Life of a Marine Corps Girlfriend

so I’ve been in a relationship for 5 years now. And I see a lot of posts about how people think relationships mean having butterflies forever, your heart beating faster when they walk into a room, about cuddling together every night, legs intertwined, that you’d be so happy to live together you’d sleep on a double bed with each other every night.

And its not really like that, at least not to me.

You stop getting the butterflies when you live together. Your heart no longer speeds up when you see them, but instead, everything calms down. When youre in the room with them, you feel calm, and secure. When you cuddle them you feel your heart beat slow, and the sound of their breathing carry you towards comfort. It doesnt feel like a roller coaster anymore, it feels like home.

You don’t sleep curled up with each other every night, legs twisted between theirs so tight its hard to tell where yours begin and theirs end.

Instead, you sleep comfortably, side by side, sometimes facing different directions. But every night, you find yourself scooting backwards on the bed so you bump into them. You snuggle against their arm, or stroke their hair as they fall asleep. There are nights when my boyfriend, in his sleep, reaches around me and pulls me to him, like a child with his teddybear, like I am his comfort.

 In the wee hours of the morning before the dawn breaks, when the world is blue and you see through cracked eyes, you curl into their chest and inhale their scent before drifting back to sleep. 

Kisses aren’t always romantic and firey anymore. But there are so much more of them now. There are cold kisses when you’re eating ice cream in the summer, and sticky kisses over breakfast pancakes. There’s “im leaving now” kisses, and “one more kiss before you go” kisses. There’s sleepy morning kisses before work, when you don’t remember the alarm going off but instead the press of their lips against yours is what brings you into the day.

There’s kisses before sleep, and, you are so sweet with the things you do kisses. There’s kisses because you treat animals so tenderly, and I’m so glad i’m with you and not someone else kisses. There’s quick kisses in the aisles of the grocery store, when its loud and you gravitate together, when instead of having your own personal space and their own personal space, its both of yours together, and you step into their chest to take up less area together. 

You don’t always text each other with confessions of love and care like you used to, because that’s a given now, and you’ve moved on to quirky inside jokes about the life youve built together. You share looks of exasperation and amusement in public, your own little world against the outside one. 

Relationships aren’t always a fairy tale. They’re not always fireworks and sparks, at least, after the start.

But they are a quiet rhythm and hum of love and care. It’s not a fire in your soul, but one in your hearth, keeping you warm and comfortable, comforting you as you drowsily drift into sleep.

Love is something we humans all crave.  we want to be accepted. we want to be held in someone’s arms. we need another person’s touch.  we want to hold someones hand as we walk through the hard and sweet parts of our lives. ‘s don’t just want it from A BUNCH of people [unless you’re super strange]… we want to have it from a certain person.  chances are you have someone in your head already. 

but then life throws a curveball and that special someone asks us out only to say they’ve signed papers to serve our country.  meaning, they want to be with us, but they won’t be WITH us. we’re faced with a dilemma of supporting them but being lonely on friday nights (and every other night) or not supporting them and just being alone with a hurting heart. 

We, the select few, are strong lovers of military persons.  we have a huge role to be strong for our SO and yet love them with all we’ve got.  we must cherish the times apart, and still move along in our lives in order to be ourselves.  

It means a lot of lonely nights. A lot of nights sitting on the couch in his sweatshirt so as you’re falling asleep, you can imagine him there next to you, giving you that familiar good night kiss on your forehead.

It means waking up in the morning and facing the day ahead of you alone, putting on clothes for work when all you want to do is shut the blinds and go back to sleep.

It means crying at little things, like a commercial for his favorite show, the beginning cords to your song together. It means being strong for you both, when all you want to do is fall apart and scream how unfair it all is. Begging god for time to slow down when you’re together because those seconds are so, so precious.

And it means knowing that no matter what happens, your love for him will not fade. It will get tested, trampled on, your heart will be broken time and time again, but you will never wake up not wanting to be with this man. It means that you will stand by him, no matter where your family is sent next, no matter how many times you see him walk out of the door. No matter how many goodbyes break you into a million pieces.