Be Fiercely Loyal

One of the things that really touched me early on about Darrell is his strong sense of loyalty.  He tried very hard to maintain friendships from back home while going to college a few states away.  He had never broken up with a girlfriend (although he did avoid a girl once after a failure of a first date).  From the start of our relationship, he seemed to have eyes only for me - I seriously couldn't even catch him glancing at other pretty girls, and still haven't to this day.  He even attended all of his classes - no skipping - even if he did tend to fall to sleep in the middle of a boring calculus lecture.

If Darrell doesn't like you, you'll probably know early on.  But if he likes you, and especially if he loves you, he's all in.  He stands by the people he cares about in this life.  He follows through on the things that he commits to.  And that's one of the things I really wanted and maybe even needed to learn more about at about that time of my life.

I'm sure that if you're around me long enough, you'll hear (or see on Facebook) me complain about Darrell.  Yes, there are tons of little things that can drive me crazy, sometimes even things that I normally love about him.  Let's face it, he's a man, and they are just a different species than women.  But you won't hear me complain about the very few things he's done that I really think are bad.  You won't hear me tell you every time we've had an argument.  You certainly won't get all of the details out of me.  Why?  Because Darrell is a wonderful husband.  I'm a lucky woman.  So I'm not going to tell you anything about the few things he's ever done that may actually make you think less of him.  I'm loyal to him.

And he does the same for me.  I don't think it's even something we've ever had to try to do, but that's because of the commitment we have to each other.  I'd like to think that loyalty comes naturally to couples, but for many I don't think that it does.  But I do think it's something that you can still learn, at any point in your life.  And I think it's something that all of us can work to learn and understand better.