Down at the bottom is the youtube video of The Judds singing “Mama He’s Crazy”. If you want to hear the song while reading this post, go down and click on the arrow to start the song.

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In a few days, Alpha Hubby and I will have been married 23.6 years – twenty-three and a half years.

Sometimes it still takes my breath away how much this man in my life loves me. And while I am not going to run around calling him crazy or out of his mind (except as the post song title, because words have power), he is… a horse of a different color* – with an odd kick in his gallop**.

Mama, I found someone
Like you said would come along
He’s a sight, so unlike
Any man I’ve known

Yes, he really was unlike any man I’d ever known. He liked ME. He respected ME. He didn’t make me play the International Octopus game – Russian hands and Roman fingers.

I was afraid to let him in
‘Cause I’m not the trusting kind

And it was a huge understatement that I was afraid to let him in. Too many times, normal people turned into axe murderers as their true self emerged. I didn’t need any more pieces chopped out of my heart.

But now I’m convinced
That he’s heaven sent
And must be out of his mind

I knew He was from God because He told me so (story here). Still, even knowing that didn’t mean I wasn’t skittish and nervous. I was. Psychotically so. Ask him about the glass of iced tea sometime.

(Chorus)
Mama, he’s crazy, crazy over me
And in my life is where he says
He always wants to be
I’ve never been so loved
He beats all I’ve ever seen
Mama, he’s crazy
He’s crazy over me

I could never have imagined the love this man has for me. I dreamed of True Love but it was more like a Fairy Tale or fantasy. I read about real people who had it but reading and experiencing are two different things.

He truly does beat all I’ve ever seen or experienced. HE made it easy to forgive everyone in my past – all the pain, hurt, humiliation, and yes, psycho-exes. Why? True Love burns it all away. It replaces everything that was wrong. You forgive because you don’t want unforgiveness tainting True Love.

True Love gently pulls out the barbs that keeps one tethered to the past. It flushes out the fear. It makes it easy to obey God’s commandment to forgive.

And, Mama, you’ve always said
Better look before you leap
Maybe so, but here I go
Lettin’ my heart lead me

My mom never said to look before I leaped but she had wise counsel like, “You know a marriage certificate is not a dog collar, right?”  I know. Suuuuch wisdom.  I also didn’t let my heart lead me – are you nuts? The last few times I did that I almost died.  No thank you.

He thinks I hung the moon and stars
I think he’s a livin’ dream
Well there are men
But ones like him
Are few and far between

Do you have any idea what it feels like, that after 23.6 years he still thinks I hung the moon and stars? I can’t explain it other than to say that I must be God’s favorite.

Alpha Hubby pulled me up out of the oily nightmares I’d lived in and gave me a Disney life (without those pesky singing mice). He refused to give up on me. He fought me and for me to find my real self. He turned the nebulous dream of True Love into reality from one beat of my heart to the next. 

He taught me that love is not a feeling, it is a covenant (like the blood covenant where two people cut skin & mingle their blood, an unbreakable promise). Our love is a series of covenants – between him and God, me and God, us as a couple together and God, us and our son and God, and between us.

I covenant to love him, even when I don’t feel that love. If love is a feeling then when that feeling ebbs and flows, at an ebb, you can walk out. With covenant, we can’t walk out because we still have that covenant with God!

To protect that covenant we NEVER speak negative words over or about one another, ever. Not to one another (“you NEVER do this for me” or “you ALWAYS do that wrong thing”) or to others (like girlfriends) or even as a joke (“Oh haha, you know men are big babies when they’re sick; you should see him *eye roll*!”).

I can tell you honestly that I have NEVER said a negative thing about him to another soul on this earth. Ever. Not even my mama (who wouldn’t have listened anyway).

There are other rules we live by but I’ll stop here. These rules are why I can look at him and see the amazing man I fell in love with 23.6 years ago, who’s still out of his mind in love with me. And vice versa, baby!

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*http://www.dictionary.com/browse/horse-of-a-different-color–a

**An old-fashioned idiom meaning that the person has some strange whims/ideas.

Oh and for clarification, he is NOT a big baby, ever.

♥