Marriages do not always run smoothly. They take work. A LOT of work. My husband and I started out with challenges even in the beginning. We deal with separation yearly because of his military career. However, maintaining a long distance relationship is
nothing new for my husband and me. We were friends for a year before we ever
started dating. We both met at the same military base and maintained a
relationship while I lived in Southern Ohio and he lived in Upstate New York. Our
lives were separated by hundreds of miles. I will never forget how important it
was for us to keep communication and to stay in contact. We usually saw one
another one or two weekends a month if we were lucky. It was by no means, easy.
We shared our lives through communication and learned to build trust through
the constant phone calls. During those moments I dreamed of going on more dates
and spending more time together in person. Looking back I am beyond grateful
that we learned early on how to talk and get to know one another through our
conversations. I feel that we learned to love one another for the condition of
our hearts. We never had to deal with being blindsided by gifts. Well wait, now
that I am thinking about it, the reality is he had it easy. He never had to
spend money on frequent dates. I never even got the razzle dazzle of a giant overpriced
dinner. I did however get breakfast delivered to my front door when he came in
town or there were the quiet nights we spent at my home watching a movie and
eating a delivered pizza. Those moments we love remembering.
Each month we would value the time together
knowing it would be awhile before we could meet again. Those beginning
circumstances truly prepared us for marriage and the frequent
separation.
The
separation has gotten more challenging with children.
Such as now. This time around
my girls have swapped back and forth a respiratory illness. There have been
numerous nights where one finally falls asleep at 1 am and by 4 am another one is waking me up. The littlest is 17 months and on numerous
occasions she has pushed me away and wandered through our entire house yelling
for her poppa. Two nights ago she refused to be comforted and found her way
upstairs to check for her poppa under our covers. My heart felt like it could
not take much more. It took me over an hour to calm her spirit so she could
fall asleep. If we are lucky enough to have good Internet service, then she falls
asleep peacefully by the sound of his voice while on speaker phone. Thank
goodness for a sitter so that several days a week all I do is sleep for hours.
I am always so tired. These are just a few examples of how challenging life
gets. However, there has been so much growth over the years from these deployments.
I have gained knowledge about myself and have been able to see the good in mankind because of
others kindness. Ultimately I have learned so much about my marriage. Here I
sit separated from him. He is deployed to the Middle East and all over again we
are maintaining our relationship through communication. Can I just be honest?
This sucks!!! I would give up so much to have him home especially on those rough
days where parenting is a struggle. Where the housework piles up and I just do
not feel like being an adult. On those days more than anything l miss the convenience
of having him close by to hug for some encouragement. Those small things are the very
things I miss the most and yet most spouses take for granted on a daily basis.
The moments where I am frustrated but he is around to help carry the burden.
Sadly, I won’t get his help for another few weeks. His deployment ends in about
20 days. Man do I miss my husband! Can we just hit fast forward?
There
has been so much growth over the years. This trip I have reflected about when he is home.
During those long stays at home we get into a routine. It is so easy to
take his presence for granted. When we fell in love I always loved the way he
stared at me. It was so easy to see how everything about him was wonderful,
amazing and I always openly told him he was a good man. What man doesn’t puff
up and soak up those heartfelt compliments? It strokes their ego. It is like a
man who has a healthy relationship with his daughter. She lights up his eyes and
a man just stares at his baby girl in a very different way than he will ever
look at his son. Have you ever wondered why? Think about it. Every daughter has
a gleam in her eye the minute her father walks into a room. Little girls will
suddenly bomb rush their father before both feet come through the
door. Where he goes, they follow closely behind just chatting away. The whole
time they look at their father like he is the greatest man this world has to
offer. They always tell their daddy how great he is and they view him as their
hero. They don't see his faults. In return a man will try to lasso the moon for her if she were to
ask. We as women did the same thing when we first fell in love. Our husbands
would conquer us the world if it kept us happy.
Ladies, but let’s be real. As time passes we
forget and those pesky issues start popping up for us to see. Suddenly we
forget those positive traits about our man that we fell in love with and admired.
