The writing prompt for today was “Who make you feel happiest in life and why?”. The answer I give may be a bit different than one might expect considering that I have three kids, but it’s really simple. My partner is the person that makes me happiest, we’ll call him Agent B. (My bestie likes to say he’s in the CIA, but he’s not. I promise!) I look at him and see all the growth that we’ve accomplished throughout the years and it brings me pride and joy.
When I met the man that would become my partner, we were just friends. See, he had this ambition of joining the military and I didn’t think I could handle a relationship with someone in the military. He just kept showing up until I couldn’t fight it anymore and I caved. He became the piece I was missing and didn’t even know it.
Now, when we met, I was a single mother to a five-year-old boy. My ex was in and out but not a real huge influence on our son. Agent B taught him how to throw a ball and ride his bike. He showed up when no one else was and helped me raise this amazing boy. We went on to have two more children together. He had no idea how to be a parent. I had five years of experience at the time and he had none. However, he worked hard to become a man that our kids could be proud of. He still works hard for all of us.
We got married about 7 months before he deployed to Iraq. Our daughter was just 2 months old at the time. When he came home, things were hard. Hard as hell to be honest. PTSD, trying to get to know this little person, trying to make up for lost time; all these things were fighting against us at a time when our relationship was at it’s weakest. That year he was gone was awful on so many levels and we were all reeling from it. I think the entire first two years of our marriage we were on the brink of divorce. But, we were stubborn and we fought through it.
We moved from one side of the country to Alaska and it tried our relationship in other ways. We learned to rely on each other more than anyone else. Best friends and family were so far away that we only had each other. We became a stronger couple after that. We moved again to Missouri where we only continued to get stronger and stronger. He is the person that I lean on the most in my life. He’s the person that makes me laugh the most in my life. He’s my person.
Now, I love my kids with a depth that is often scary. They are my life’s work and I’m the most proud mother you can imagine. The truth of the matter is that, he chooses me every day. My kids are stuck with me. When they are grown and living their own lives, he’s the one that will still be by my side. He’s the only one that I want to do this life with.
Wow! I have to say that at this point in writing today, I stopped to take a smoke break…. Boy, oh boy, did the shit hit the fan! Agent B and I had a fucking huge fight not long after my smoke break. It was bad enough that I sincerely thought I was going to a hotel for the night. Don’t you worry though. Like I said before, we’re both pretty stubborn.
We talked for a bit, then fought for a bit. Next, we talked again. Before you knew it, we were laughing again. That’s how our relationship works. We keep talking and we keep fighting because, at the end of the day, we want to be together. We’ll keep fighting for this life we’ve built together because it’s worth the fight. We’ll keep talking because we want to truly hear what the other person is feeling. We’ll keep talking because we love each other.
See, we’re not a perfect couple. We have our ups and downs like everyone else. The only reason we make it past our downs is because we keep fighting for each other. I still love him like no other. He’s always my person even when I want to punch him in the throat. When we first talked about getting married, we both agreed that there were only two reasons to get a divorce. The first is physical violence and the other is infidelity. Since neither of those things has happened, we’re sticking it out.
What keeps your relationship going? What keeps you going back to fight another day?
-SM