How did your parents meet?

In My Humble Opinion
41

My mother was a grade school teacher fresh out of college, and was dating a young soldier from the nearby army base. He seemed nice enough, but kept going on and on about this new pain-in-the-ass lieutenant who was working him like a slave and generally giving him a hard time. One day, after a particularly frustrating encounter with said pain-in-the-ass, the soldier took out his frustrations by trying to get a little friendlier than his extremely Catholic schoolteacher girlfriend was willing to tolerate. So she sent him on his merry way, called up her priest, and had a lengthy talk with him about the scarcity of old-fashioned gentlemen. Shortly thereafter the priest introduced her to the pain-in-the-ass lieutenant. They’ve been married for 41 years.

And yes, he’s still a pain-in-the-ass. Thank God.

42

Eva: that story of your dad/stepmom is pure class !

My folks met at a party. He was there with another woman.

I have never heard the rest of the story … but they are nearly at the 30-year mark, so something must have worked out !

43

My dad was friends with my uncle all through secondary school, and so knew my Mum from when he was about 12 and she was about 10. When Mum was 17 she moved away from home for a year, and had a great time living on a farm and going out all the time, but used to get bored on her visits back home. On her second visit, my uncle decided her moping had to stop and said “I’ve had enough of this - you’re going out with [my Dad]”.

They got married 4 years later, despite my (maternal) grandmother’s strong disaproval, and celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary this year. :slight_smile:

44

My Mum and Dad met in a group, rock climbing in 1962. My Dad proposed on their second date, and every time after that until after three months or so Mum said “Yes” to call his bluff, and discovered that he was not joking. They have been married 41 years now.

If I might be permitted a slight hijack or generation change, my grandmother’s story of how she met her husband is cute.

She and her sister are identical twins. Their mother died and the girls were sent into service at 11 years old, in different houses. At 15, my grandmother was working at one house when a nice young man came in to do some repairs (my grampa!) He asked her out on a date, and she agreed to go.

But on the day of the date, her employer was sick, so she had to stay at home and couldn’t go out. She sent a note to her sister asking her to go on the date in her place, and to pretend to be her, which is what happened.

On their 50th wedding anniversary, at the party we held for them, my grandmother turned to my grandfather and asked him if he remembered their first date. “Of course, how could I forget?” he replied.

“Well, I have no memory of it at all” she said, and the two sisters gleefully reported their crime, 51 years after the fact!

When he died, we were going through their papers and we found the letter my Granny wrote to her twin, asking her to impersonate her. At the bottom of the letter, she had written, “I think I am going to like this one”.

They were married for 52 years before she was widowed.

45

Not my parents, but my maternal grandparents:

My GM dropped a class because there was this guy at the front dominating the professor’s time, and generally making the discussions be what he wanted them to be. What a pain.

Some time later, she and her friend were climbing on some rocks outside the college, and his buddy said, “Let’s go help those girls down off there” (It being the late 30s). They both swore that there was a shock when they touched hands. He started driving her to churches where she would play piano or organ.

They were married over 59 years, even though he was in his early thirties at the time they got married, and she played the organ on Sunday at church before having a stroke on Wednesday, at age 86. She’d been playing keys for that church for at least 60 years.
My dad was still kind of new in town after getting a job after college, and he overslept and missed his church service, so he opened the phone book and found one with a later service. They met in the youg adult crowd at that church.

46

I have no idea how my mom and bio-dad meet. Just kinda grow up together in the same small town.

My mom and my daddy meet when my uncle brought daddy to meet mom after he got tired of his wifes endless attempts to fix momma up.

My grandparent’s story is the romantic one. My grandfather was stationed in Vetniam, and my grandmother was best friend’s with his sister. Secretly, my aunt sent my grandma’s address to my granddaddy. They exchanged letter without ever meeting for almost a year. They married 3 months after he returned home.

47

At a party in the early seventies…

My mom (who was wearing brown, suede hot pants) was there with another guy and my dad picked up more than one phone number that night (or at least claims he did)…

And they’re still married, 30+ years later.

48

My dad was a senior in high school, my mother had graduated. They had sex. They got married quickly and had me. Then they spent ten years hating each other until they couldn’t stand it any more and got divorced.

It’s more complicated than that, but not appreciably so.

49

My mother was getting rides to and from work from a coworker she was friends with. The coworker’s brother-in-law needed a ride as well at some point…one thing led to another, and they were married not too long afterwards. (Apparently the only reason it wasn’t a shotgun wedding was a miscarriage; my sister was born almost exactly a year after the wedding, and I came along 7 years later.)