We then lived together, we learned more about one another and as women we suddenly began focusing
on the negative qualities.
You know, those irritating habits that grind on our
nerves and rub us the wrong way?! Argh! Did he just leave dirty socks sitting
on the bed? Did he throw his dirty clothes on the floor again? Did he leave
another mess behind? Did the honeymoon period wear off and we suddenly feel
like we are caring for a grown child? Take a minute to think, but in the big
grand scheme, does any of it matter?
My
husband leaves every year and honestly I never once think about the negative
qualities(at least not hardly). All I ever miss is his presence. I miss his hugs and his kisses. I miss
all those simple things. I miss him always sitting down to listen to me talk on
and on. Lord knows I can talk into his ear for hours. He is a quiet man and
willingly sits for as long as I need him. He may not say much but he sure can
listen. I would give up so much just to
be able to fall asleep next to him. He has always made sure that I feel
safe and when he is around, I sleep soundly. I miss seeing him driving through
our gate after 14hours of work. I miss him taking me on long car
drives. I miss him just sitting down eating dinner with us as a family. I hate
waking up every morning and not seeing that he made me breakfast. Instead I am left
home thinking about how much I miss my husband and all those precious qualities
that he brings to our marriage. Every night we eat dinner and there our daddy
doll sits in his absence. My heart hurts to see his empty chair. I value that he wakes up every day and goes to
work in order to provide for our family. I miss having him around to keep up on
the maintenance of our vehicles or to fix all the things that break around the
house. His absence constantly forces me to view life with a different perspective.
His deployments allow me to miss all his positive qualities.
When he returns home that is all he usually
hears. I build up his ego with an ear full of all the things I appreciate and
value about him within our marriage.
Hear me out. We do still have days where we just irritate one another but I try to stay focused. Oh, did he just help in the kitchen? You will hear me congratulate him like he just won the lottery. Those habits are worth encouraging. I have learned that compliments lead him to help in other areas. He loves the compliments and truly enjoys knowing how much I value him and his help. It has not always been this
way. I have had moments and there are still times that I start to have some
negative nelly days. However, I have learned that if I focus on all
the negatives, his positive qualities will slip through the cracks and go unnoticed.
After awhile he will stop helping. That huge heart that I fell in love with will suddenly get lost. The good will disappear among the piles of
dishes or forgotten about after I see his power tools sitting AGAIN on our
kitchen table. We HAVE been there. He has seen the ugly inside of me. He has
heard the negatives plus been there for the times I openly mentioned I wanted to
change him. It is then that I start to see that sparkle in his eye for me begin
to fade. Do you know that not once has he EVER wanted to change anything about
me? If you ask him, every time he will say he wouldn’t change a thing. Now that
is a powerful thought for me to consider at times. That to me tells the
character of my husband, regardless. I pray that my husband never loses that sparkle
in his eye for me. When he started too, those were scary times. It was then that I realized that
instead of trying to change him, I needed to correct MY behavior. I couldn’t change
my husband but I could change myself. To my surprise, he went right back to
trying daily to lasso the moon for me even if I didn't ask.
I pray that
other women learn to appreciate their man for all his GOOD qualities so that he
does not get lost among the rubble of negatives. If we don’t build them up then
chances are they will be tempted to find someone else who will stroke their
ego. Honestly we all have problems and irritating habits. What if your spouse
were to go away? What if you had to spend long periods of time separated? Would
any of those irritating habits even matter? How much of the small aspects would
you miss? Marriage is not easy. It takes
work every single day. I place my marriage as a priority over my children some if not most
days. The kids will one day grow up and live their life. However, I am connected
to my spouse for life. That means we had better figure this out. Maybe if
more people would try to change their own faults instead of changing their spouse, the
world would have a lot happier people. The moral of the story; despite the dirty
sock you might find for the 15th time that was not in a laundry basket, be
grateful for your husband. Appreciate what he DOES do around the house.
