man who imagines washing puked-on sheets at 2:30 am, plunging out a full and plugged toilet for the third time this week, and then scraping out the crud in the bottom screen of the dishwasher — every single night for the next 37 years without any cameras rolling or soundtrack playing — that’s imagining true romance.

The man who imagines slipping his arm around his wife’s soft, thickening middle age waistline and whispering that he couldn’t love her more

How a man proposes isn’t what makes him romantic. It’s how a man purposes to lay down his life that makes him romantic.

This “boringness” is something that I’ve recently come to appreciate more about my husband as we grow together in our marriage (our 5 year anniversary is coming up soon). Perhaps it’s something that has come to me in my “maturity” (I just turned 25 lol).

When I see young girls posting on FB about the flowers or surprise gifts their boyfriends or spouses gave them, I am happy for them. But I am learning to not be jealous. Because what I have from my husband is a different kind of romance (I’m not saying it’s not better or worse). It’s a subtle, boring type of romance.

Sure, go ahead, have fun, make a ridiculously good memory and we’ll cheer loud: propose creatively — but never forget that what wows a woman and woos her is you how you purpose to live your life.

While I may have days where I want romance and I wish my husband would do something worthy of going viral on the internet, if I look deep inside myself, what I really want is a lifetime of steady and boring love.

Can you see it again – how your grandfather stood over your grandmother’s grave and brushed away his heart leaking without a sound down his cheeks?

50 boring years. 50 unfilmed years of milking 70 cows, raising 6 boys and 3 girls, getting ready for sermon every Sunday morning, him helping her with her zipper. 50 boring years of arguing in Dutch and making up in touching in the dark, 50 boring years of planting potatoes and weeding rows on humid July afternoons, 50 boring years of washing the white Corel dishes and turning out the light on the mess – till he finally carried her in and out of the tub and helped her pull up her Depends.

Be one of the boring ones. Pray to be one who get 50 boring years of marriage – 50 years to let her heart bore a hole deep into yours.

The Evolution of Relationships

Last night my husband and I got into a “fight”. I put it in quotes because we don’t ever actually fight, at least not what normal people consider fights. What we have are more like discussion. Neither of us is hot-tempered and we have never yelled, cursed or insulted each other.

But we did have a disagreement last night, which continued into the morning via text message.  Most of what the issue was related to communication, we weren’t understanding what the other person was trying to say (the whole men are from Mars, women are from Venus thing)

We were still in the midst of our text message “fight” when I went to lunch. I was talking to one of my co-workers over lunch about how men don’t make any sense and don’t seem to be able to communicate effectively.

She is dating a guy who turns out to be very similar to Jeremy (very much a manly MAN), and completely agreed with me. We spent pretty much the entire lunch hour venting about how men are so confusing and how we don’t think we are asking for much in relationships, but they don’t seem to get what women want. We feel like we are communicating clearly, but it doesn’t seem to get across to men.

She told me a few stories about her and he boyfriend and what things he did to cause disagreements in their relationships.

A lot of the things she talked about were things that I had experienced with Jeremy as well, but they didn’t bother me much anymore.

I realized then that I actually do understand men, or at least my man. Things that used to bother me about Jeremy (his grumpy moods after work and lack of physical affection) are things that I have come to understand. I know why he does the things that he does, and it doesn’t bother my anymore because I have accepted him the way he is.

Our relationship isn’t perfect (clearly, we just had a fight! lol), but it has come a long way since we first started dating over 5 years ago. We have learned each others quirks and personalities, and we have tried to accept them and not make them an area of conflict in our relationship.

Sometimes it doesn’t feel like our relationship has grown, especially when we are disagreeing about something. It can feel like we will never completely understand each other and will always have conflicts. But if I could go back in time and compare our relationship now to what it was when we first started dating, I think I would be surprised at how much has changed.

Because we are both always changing. Individually and as a couple. In another 5 years we will probably be fighting about something else, probably relating to babies. And in 10 years there will be something else. Because life goes on. And our marriage goes on with it. I just hope it keeps getting better and doesn’t start going downhill!

^^^ This right here says it perfectly! lol ^^^

Soul Mate

This post was shared on my FB today, and caught my eye (catchy title: “my husband is not my soul mate” lol). It’s actually the second blog I’ve read recently about soul mates, so the idea of soul mates has been on my mind. The world is sending me signs, apparently!

I do not believe in soul mates. I’ve never felt that there was only one special person for me out there, only one person that I could live happily ever after with. I think there are many people that I could be compatible with. I think that I could be happily married to a man other than my husband.

With that being said, that does not mean that I want to divorce my husband or that I do not love him and will pass him up when someone else “compatible” comes along.

What makes Jeremy my “soul mate” is that I stopped looking when I met him. We are compatible and in love, therefore I chose to marry him and everyday I chose to love him and commit to him again. And I plan to do so for the rest of our lives.

So if one of my other potential “soul mates” comes along, they are out of luck, because I have chosen my life partner already.