They were married 18 years; after the fact, they blamed the divorce on (among other things) the pressures put on them by moving back where their families were after living on the other side of the country for almost 10 years. (Story from when they were dating: they were driving down one of the main roads in the small town my father grew up in. My father was describing how he was related to the people who lived in each house…‘My uncle lives there, that’s my brother’s house, that’s my cousin’s house…I’m not related to the people that live there.’ ‘Oh, that’s my aunt and uncle’s house.’)

50

My dad’s best friend’s sister was in college with my mom. One day my dad and his friend gave a lift (my dad owned a car his friend didn’t) to said friend’s sister and my mom and the rest is history.

51

My dad was a skating teacher and bouncer at a roller rink (he didn’t look like a bouncer, but he had been a professional middleweight boxer before that). He taught Mom how to roller skate. They got married in 1941, had four kids (I was the first), lasted 26 years, and got divorced the same year I did.

52

Ah, the story. My parents met after World War II – Dad had been a scout in the U.S. Army, Mom had been a courier/smuggler in the Dutch underground. After the war, Mom went to Switzerland – to wait out the reconstruction of Amsterdam and to regain her health – and settled in a small city near Lake Geneva, called Lausanne. Dad was preparing to attend a course in diplomacy at the University of Geneva, and he also settled in Lausanne, staying in a men’s pension (a sort of boarding house). One day, as she was sitting in the cafe near the pension, Mom saw Dad approach her table. He held up a cigarette and asked, in French, if she had a light – she did. They fell to talking, and the rest is history – and they’ve been married for 55 years.

Mom told us, sometime in the '90s, that she saw that book of matches in his pocket the whole time!

53

My mom was a senior in high school. My dad had graduated college and returned to his home town where he was teaching his first year of school. Mom was in his typing class. They married about three weeks after mom graduated in 1971.

The marriage didn’t last though, I was born a year later, they were split up for the first time before I was born and for the final time about a year after.

54

My dad had just got divorced and was buying a new house. My mum was working as a secretary in the Estate Agents. He kept on popping in as an excuse to talk to her. On their first date they stayed up to watch the General Election and my mum didn’t get back till morning! They’ve been married almost 35 years.

55

Dad was just back from the Korean War… Met Mom at a USO dance. Married within the month, still together 50 years and counting.

56

Mom was in the typing pool; dad was the mailroom boy. He was delivering mail to her every day and they got to chatting. It was my mom’s 19th birthday and my dad took her out for a drink. Everything’s Jake…

Until the draft board drafts my dad into Korea (he actually went to Germany…the war had just ended)/

My grandparents decide that they didn’t want my mom to marry a musician (what, with all that marijuana and opium…) so they move away to Arizona figuring that would put the big chill on the romance. Wrong-o, Bucko! They wrote to each other every day and were married a couple months after he got out of the Army. They were married just under 50 years when my mom died.

57

Mom was in the typing pool; dad was the mailroom boy. He was delivering mail to her every day and they got to chatting. It was my mom’s 19th birthday and my dad took her out for a drink. Everything’s Jake…

Until the draft board drafts my dad into Korea (he actually went to Germany…the war had just ended)/

My grandparents decide that they didn’t want my mom to marry a musician (what, with all that marijuana and opium…) so they move away to Arizona figuring that would put the big chill on the romance. Wrong-o, Bucko! They wrote to each other every day and were married a couple months after he got out of the Army. They were married just under 50 years when my mom died.

58

My dad was a freshman in highschool, and my mom was a junior. They got a little too friendly, and Oops! That was me.
Mom didn’t tell dad about me for 2 years. After he found out, he convinced her to move in with him and dropped out of school to get a job. Hocked everything to pay for the deposit on a crummy one bedroom apartment.
They married 3 years later, in '78, and divorced 4 years later, after 3 more kids, heavy drinking and mutual abuse.

I love them both very dearly, but they were very bad for each other.

59

In a mental institution. No, really. My mom was working as a dietician there and my dad was one of the kitchen/janitorial guys. She had been dating one of the other clean-up crew guys and started dating my dad and him at the same time. They worked different shifts so they never knew. The other guy would get off work just as my dad was coming in. Of course things happened and she picked my dad over the other guy. They’ve been married for 29 years now. And it all started in the nut-house, as my dad calls our home.

60

Laughing Lagomorph, I wonder if your parents were on that double date with my parents. Were they in California? Mine were on a blind double date, and the couples ended up switching (after the date). Each couple married, and as far as I know, are still married. My parents were 36 years this year.