Y'all think military love is glorious and beautiful? Let me tell you what it’s like to love a man in the military.

I swore I’d never date a man in the military because I couldn’t handle being away from the person for so long. Joke was on me, right?

We met less than a year before he deployed. I found out the man I was falling in love was leaving for a year shortly after starting to fall for him. How is that fair? Things were finally going the way I hoped.

He was supposed to be on a year long deployment. J got a call from him 2 months in. He told me it would be 18 months until he saw me again. 18. Damn. Months.

My son will be 18 months old before they meet.

He goes inactive on Facebook messenger(our contact source) for days and I have no way of knowing that he is okay until he replies to my message.

I hardly sleep. I cry when I see homecoming videos because I want so badly for it to be us in that video. I cry when I hear love songs. Or when I hear a Darius Rucker song because that was the concert we attended together. I cry when I see couples dance at weddings or when I think about him being home again.

I cry because of how much I miss him.

And when he’s home? I pray he doesn’t get orders for another base because my entire life has been spent in this town.

Military love isn’t glorious. It’s hard. You don’t know when they’re going to get a call that they are being sent somewhere you can’t go. You don’t know when you’ll be able to talk to them or see them again. You don’t know if you will see them again. When they go inactive, you don’t know if they are hurt, dead, or just on a mission.

Don’t expect them to change things about themselves that upset you without reciprocating some change yourself.

Always talk about your day and hang out with each other over a movie and some snacks, doesn’t have to be a big O’ date it’s the company that matters.

Share each other’s interests and hobbies, theirs nothing like the excitement of secondhand fandom and your partner getting excited over something you love.

Never make any rash decisions while in a fight because it can really hurt a relationship. And know how to deal with each other if mad, not all girls want to be held when mad or talk when mad, some need space to calm down. And same with men.

Strive to make them happy without expecting anything in return because they will in turn reciprocate with honesty and love.