I don’t believe that marriage and love is not our of our control, that we are “fated” to end up with a certain person who we have no choice over. I think when people view love as some magical unstoppable force, they take away personal responsibility. This author explains it perfectly:

But what happens to these people when the unstoppable and uncontrollable force that prompted them to start loving, lets them stop loving, or love someone else?

What happens is a world where most marriages end in divorce, and even those that don’t are often unhappy.

My marriage is not based on a set of choices over which I had no control. It is based on a daily choice to love this man, this husband that I chose out of many people that I could have chosen to love.

I like it better this way, with the pressure on me and not on fate, cosmos, or divinity. I will not fall out of love, cannot fall out of love, because I willingly dived in and I’m choosing daily to stay in. This is my joyous task, my daily decision. This is my marriage.

“Maybe that’s what it all comes down to. Love, not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit to something, someone, no matter what obstacles or temptations stand in the way. And maybe making that choice, again and again, day in and day out, year after year, says more about love than never having a choice to make at all.”

Mediocre Love

“Unless it is mad, passionate, extraordinary love, it’s a waste of time. There are too many mediocre things in life. Love should not be one of them.”

I saw this quote the other day, and it stuck with me because I’m not sure that I agree with it.

One thing that I love the most about my relationship with Jeremy is that it is easy. Our love is not one of highs and lows. It’s a steady and consistent love.

Perhaps that makes it mediocre?

I would never describe my love for my husband as mad or passionate. I would use words like: steady, reliable, comfortable, unwavering.

Maybe for some people that would translate to boring.

But for me, it’s everything I’ve ever wanted. I want a love that will last a lifetime. I want a companion to spend my life with. I want someone who I know will be by my side long after the “passion” has faded.

I don’t want madness. I want easy/effortless. I don’t want extraordinary. I want reliable. I don’t want passionate. I want steady.

Acts of Love

My husband is not a very romantic man.

Some girls have husband’s who wax poetic and words of affection to them. The most I normally get is “I love you and I miss you”

Some girls have husband’s who surprise them with sunset horse back riding and sprinkle rose petals around the bathtub for a relaxing evening. I get the same presents (flowers and chocolate) for every significant holidays (anniversary, Valentine’s Day, etc.) because I’ve told my husband what I like lol

If I haven’t mentioned it before, my husband is very much a M-A-N.  The typical redneck: don’t talk about your feelings, provide for your family, hunt your own food, etc.

But there has never been a moment when I have doubted his love for me. I know with my entire being that I am the most important person to him. I know this because his every action, not just the big romantic gestures, are inspired by his love.

Yesterday was my last day of school, and Jeremy is off in the desert doing training. We’ve been texting, but the service is horrible and it takes hours to send a single text message.

So yesterday night, after he got done working a 12 hour shift, he hiked 2 miles in the cold desert to get service on the top of a hill so he could call me. Just so he could talk to me about my last day of school ❤

I think what made that conversation so special to me, besides being able to talk to him for the first time in days, was because he didn’t do it for the purpose of it being a romantic gesture. It wasn’t meant to be a special gesture, it’s just the way he is.

And that means more to me than all the flowers in the world. To have a man who acts out of love in his every action.

I’m not saying that romantic gestures aren’t wonderful, or that men who make them are being fake. If my husband was the romantic type I would bask in it!

But I know who he is and how he shows his affection, and I chose to cherish the way he loves me, and not be disappointed about the way he does’t (aka being romantic).

“A man truly loves you when missing you is his hobby,

caring for you is his job, making you happy is his duty,

and loving you is his life“

Throwback Thursday: Our Love Story {Part 2}

Joe was the last guy I dated before I met my husband. He was also a Marine.

We met at a party on my college campus just a week before he deployed. We hung out a few times before he left, and when he shipped out to Afghanistan he asked me to write him. So I did.

I didn’t wait for him and he wasn’t my boyfriend, but we talked and got to know each other over the course of his 7 month tour. I dated a few other guys while he was gone, but I think part of the reason none of them ever got serious was that I wanted to be single when Joe came home, to find out if we had a chance at a relationship.

He came on in early May and the first week or so was amazing. He asked me to come see him the night he got home, he had bought me jewelry from Afghanistan and he wanted to make plans to take me out again.

But he slowly started taking longer and longer to return my text messages and wouldn’t return my phone calls. When it came time for us to meet up again like we had planned, he didn’t show up or call.

I used to be the kind of girl who would put up with that kind of behavior. I used to be the girl that would give a guy a second chance and  cling to a relationship. I’ve put up with being ignored, I’ve put up with emotional abuse and I’ve put up with physical abuse.

But after my first boyfriend hit me and I finally recovered from that break up, I told myself I would never let myself be treated as less than amazing by any guy.

Because I am a catch, and I deserve to be with a man who values what he has when he has me.

So I broke up with Joe, less than 2 weeks after we started “dating”.

That was on May 16th, the same night I went out and ended up meeting my husband. The night I met the man who treats me like a queen. The man who thinks my quirks are cute. The man who think he is lucky to have me as his wife. The man who loves me, for exactly who I am.

Sometimes I think it is poetic justice. That the day I cut someone out of my life who was toxic to me, I was reward with the love of my life. Never settle for less than you deserve.

