I Thought I Loved Him

Today my DH turns 30 years old.  That’s right, 6 months after my big 3-0.  I’ve heard nothing but obnoxious comments the whole time, too, so it’ll be nice to be back on even playing field again.

Now 30 is not old, per say, but I met him when we were 13.
Not many wives have been around their husbands long enough or early enough to have ‘grown up’ together.  But we can. 

13 years ago when we started dating, I thought he was pretty great.  But I have to say that was only a fabulous preview of who he is now.  Last year, I wrote this post about him.  It is called “Because Love is Worth Missing Sometimes“.  And it still is.  I still mean every word.  Being his wife is one of my many undeserved blessings.

If I think back to the 19 year old man I married, back when we still paid as much in car insurance as we did rent because if his age, back when he could still eat a whole pizza himself and back when he was much more convinced of his own invincibility… it seems like he is so much different now.

Looking at the pictures of us on his 18th birthday, pictures when he left for Basic Training, pictures from our wedding day, we look so much younger.

Don’t get me wrong.  He still can’t grow a beard if he tried and he still has an amazing babyfaced smile that makes my heart melt.

But we’re not the young kids on the block anymore.  There was a time when everywhere we went we got comments of ‘oh, I can’t believe you’re so young!….’

We don’t get that anymore.

And some days I feel bad. When DH was scraping together enough money in our joint account to pay bills and put a house together for his new bride who just graduated college and had no money, his friends were all spending their nights at the clubs and their money however they wanted.  When the guys his age got back from their first tour, they all got big TVs and fancy cars with their expendable income while DH bought a house for his new baby boy.  While they were away they got to travel the world on R&R’s while on DH’s last tour he got home 20 hours before Monster was born.

He’s lived the life of marriage, diapers and minivans way longer than most at his age.  And when you ask him, he only says he would do it all again.  He never once complained, that whole time.  He did it out of love and with a smile and never once made me feel like it was not exactly where he wanted to be in life.

Sitting at a party the other day a guy DH had been on his first tour with told a story about how those in his crew back then would harass him by explaining since he was the young guy who just got married and had a baby on the way, in the movies he would be the first to die.  Apparently they bugged him about it enough that he eventually got a little freaked out.  (It’s amazing what they think is funny in the middle of a desert).

After leaving that party, I realized that if this WAS a movie, he is no longer that guy.  In fact, he is much closer to being that grisly Sargent with the ‘been there, done that’ attitude.  You know, the one who by the end of the movie has made a heroic move to sacrifice himself to save his younger men.  (I also made the realization that there is no ‘safe’ character to relate to in a war movie.)

And still,  I have never once heard him complain.  He still looks at me in a moment of complete frustration with life and manages to assure me that he wouldn’t have it any other way.

And as a reminder of the type of guy he is, a few weeks ago we went shopping for his new combat boots.  He had been looking up the ones he wanted for weeks online and talking to guys about what they like.  You realize, he wears these boots from between 8-24 hours a day, some weeks 7 days a week.  He deserves the best he can find.  (And the older he gets, the more ankle support he needs.  Just saying, he’s not getting any younger.)

Well, recently I have also lost weight and have been in sad need of new clothes.
So when we went shopping, even though I hadn’t said a word to him about it, he knew I had in the back of my mind that I would like to look for a couple  pairs of pants while we were out.  He also knew that after I had convinced him to spend the $250 on the boots he really wanted, I banished those thoughts right away since we just didn’t have the money left. 

The next day he called me from work.  On his lunch break he had gone and exchanged the boots for a pair that were $75 cheaper.  His message just said “It’s already done.  I’ll be fine.  Don’t argue.  Get pants.”

That’s love.  And an amazing husband, both at 19 and now, at 30.

I heard this country song (and I’m not a country fan, so it’s saying something that I listened to the whole thing) called “Then”
 And even though he likes country almost as much as I do, it’s my song for him today.

Happy birthday DH.  I thought I loved you at 17.  I had no idea how good it would get by 30.   I can”t wait to see how good it gets.

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