Relative

I hate when people say "beauty is in the eye of the beholder".  It's not.  Beauty, like most things, is relative.  If you take an average looking girl and put her next to some hideous, obese skank, she starts to look a lot better. But take that same girl and put her in a room with super models and she becomes invisible (if she's lucky) and an eye sore if she's not.
So, as I was watching The Vow last weekend and  alternating between "Awe, why can't my man be like that?" and "Channing's like a unicorn, looks good in pictures but we know that shit doesn't exist!"  I started to think that maybe love is also relative.

Many, many years ago, I had a boyfriend who I thought was wonderful.   And a good friend of mine was dating my boyfriend's best friend.  They fought all the time.  In fact, he used to beat the crap out of her and lock her in their apartment when he went anywhere just because he didn't trust her.  So what if my boyfriend hit me a few times (when I was pregnant) and called me names (I used to think my name was Slut, Cunt & Whore)....... he was sooooooo much better than her boyfriend.  That was, until she left him and got a new one.  And then, I suddenly started to see mine for the piece of shit he really was.

It is not that I compare my husband to characters in a movie or in romance novels (though some of that housewife porn is pretty good) or even other women's abuses spouses.  But maybe I should stop comparing him to the man he was before the Marines........ and Iraq............... and more Iraq.  Maybe I should just see him as the man he is.  Sounds so much easier than it really is.

Things have been better.  We have had sex three times this year.  Two of those in one night.  Maybe that is over-sharing.  But I am learning that there are many military spouses who are experiencing similar issues.  Besides, there are very few people reading this that know me..............OK......... there are very few people reading this.........period.

This morning he came up from behind me, hugged me and kissed my neck.  He smiled and told me he loved me.  That is progress.  I want to say, "that is more like the man I married".............. but he is not the man I married.  He is different.  He will never be the man I married.  Maybe I should stop worrying about who he is and start focusing on what I am supposed to be.  And that is where I get lost.