To be continued….

The Little Things

When I married Jeremy I knew he wasn’t romantic. He has never been the type to surprise me at school and serenade me with a love song on a guitar. He rarely brings home flower and or surprises me with gifts.

But I’m okay with that, because I love him for who he is and I appreciate the other ways in which he shows me he loves me.

I may not get surprise vacations, but he is faithful, respectful, kind and honorable. And in little ways, he does show me his romantic side.

This last week I was incredibly moody thanks to mother nature, it seemed like everything Jeremy said irritated me…for absolutely no reason. The joy of being a woman I guess lol. I wasn’t feeling appreciated or loved, even though he was acting the same as he always does.

But then he did two little things that made me realize that I am indeed married to a truly wonderful man.

Jeremy has been working on a new project of his for the truck and needed to go into work to use the welder. He decided to go in on Friday night since he didn’t want to see anybody from work or get roped into actually doing real work. So he left around 3pm and I asked him if he could bring home dinner when he came home since I was craving Chipotle. Around 6pm he came home with dinner and I enjoyed the yumminess of a chicken bowl. Then he said he was going back to work…I was confused, I thought he was home for the night. He said that he didn’t get to finish what he needed to but he came home anyway because he knew I wanted Chipotle.

Insert my “awwww” feeling. He drove all the way back from work just to pick me up Chipotle because he knew I wanted it. He didn’t make a big deal out of it, it wasn’t meant to be a romantic gesture, that’s just how he is.

My next “awww” moment came this morning. Yesterday morning Jeremy had gotten up early to go into work and finish his project so I woke up alone. Well, I actually woke up to my cat. My cat and Jeremy have a mutual hatred of each other, so when Jeremy is in bed with me the cat leaves us alone and won’t wake me up to feed him. But with Jeremy gone yesterday morning the little devil woke me up at 7:30 am and I was not happy, as I had wanted to sleep in on Saturday morning after not going to bed till midnight that night.

I told Jeremy about it of course, just to complain. Then this morning when he woke up to go golfing he fed the cat for me so he wouldn’t wake me up  (this is a big deal if you can understand how much Jeremy hates this cat).

“Awwww”

It’s little things like that which make me fall more in love with my husband every day. He isn’t one for big romantic gestures, but I never doubt his love and commitment to me because he is always showing me in small ways that he is thinking of me and that my happiness is important to him.

And to me, that means more than all the flowers in the world, because he does all these little things without making a big deal about it or trying, it’s just who he is. And I love him, exactly the way he is.

Me and my cat, Sir Lancelot. Or, as Jeremy likes to call him, The Devil Cat, aka Shit Head lol

God Blessed the Broken Road

Last night while laying in bed with my husband I felt overwhelmed with love for him. I could physically feel a tightness in my chest, the involuntary smile and a happiness that comes from being married to such a perfect man for me.

It made me think about how lucky I am, and about how many things went good and bad in my life, that in the end lead me to an amazing love.

It reminds me of the song “God Bless the Broken Road”

Every long lost dream led me to where you are
Others who broke my heart they were like Northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

The first step of our “broken road” was both of us moving to San Diego from opposite sides of the country. Jeremy joining the Marine Corps and being stationed at Camp Pendleton 6 months prior to our meeting. Me, decided to go to college at San Diego State and moving down to San Diego 9 months prior to our meeting.

Next step: right place, right time.

The night I met Jeremy, two events lead me to go to the bar that night as a single woman.

#1: I had just finished my first year of college. My last final had been the day before, so my roommate and I decided we should go out and celebrate.

#2: The guy that I had recently started dating was being a jerk. I finally decided that I deserved to be treated better, that I wasn’t going to continue to put effort into a relationship that wasn’t making me happy. So I broke up with him.

All those events added up to me at my favorite country bar as a single woman open to talking to a cute cowboy

There were two events in Jeremy’s life that lead him to the bar that night as a single man.

#1: His fiancee of nearly 4 years broke things off with him right before he got stationed in California. Newley single, he decided to enjoy single life and date around a bit.

#2: He had a really bad day at work which was how his buddies convinced him to go to his least favorite bar that night to let off steam.

So there Jeremy is, at a country bar, single and open to meeting a nice girl.

Then there we both were, single, in the same bar, on the same night.

Finally, in the midst of thousands of people, my friend picks his friend to hit on, and I pick him to flirt with to help her out as her “wing woman”.

One meeting, that was all it took for our love story to begin. We exchanged numbers that night and became boyfriend and girlfriend the following weekend after our first official date. Six months later we got engaged, eloped three months after and now are approaching our four year wedding anniversary and I am still blissfully, head-over-heels, in love with the country boy I met when I was 19 years-old at a bar on a random night.

So many things had to happen and go right for us to meet that night.  Both of us had to go through heart break and negative experiences that lead us to meeting each other. If one thing had been different, I would never know the love that I haven now with Jeremy. It’s almost scary to think how close I came to not meeting him, how slim our chances were to spark a romance that night that has lead to a lifetime love.

It’s all part of a grander plan that is coming true

God blessed the broken road

That led me straight to you