Marriage

How many people when reading that title said it like on Princess Bride?  That is how I say the word always!  Isn't it amazing how a movie can have such an impact on so many people.  I am not writing this post to  discuss movies though.  I wanted to talk to you guys a little bit about marriage.  What marriage means to me is not the same thing it means to other people.  My husband has a job where he used to travel ALL the time.  It was hard.  Our relationship started out long distance and because of this it prepared us for what our life was going to be like for the next 8 years.

A little back ground about us.  I lived in Southern California and Cody lived in Southern Utah.  My sister and her husband live in Utah where Cody lived.  My brother in law met Cody and they became friends.  They "hooked us up".  We met, went on a "date"  ( the date included both my sisters, my brother, my brother in law and my nephew ) and was something like 10 or so hours long.  After this I went back to Cali and we started emailing each other a lot.  Then we started chatting over MSN messenger.  Sometimes we would talk until 4 or 5 in the morning.  When my semester was over I went up to Utah to spend the summer which was only 2 months.  It took us a while to get the relationship going ( we are both shy! ) but once we did we were both smitten.  At the end of the 2 months I had a ring on my finger and we were planning a December wedding.  At first December seemed SO close.  I went back to Cali to finish up another semester and he worked and went o school in Utah.  It was the LONGEST 5 months ever!  December felt forever away.  We finally were married and we thought, "GOOD!  No more time apart!"  Then about 4 months later my husband got a call and a job offer in Texas.  We went gladly.  They said there was travel involved.  Well, we could handle that right?  Within two weeks of us being in Texas, Cody had to go to Kuwait for a month, come home for 2 weeks and then head back to Kuwait for 3 months.  HORRIBLE!  Our life was like this for the last 7 years.  The longest trip being while I was pregnant with my daughter Kayla.  Cody was in Iraq for 7 months.  Thank goodness we moved in with my parents in Utah while he was gone because I had lots of bleeding my first 2 months of pregnancy and needed the help.  ( My husband knocked me up on his way out the door to Iraq!  haha  We didn't even know I was pregnant until he had been gone 3 weeks or so )

We got the offer to move to California with NO TRAVEL!  We jumped on the opportunity even though it meant working more hours for Cody and leaving our family and friends in Texas.  Cody has a brother who lived around the corner from us who we spent LOTS of time with.  They kept me sane whenever Cody was gone.  And while my sister in law was at work during the day time, my dear friend Sarah kept me sane.  We didn't REALLY want to move but for us to be together and actually get to be a family FULL time was way to good to pass up.  It's funny because Cody's sister Wendy went through the same thing as us in terms of having her husband gone a lot,  He is the one who got my husband his job.  When she found out we were taking the job in California she told Cody that it was going to be really hard on our marriage for him to be home all of the sudden.  We laughed.  I can see how some people would find this difficult but not us.

Cody works with a LOT of people who do not value marriage!  Nor do they value family.  They looked at being on the road as an opportunity to cheat.  The sad thing was that some of them had verbal agreements with their wives that while they were on the road, both of them were allowed to see other people.  I can tell you of the 5 or so people Cody told me about who did this, ZERO of them are still together.  Oh and did I mention that most of them had two or three kids?  Little kids too who were seeing this and being no doubt damage by this tremendously.  How could anyone be THAT selfish?!

Cody and I have always stayed close during this.  We learned from the very beginning of our relationship to communicate through words and not through touch.  Do I get lonely when he is gone?  YUP!  Was it hard on my hormones him being away for a month or so at a time?  HELL YEAH!  haha  But this did not matter as much as how much I loved him.  Sometimes when Cody was gone we talked more then when he was home.  he would call me when he got done with work and we would talk for a while.  Then we would talk on the internet or on the phone after the kids went to bed.  It's hard to NOT be close to someone when you know how to talk.  THIS to me is not only what kept us close, but helped us keep our relationship going.  We knew how to communicate and we knew how to love each other even when we weren't in each others presence.

So what about now that he isn't traveling anyone?  Do we still talk?  Are we getting on each other's nerves?  Well, I can tell you it has been wonderful having him home and in no way has it made our relationship harder.  We still laugh about his sister saying that.  I know she was just trying to prepare us for what might happen but for us it was a blessing.  I value our marriage.  Our value our friendship.  He means more to me then the world and I would never do anything to jeopardize this.  For too many people, they just don't value marriage any more.  They don't love their spouse unconditionally.  They don't give %100 percent of themselves to it.  This is so sad to me.  Why get married then?  Why try and spend the rest of your life with someone and have a family if they aren't the most important thing to you?

I can tell you so many stories!  Another guy Cody works with told him that his career was more important then his wife!  Not only did he say that but he said if he got a promotion and needed to move some where and she didn't want to, he would just go any ways.  SERIOUSLY?!  WHY GET MARRIED?!  Another guy has been with the same woman for years.  Her kids are practically his kids.  They are planning on getting married but aren't yet.  He cheats on his wife every time he goes out on the road.  Recently he had a threesome while on a trip!  What gets me more then anything is that we aren't talking about kissing and holding hands.  We are talking sex.  I have only given myself to one person and that is my husband.  I can not even IMAGINE what it would be like to give myself to someone else.  And for these people he works with they do it and then go home and look their wives in the eyes.  And some of them don't consider it cheating if they don't sleep with them.  They could do ANYTHING else but as long as they don't have sex, it isn't cheating.  WOW

I value myself, my kids and my husband!  I value my marriage and what it represents.  I LOVE and know that he LOVES only me.  This is marriage and I feel sick to my stomach that in  this day in age the word marriage doesn't mean anything.  Well, it means something to me.  It means everything to me.