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.

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“

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