If you ever get the opportunity to have a conversation with Marvin Echols about his relationship with his wife, you might walk away feeling like you’ve just heard the synopsis for the best Ava DuVernay or Shonda Rhimes romance imaginable. Theirs is the story of two driven professionals—one, a civil engineer, the other a U.S. Army veteran turned advocate and pageant queen. Over the years, Marvin and his wife have learned to champion each other and contribute to their spouse’s career goals, while never losing sight of their love and the health of their relationship.
Naturally, none of this comes without work. But that’s something Marvin and his wife, former Miss USA Deshaunna Barber, began working on long before they jumped the broom.
Before Miss Barber became Mrs. Echols, the couple had spent three years building a friendship as their foundation. At the time, Marvin was still building up his resume, applying to grad school, and working towards reaching his professional stride. And while he had no clue that the woman he had recently met at a friend’s wedding would be “the one,” he was already focused on creating the stability in his own life that would one day allow him to be a great partner.
Once Marvin and Deshaunna decided to explore a romantic connection, they spent two more years creating the blueprint for their relationship. For Marvin, much of that was learning what it means to love and live with a soldier.
“I had no real knowledge of the Army outside of general stuff that you would learn in school related to U.S. history,” he says. “But I went into this relationship with my wife with no expectations. I just wanted to hear what the responsibility or commitment of being with somebody in the Army looks like from her perspective.”
“I think she did a really good job breaking it down to me,” he continues. “It takes commitment and compromise, but I think because she was so transparent and so honest, I didn’t even really have time to create my own ideas of what I thought it looked like.”
Taking the time to understand what Army life would entail was even more important for Marvin considering that Deshaunna comes from a military family. Becoming an effective partner also meant understanding the nuances of his wife’s experiences as a soldier, as an advocate and as a woman of color in the Armed Forces.
“When you think of people who serve, you kinda think of someone who has this duty to the Army,” Marvin explains.
One aspect of his wife’s career that truly demonstrated this for Marvin was her former role as CEO of the Service Women’s Action Network, an advocacy group that works towards enacting policy changes that better address the needs of service women and women veterans.
“I came to appreciate the nuance of the space she was in: supporting social causes that impact Americans of all walks of life, while also honoring the fact that you are still in uniform,” Marvin explains. “In a weird way, that humanized soldiers in my eyes. It helped me remember that while they may serve together, these are still individuals with their own perspectives.”
In his professional life, Marvin has come to lean on his wife as the perfect brainstorming partner and sounding board. That started with and continues to include those moments when he’s planning for his professional future. He shares that they both take time to explore the best route by which to approach their career goals. Deshaunna’s also the designated reviewer of presentations and the “devil’s advocate” who can present countering opinions about his work, from the unique vantage point of someone who knows how passionate her husband is about his work as a civil engineer in the energy sector.
Because they had dedicated so much time early on to truly understanding each other’s lived experiences, Marvin says he and Deshaunna made it a point to lay all of the heavy cards on the table before they got married. This included everything from how they would work to support each other’s careers to their views on parenting, all the way down to how they might handle their future child’s decision to follow in mom’s footsteps and enlist in the military.
“My advice for anybody in a relationship, whether you’re serving in the Army or not, would be to have the foundational conversations about what my plan looks like, what your plan looks like, and whether we are aligned before you even start planning your wedding,” Marvin shares. “Even if the alignment is there, you have to figure out if you’re gonna be able to do this together and effectively. The sooner you have those conversations, the better. I think we did a really good job so that transition to marriage was kinda like, ‘Okay, now we’re just executing the plan.’ In hindsight, it’s very military and structured, but I think that worked best for us.”
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