By Andrea Carlile
Photo by Cpl Tyler L Main
Valentine’s Day is fast approaching and romance is in the air. Being in a military marriage has unique qualities. Deployments can bring about the toughest loneliness, and the return can show us the strongest joy!
I have been married for 14 years and have experienced some tremendous challenges and amazing victories along the way. Our love runs deep, but it’s easy to forget the romantic moments. So, I went down memory lane and wanted to share some Valentine memories from my military marriage.
Year One
Every day was Valentines Day! There were love notes in lunch boxes, flowers sent to the office, and days calling in “sick” together. I even created a list of fifty reasons why I loved my new husband! He promised to clean the house. Our love is fresh, new, and exciting!
Year Four
Our Valentine’s Days was my husband called to deployment to Iraq. We spent the day apprehensive, as fear as uncertainty gripped our marriage. We marked our love by promising a commitment to each other through the challenges of serving our country.
Year Five
My sweetheart had recently returned from Iraq safely! Repeat year one. Ah, the honeymoon phase of deployments.
Year Six
We had our first child! Valentine’s Day was filled like most days at that time … sleep deprivation, bottles, diapers, and unconditional love towards a tiny person who is amazing! Our love was expressed through the joint care of our baby. We were too exhausted for anything else.
Year Nine
We spent Valentine’s Day separated by another deployment. I had never felt more alone before, but our love was renewed by our commitment to each other and hope of reuniting in the coming months.
Year Eleven
We had our second child and repeated our year six Valentine’s routine.
Year Twelve
This was the toughest Valentine’s Day in our journey. We were separated by choice, as we pondered if we still had love. We faced a very difficult PTSD diagnosis and neither of us could grasp how to move forward. Our love seemed lost.
Year Thirteen
We reconciled our marriage after months of counseling and education on how to deal with PTSD. Miraculously, we repeated years one and five and added courage, strength, and increased commitment to our definition of love!
Year Fourteen
No highs or lows – just life. School events, practices, and performances filled our lives. We expressed our love through the joint involvement of our children.
After reflecting on our journey, I realized that marriage can be defined with many forms of love. Some years love is expressed as staying up all night with a sick infant. Some years it’s expressed in a love letter sent to the battlefield. Some years, love can only be given as a show of commitment, through the words “I haven’t given up yet.”
Only half of all marriages succeed. It is tough to commit your everything – hopes, dreams, finances and children, into the care of one person. For those who have traveled this path, we have been given a gift to cherish, which is a person to cherish!
For this reason, year 15 I am striving to keep the romance alive in my marriage. I can still write love notes. I can find more than 50 reasons why I love my husband. I love him now more than year one and five and thirteen combined! Our love is more than it was then. It is composed of perseverance and commitment, sprinkled with romance and precious memories. After reflection, this Valentine’s Day can be the best yet!
Andrea Carlile is the spouse of a 12-year military veteran, received her Master’s from Indiana Wesleyan University, speaks to groups about PTSD, and is pursuing a career in Family and Marital Therapy. The War That Came Home is her first novel, and she hopes to publish more books in the near future.
