Ahhh, if only. Unfortunately I have never been in a relationship after that initial infatuation period ended, and the longest one of those lasted was 2 months. I have the ideal woman in mind, pieced together from females I have come to know, but so far I haven’t run into someone that even comes close to matching her. On the bright side, I am only 23 so I still have a good amount of time to find her, but on the dark side, 23 will be 33 before I know it, and then I will feel like A Pink Floyd song.
None of this really bothered me until a week ago when I went to the zoo. I was crouching down to look into an aquarium exhibit and this little 5 year old girl climbed onto my back to get a better look. She was so enamored by the colorful fish, her face lit up with that awe that only an innocent child can show. My heart melted right then and there and I spent the rest of the day choking back tears, wondering if I would ever get to look into my own child’s eyes that way.
The turning point was when we sat down and ASKED each other.
We were both pretty smitten with each other… but inside, we kept asking ourselves, “When does the sour point happen?” We’d both had pretty bad experiences with significant others, and while we were very much in love… neither one of us trusted ourselves enough to be able to really exercise judgment to the fullest.
I’m not sure which one of us brought it up, but we wound up confessing this to each other… and discussing it.
I knew I loved her before that… but I think that’s where I wound up pretty much deciding, “Yup, this is the one.”
We’ll be celebrating our tenth this coming February 14…
He had just gone through a nasty divorce, and I was his rebound woman. Or one of them, anyway.
Another one was a neighbor of his, and she and I had a frank talk about the fact that she was sleeping with him. She asked me if it bothered me. I thought about it for a minute and I was suddenly aware (for no good reason I could think of at the time) that I was going to marry this man, and I told her so. I’m not sure which of us was more startled.
Lots of ups and downs and 1 1/2 years later, we were married. If I’d had a nickel for every person who advised me not to marry him given our history, I could have paid for the wedding. But I went through with it both terrified that it wasn’t going to work and strangely certain at the same time that if I didn’t marry him, I would be missing out on something special.
Luckily, my intuition was right. It’s been 15 years and we’re still going strong. But reading the OP brought my mind back to that first moment I knew, and I still can’t explain it any better today than I could at the time. I just knew.
I have an engagement story that fits the thread, though it is not my own: The year was 1933, in North Carolina. Sylvester (she called him Syl), was about to graduate from college. All through college, he played football for the Tarheels. He sang beautiful, operatic arias. Thelma had just graduated from Vassar, with a teaching degree. They had dated for a while. One day, they were out on a double date with friends. Thelma said to Syl “What do you want to do today?” “Well,” he said “Why don’t we get married?” “Oh, Syl, I can’t marry you today. I’m wearing red; it’s bad luck!” But, her friend was wearing a cream-colored skirt and jacket suit, and Thelma and her friend swapped outfits, and Thelma and Sylvester got married. Three years later, they had a son. Unfortunately, the boy was killed in a boating accident when he was 9. By then, Thelma was almost 42. Too old (at that time) to have another baby, so they never did. But they stayed married, and in love.
How do I know all this? For some years, I worked as a home nurse. Thelma, having had several strokes, and lost both legs to phlebitis, was a patient of mine. At the time I knew them, they had been married for more than 50 years. Her mind was almost gone, but his love for her was blindingly obvious. Her husband, 81 years old when I knew him, showed me the skirt outfit and told me the story. They must both be dead by now, but I couldn’t let the story die. It was too wonderful!
