Between Military Orders and Tee Times

One of the questions I get asked often is:
"How did you and your husband meet?"

The story is actually pretty fun. It’s about two people meeting exactly in the right place at the right time.

Back in the summer of 2018, my husband Daniel was still in the Marine Corps. He was serving as a Marine Security Guard and was part of MSAU (Marine Security Augmentation Unit), a quick reaction team that traveled around the world providing security support for high-profile diplomatic missions and VIP visits.

One of those missions brought him to Helsinki, Finland. More specifically, he was there during President Trump's high-level meeting with President Putin.

During his time in Helsinki, Daniel decided he needed a local tour guide. Somehow, that tour guide ended up being me.

We matched on Bumble (back when that was still a thing), when I just happened to be home in Finland visiting my family for a couple of weeks.

We went out on a few dates around Helsinki and had a great time together. I then left for a stretch of tournaments, and we both hoped that maybe our paths would cross again someday, even though neither of us really knew what that would look like given our professions.

A month later, I was playing a tournament in New York and Daniel was back at his base in Quantico, Virginia. We arranged another date in Washington, D.C., and the rest is history.

What neither of us knew at the time was that eight years later we'd be married, living on separate continents, and trying to balance a professional golf career with military life.

Daniel and I got married in February 2025. Instead of going on a honeymoon, Daniel left for Officer Candidate School, and I started my golf season.

Last year alone felt like a whirlwind. Never did I expect to be filling out a Red Cross Emergency form to get Daniel pulled out of his final week of training, when my mother passed away in May. Thankfully, he had already completed his requirements and only missed the graduation ceremony.

We spent a couple months together during the summer and then came Intelligence School - another three months apart.

Now he is living in Germany for the next ~2 years.

And somewhere in between, my golf career kept moving too. Tournaments, travel, qualifiers, weeks on the road, while trying to fit a weekend here and there to meet each other somewhere around the world!

Some days I wake up and realize we've spent more of our marriage apart than together. But I also know it’s just a phase of our lives. One day we'll probably look back on these years and wonder how we managed to make it all work.

Most military spouses don't have careers that require constant travel and uncertainty. Sometimes that's by choice, and sometimes it's simply the reality of being stationed somewhere where working isn't easy or even possible.

One thing I've learned is that the military community is incredibly supportive. Spouses show up to family days, volunteer, attend ceremonies, and help hold everything together behind the scenes. Sometimes I struggle with feeling like I'm failing at that role.

I miss promotions, graduations, and military events because I've chosen to be somewhere else, trying to build my own career and pursue my own dreams.

There are moments when I wonder if I'm a bad military spouse because I can't always be present. Truthfully, many servicemembers probably feel more supported than Daniel does. But over the years, I've also realized that support doesn't always look like sitting in the audience or standing in the crowd at every ceremony.

Sometimes it looks like a late-night phone call at 1 a.m. because that's the only hour our schedules and time zones happen to overlap. Sometimes it's celebrating a promotion from an airport. Sometimes it's encouraging each other to keep chasing goals, even when those goals temporarily pull us in different directions.

I wish I could be there for every important moment in his career. Right now I can’t, but what I can do is continue showing up the best way I know how, and be grateful that he extends me that same grace when he's watching my tournaments from thousands of miles away.

In many ways, we've both gotten used to supporting each other from afar. Daniel has spent years following my career through live scoring, text messages, and FaceTime. He's celebrated wins he couldn't witness in person and helped me through difficult stretches when he was a thousand miles away.

While distance can make us miss important moments, it has never made me question whether we're supporting each other. If anything, it's taught us that support is about far more than simply being in the same place.

I think social media often makes it look like couples either have everything figured out or they're falling apart. The truth is usually somewhere in the middle. We don't have some magical formula for making long distance, military life, and professional golf work. Some days it feels completely manageable, and other days it feels really hard.

There are times when we're excited about the opportunities we're both pursuing, and times when we're frustrated that those same opportunities keep us on different continents. We've had difficult conversations, moments of disappointment, and plenty of days where we've wished things were easier. But through all of it, we've never asked the other person to give up on their dream, and I think that's a big part of why we've made it this far.

The funny thing is that neither of us accidentally ended up here. I chose professional golf, and Daniel chose military service. Both careers come with a lot of uncertainty, sacrifice, and time away from the people you love. We knew that when we got married, even if we couldn't have predicted exactly what it would look like.

That doesn't mean the distance is easy or that we don't get frustrated sometimes, but it does help put things into perspective. We're both pursuing something that matters deeply to us, and that makes the sacrifices feel a little easier to accept.

One thing I remind myself often is that this season of life is exactly that - a season. There will be a time when we're together again. There will be a time when family takes priority over tournament schedules and military assignments. There will be a time when we don't have to calculate time zone differences before calling each other. And there will be a time when we're sitting on the same couch every night instead of thousands of miles apart.

I don't know exactly when that season will arrive. But I know it will. And when it does, I think we'll appreciate it in a way we never could have otherwise.

For now, we're both focused on building careers that we're passionate about, even if that means doing it from different countries. Daniel is in Germany and I'm in Texas, and in many ways, long distance is nothing new for us. We've spent a good portion of our relationship figuring out how to stay connected through military orders, training schools, tournament schedules, and time zones. You'd think we'd be experts by now, but we're still learning as we go.

Two people building careers on different continents, trusting that one day all of these miles, missed events, airport reunions, and phone calls across time zones will be worth it.

𖹭 Matilda