What is love? Love is the action after the feeling. It’s more than just the butterflies in your stomach or the rush of saying “I love you.” Feelings are fleeting. they rise and fall with our moods, with our stress, with the mess of everyday life. But love as an action? That’s where it becomes real. Love is how you translate those feelings into loyalty, care, patience, and sacrifice. It’s how you show up, even when it’s inconvenient. It’s how you keep choosing the same person, over and over again, through all the phases of life.

I know this because of how I am loved. My husband doesn’t just say he loves me. He shows it, in loyalty, in consistency, in unwavering support. Non stop all the time, 12 years in. There has never been another woman, never a moment where I questioned whether I was second to anyone else. He doesn’t leave me hanging when it comes to his friends. He has made our family his first priority, always. And that is no small thing in a world that is constantly pulling people in a thousand different directions.

And I love him just the same. My love shows up in the ways I care for him, in how I give endlessly to make his life easier where I can because I see how much he bends for us. My loyalty, my consistency. I pay attention to the details, the little things that make him feel seen and cared for. I create space for him to rest, and to breathe. My love is in the way I carry our family right alongside him, so he never has to carry it alone.

His love is in the everyday showing up. When he’s tired. When he’s overwhelmed. When it would be easier to check out. When he is fighting his own personal mental fights. Still, he’s here, giving us his best. That’s not to say it’s perfect, because no love is perfect. But it’s real. It’s steady. It’s ours.

That’s the thing about love, it’s not one-sided. It’s not just what we receive, but what we give. It’s the rhythm of bending for each other, of choosing each other daily, of finding ways to say I see you, I’m with you, I’ve got you. Love is not just a word, or even a feeling. Love is work. Love is an action. Love is effortless and it’s built into everything i do. And I am so thankful to live in a marriage where we both show up that way, consistently, endlessly, imperfectly, but always with everything we have.