1. Create your own website together. Post all your news and latest photos weekly for your sweetheart. Write a daily (or as often as possible) online journal to keep your loved one up-to-date.
2. Keep a phone journal. Jot down things you want to tell your spouse when he/she calls. Rule of thumb: always say “I love you” before anything else, just in case you lose connection.
3. Plan dates for a Skype chat when possible. When the technology won’t support that, spend quality time writing intentional emails or letters to one another. Your spouse will appreciate the time you invest in any form of communication.
4. Plan a “date” with your spouse to meet at a predesignated website and read a short article and discuss it over the phone or Internet call.
5. “Meet” at a predesignated website that describes a vacation destination you would like to go to when he returns from his deployment.
6. Read a book together; a chapter per week and discuss it the next time you talk with each other. If that is too much of a time commitment, select questions to answer from 101 Conversation Starters for Couples.
7. Service member, remember your spouse wants to connect on a heart level despite the distance. If you can’t or would rather not share what’s going on at your end, at least share with her how you feel. Tired? Overwhelmed? Hopeful? Laser-focused?
8. Ask your spouse to share his or her dreams with you. Try not to minimize them in any way. Just listen and show interest.
9. Home front spouse, become interested in a sport, hobby, or activity your service member enjoys. Share what you are learning. You might even consider taking a few lessons to help you engage with your spouse in this activity when he or she returns.
10. Make a scrapbook of things that took place while the service member was away. You’ll spend quality time reliving the memories with him or her after homecoming.
11. Dream together about what you want to do after retirement from the military.
12. Tell your spouse things like, “I can’t wait to spend a day ____ with you again.” Fill in the blank with a favorite shared activity.
THE 5 LOVE LANGUAGES?
LOVE LANGUAGE #3
Receiving Gifts
I was in Chicago when I studied anthropology. By means of detailed ethnographies (printed descriptions of a particular culture), I visited fascinating peoples all over the world. I went to Central America and studied the advanced cultures of the Mayans and the Aztecs. I crossed the Pacific and studied the tribal peoples of Melanesia and Polynesia. I studied the Eskimos of the northern tundra and the aboriginal Ainus of Japan. I examined the cultural patterns surrounding love and marriage and found that in every culture I studied, gift giving was a part of the love-marriage process.
Anthropologists are intrigued by cultural patterns that tend to pervade cultures, and so was I. Could it be that gift giving is a fundamental expression of love that transcends cultural barriers? Is the attitude of love always accompanied by the concept of giving? Those are academic and somewhat philosophical questions, but if the answer is yes, it has profound practical implications for North American couples.
“JUICE FOR YOU”
I took an anthropology field trip to the island of Dominica. Our purpose was to study the culture of the Carib Indians, and on the trip I met Fred. Fred was not a Carib but a young black man of twenty-eight years. Fred had lost a hand in a fishing-by-dynamite accident. Since the accident, he could not continue his fishing career. He had plenty of available time, and I welcomed his companionship. We spent hours together talking about his culture.
Upon my first visit to Fred’s house, he said to me, “Mr. Gary, would you like to have some juice?” to which I responded enthusiastically. He turned to his younger brother and said, “Go get Mr. Gary some juice.” His brother turned, walked down the dirt path, climbed a coconut tree, and returned with a green coconut. “Open it,” Fred commanded. With three swift movements of the machete, his brother uncorked the coconut, leaving a triangular hole at the top. Fred handed me the coconut and said, “Juice for you.” It was green, but I drank it—all of it—because I knew it was a gift of love. I was his friend, and to friends you give juice.