Salute to Spouses Blog

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Love and live

I live you.

Valentine’s Day!  Yes!  An entire day devoted to love, and flowers, and chocolate and date-nights that require me getting out of my yoga pants. I adore Valentine’s Day because I adore love and relish being in love with this man I married, especially since lately, he’s never here. With a TDY schedule that’s taken over the last seven months and a looming fourth deployment, sometimes it’s hard to be “us” when he’s so far away.

Last week, while he was at JRTC, I sent him a quick, “I love you,” text message. Except, I made a typo and instead entered, “I live you”.  I laughed, and was about to correct myself, but he beat me to it. “No, you’re right.  I live you too.”

And that, my friends, is why we’re still married.  Call it cheesy, or laughable, but I am desperately in love with my husband. Because we do just that: live each other.   

Military marriages can be hard. We’re constantly in flux, struggling between gearing up, deployment, and re-integration.  In my decade as a spouse, I have seen too many friends call it quits, and not just because they’ve lost the love, but because they’ve lost the “live.”  We walk a delicate balance between needing our spouses and wanting them and being self-sufficient. But when we lose our “live,” that’s when we start to tumble. 

What is this “live” I speak of?  To me, living my husband means that I keep him as my first priority. Even when he’s not here, I keep him in mind when I make decisions. Not every decision, of course, but anything that might affect him. 

I play by the golden rule, which means I treat him how I’d like to be treated. I stay out of the bars when he’s away, and I know he returns the favor. I drop everything when he calls because I want the same reaction from him. We live one another because we know we’re in this for the long haul and there’s nothing more important to us than the health of our marriage. 

He doesn’t yell at me when I walk in front of a video game and I don’t yell at him when he takes my books into the tub. Why? Because in the scheme of things, it’s nothing to fight over because we’re too busy living and loving. 

Our Valentine’s Day may have been closer to pizza with our four boys and a movie once they were in bed, instead of dinner out at an expensive restaurant. But, we did what we do best, live one another

It’s not the date on the calendar that matters; it’s how we’re treating our spouses on a daily basis that will help strengthen military marriages. And this year, we were blessed to be together for Valentine’s Day, and I soaked up every glowing moment of it.

So the next time you’re texting an “I love you” to your spouse, just think that one letter over might be where it’s at. Love them, yes. But more importantly, live them.  Oh, and grab some leftover chocolate, just because you can.

Follow Rebecca at http://theonlygirlamongboys.blogspot.com/

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