When You Speak Different Languages

I have finally realized that my husband shows affection differently than what I imagined it would look like.

He isn’t constantly hugging me and kissing me. He doesn’t shower me with compliments. In fact, some of those things are a bit difficult for him to do. This can be frustrating for a wife who needs physical touch and affirming words.

Marriages crumble all of the time because a spouse feels unloved. Is it possible you don’t recognize the times you are shown love? Are you too bent on demanding it be done your way? Maybe your spouse is shouting he loves you as loud as he can, but you aren’t hearing him.

Spinning your wheels but getting nowhere

It’s an awful to feel like you aren’t appreciated for all you do. I home-school my children and do my best to pour myself into them. It’s truly a sacrifice, and this is also a way I show my husband I love him. It’s so obvious to me that I’m showing him how much I care about him. But he likes little thoughtful gifts. So while I am working really hard doing these things, he just wants me to pick him up that special cheese he loves.

I love to cuddle with Scott and spend hours on end talking. He has a hard time sitting still that long, so I am tempted at times to nail his shoe to the floor. What he did for me the other night though, was worth a month of cuddling and a hundred conversations. He was showing me he loved me in his own way. And I’m finally catching on.

We went to see our favorite band, Johnnyswim, in concert. They have a song called, “Take The World” that is so beautiful. Scott heard it and claimed it as our song and have been listening to it nonstop.

We arrived early to the concert and ordered dinner. We had our own little table, and the candlelit room was so pretty. Of course the band was amazing, and I enjoyed being there with Scott.

His version of a big bear hug

I couldn’t believe it when in the middle of the concert, they stopped singing and dedicated our favorite song to “Scott and Michelle.” It took me a few seconds to understand they meant us!

What I didn’t know, was that Scott wrote Johnnyswim a letter about us a few days before the concert. Our friend is connected to the band through their manager, so he helped get our letter to them. Here is an excerpt of what Scott wrote:

. . . Michelle and I have been married for almost 23 years. We got married young. I was 21 and she was 19. I met her while I was in the military and we had a tough road from the start.

We grew up in divorced homes, and we didn’t have a great picture of what marriage looked like. We shouldn’t have made it past the first year. People actually made bets on our wedding day of how long we would last.

Desert Storm kicked off and I spend 2 of the first 3 years of our marriage away. I kissed my 8-month-old baby girl, Tayler (now 21), goodbye at SeaTac in 1993 on deployment to Korea and didn’t see her for 9 months. I witnessed marriage after marriage go down the drain during the Desert Storm years. Distance, for most, didn’t make the heart grow fonder.

Yet Michelle and I made it through.

We’ve had some incredible ups and downs and times where I thought there was no way we could get through the tough times trying to destroy us yet again we made it. And today, we’re still working on this beautiful thing called marriage.

I’m 43 years old and have 8 children living in my home—ages 18, 15, 13, 12, 11, 9, 4, and 1—and yet I wouldn’t trade this for anything because I get to do this with Michelle. She is the love of my life and the one I’m pledged my heart and life to.

When I first heard “Take the World” I staked my claim . . . THIS IS OUR SONG!!

Someone had finally written a REAL song about what love really is. Not the glamorized crap of Hollywood but the real nitty, gritty thing called love. It’s not always butterflies and romance. Many times, if not most of the time, it’s real hard work and sacrifice. 

And you know what we stuck around long enough to discover? We discovered as the lyrics say . . . “Ain’t it just like love, to find us.” Love has found us and it was forged in the fire of real life. I love Michelle more today then I could have ever imaged as that 21 year-old, starry-eyed, naive, clueless, military airmen, almost 23 years ago.

Saturday we attend the Johnnyswim concert in Seattle. We don’t get out much . . . did I mention we have “A LOT OF KIDS?!” 🙂

As I was buying the tickets, I grabbed a table that seats three people. I wanted Saturday to be a night of just Michelle and I celebrating our amazing marriage. So I bought the 3rd seat so that we could be alone.

As I was purchasing the tickets, it dawned on me, that for the last 23 years there has always been a 3rd person at the table. He is the One who brought us together and is also the One who has sustained us with His love and grace all these years. 

Because of Him, we can “Take the World.”

—Scott

For the man who struggles to give me hugs, he does well in so many other areas and has grown so much as a husband. I just want to inspire you to take a step back, and find ways to appreciate what your spouse does best.