Please share: Relationships, Engagement and Marriage

[Aggie_Ama]

I don't even know when I met my husband. We both bowled competitively and I feel like I must have discovered he existed around 14-15. He thought I was stuck up and didn't care to know me. Truth is I am very shy and standoffish when strangers approach me.

We started dating when I was 16 after he decided might as well ask since my friends said I liked him and I was "cute". We got engaged when I was 19, married at 22. My parents insisted I finish college first and I am glad I did because being married and not having parents to help with the bills gets really hard really fast.

We have been married 5.5 years and it has definitely not been all roses. I guess so far what makes it work is we have changed a lot but we continue to grow up together instead of apart. We fight for us because we both feel the sum is better than the parts. We have been through hell, hurt each other, close family death, serious illnesses, sick parents, being pretty broke, moving, changing jobs, disappointment in careers, college. I am not the same girl and sometimes I don't know how he became the man he is from the 17 year old boy who took me to a movie. But we accept that we changed and overall we like our 27 and 28 year old selves a heck of a lot more.

Did I ever think I would marry the boy I fell for in high school? Heck no! But if you find someone you will fight with and fight for and still love 11 years later you stop looking at your timeline. We don't have kids, not sure we will so there is a dynamic that may strain or strengthen us.

There is no time anyone must be ready, you just hope you know yourself well enough to make the right choice and hope your partner is the same way. I still think marriage is a crap shoot. You don't fail always because you were too lazy to work at it and you don't succeed because you were determined not to fail. There are so many other variables.

My own parents have been married 33 years. Somedays I think they are completely dysfunctional, other days I think they have the perfect marriage. Somedays my mom would say "totally f-ed up" and some days "strong and perfect" to describe them. Sometimes in the same day. They fight for them and it has worked for 33 years.

[Pax]

My Partner and I met at work, we felt a connection and became good friends, as time passed we acknowledged an attraction and discussed what we wanted from the other and what we were willing to give. I was 29 and she was 30, it was a good thing for us that we were a bit older or it never would have worked...I was too wild when I was younger and she was too staid, we wouldn't have connected very well.

We're approaching 19 years together and she's still the love of my life.

[indigoiis]

As independent as I like to think myself, I definitely have maintained throughout my adult years some concept of fairytale romance.

I was first married from age 21-27, divorced, immediately into another head-over-heels romance with a man who was (is) perfect for me. I knew it, he knew it, but he couldn't commit - he was a bachelor true - not the kind who goes out partying with his guy friends and plays around, but the kind who stays home and builds stuff and keeps a clean house and is happy reading for hours and being by himself. It was really hard for me for a long time. We broke up right before 9/11. It was so hard and I was very unhappy and started drinking heavily. I dated around, but he just stayed single and happy in his world (although he says now it was the loneliest and saddest time of his life.) I started dating another guy but could not "concentrate" on the relationship because I was always thinking about what I lost. Finally, in 2003, after a family emergency that brought us back together, Mr. Indy and I were (think Peaches n Herb) re-united. I quit smoking and drinking soon after and I think he saw in that my commitment to being a healthier person for him to spend his life with, and he asked me to marry him in 06. We got married two weeks later.

I have to say, I wake up every morning thanking my lucky stars. I get teary-eyed thinking about what might have happened in my life - without his companionship and support in everything (the drinking problems - he always stuck it out.) He is truly the perfect person for me - we both have our quiet and our privacy but we really dig being with each other. He is everything I could want in a guy - he's strong, healthy, bicycles, can fix stuff, likes to travel, loves animals, loves books and old antiques, and cooks and cleans up after himself. He steers clear of decisions regarding my daughter, but offers support when I need it as a parent.

I know this all sounds like one of those corny radio shout-outs.

But, for me, this life and this relationship suits me to a T. He had the patience to stick it out, and I had the persistance to keep him in my life, in one way or another. And it never would have happened had I not married the first husband, as part of the reason for the breakdown of the first marriage led me to the conversations that opened up the door to the second.

Everyone is different.
That's my story.