Your's & Your DH's/DP's Story - Page 2

[Jaimee]

Dh and I met through music.  We were both in the Wind Symphony at our university.  I played the french horn, he played the trombone.  He actually sat right behind me.  I was also good friends with the music librarian, which is where he had a work-study job.  I would hang out in the music library so I got to know him a bit that way, too.  I was a year ahead of him (1.5 years older) and he seemed really young to me.  He also seemed gay to me as he had frosted hair, two earrings, and tended to wear sweater vests. Turns out his roommate was in fact gay, but not him.     As the year went on, our social circles melded a bit and we got to know each other better.  I thought of him as a friend and he wanted more.  There was even a point at which he asked me to do a Tarot card reading for him (this was something I dabbled in a bit for friends).  His question was whether he should ask me out or not (though he did not reveal his question to me).  The reading gave him a resounding NO and he always wondered if I made it up.    But I hadn't.  I wouldn't have been ready to take that step then if he had asked and it could have ruined our friendship.  So he continued to find ways to hang out with me and I continued to let him.  There was just something about him that intrigued me, but also something that held me back.  Just before my birthday, toward the end of the school year, he asked me out.  I told him I had to think about it.  Then we had one of those epic, all night conversations where I basically asked him to convince me why I should date him.  I had dated in the past, but not much.  I was really inexperienced and agreeing to really be in a relationship with someone felt like a huge step.  Especially someone I wasn't totally convinced I was interested in romantically.  But I decided to go for it, figuring now was the time in my life to try things.

He was really a wonderful boyfriend.  Very sweet, romantic, caring.  He was fine taking things slow and waited several more weeks to kiss me.  My roommate had to actually intervene a bit and ask him why he hadn't kissed me yet.  That was embarrassing and humorous.  We had a wonderful summer together where we ended up saying "I love you" and taking our relationship to the next level.  Then I left for a semester abroad in Costa Rica.  We decided to leave our relationship open- in other words, we weren't going to break up, but would remain open to other developments if anything should happen.  I fooled around a bit while I was out of the country, though nothing major.  He sort of had a few dates with another girl.  When I got back I decided to break up with him officially as I thought I had changed and had different feelings.  But over the next few months I experienced some culture shock and feeling isolated from my friends.  He was really there for me through it all and eventually I realized that I really did want to be with him.  He was willing to give me another chance, so we got back together and things were so much more real and deeper than they were before.  By the middle of my senior year, he proposed.

We waited to get married so that he could finish up school, too.  He knew what career path he wanted, whereas I was undecided and could find work with my degree in science/math without further education.  So he applied to graduate schools and was accepted at the University of Arizona.  Just a month after getting married, we moved to Tucson, AZ.  It was really wonderful to start our lives together as a married couple in another state, away from our families.  It was like Arizona was ours and we were able to discover each other and life without a bunch of outside influences.  We were able to afford a house down there b/c real estate was fairly inexpensive and banks were approving everyone at that point.  Turned out to be a great investment!  As dh was finishing up his PhD, we started talking about kids.  We decided to start trying in his 4th year so that he only had one more year to go when the baby was born.  It took us several months to actually conceive (I had a short LP and had an early loss), so dd ended up being born half way through his 5th year.  It all worked out except that we had to move with a 5 month old just after he graduated for his new position as a post-doc at UT in Austin, TX.  I stayed home with dd while dh worked and got very involved in the AP community there, eventually becoming a certified API leader.  Conceiving ds was a huge surprise (as we were not ttc and once again had an unexpected early loss so decided to prevent for several cycles) and especially since we knew we would be moving again to another state where we knew no one.  Ds was born in Maryland and while looking for houses in our next and current home (Illinois), we found out I was pregnant with yet another surprise.  So once again, we moved while I was pregnant to a place where we know no one.  But through it all, we have had each other and while it's made many challenges greater it has also continued to bring us together and take our lives to unexpected places.

[IwannaBanRN]

Originally Posted by TalkToMeNow 

Goodness, Becky! *I* can say my story is Jerry Springer-ish, but if someone else did, I'd have to kick some butt! Which I hope you did! lol
 

It was an online forum, so all I could do was give them graceful articulation of how they shouldn't judge someone else's love, because look at the problems they were having at home.(she'd been venting about her DH asking for divorce and thinking he was unfaithful) I really think her misery was what was making her attack me.
 

[Krystal323]

Heh, this is a fun thread!  :D

My DH and I met online, on MySpace to be exact, LOL.  He was 18 at the time--and I was 25, really depressed, and unhappily married.  I chalked him up as "just a kid", but after chatting a couple times I was really taken aback by how different he was from anyone else I'd ever met.  We had the same interests and chatted for hours about all sorts of things, both alone and with other mutual friends of ours.  We finally met each other at a sort of family-and-friends get-together, but things didn't really take a clear turn toward the non-platonic until we went to these two concerts together.  It was nothing short of a spiritual experience--but I also knew I was in for a very difficult ride at that point.  The universe didn't disappoint me on that count, as the next year involved multiple major-crisis situations for all involved.  Lots of tears and stress as my stronger Self was forged thru the fires of personal growth.

About a year and a half from when we met, we were living together as a family, complete with a new baby (my third, his first).  From that point, life has been incredibly, dazzlingly awesome.  I have been living in the flow of intuition more or less since I met my now-DH, and it's brought us more amazing things than I ever dared to imagine.  :)

[Anglyn]

Ok, I'll play! The first time I met my husband I was seperated from my ex and while visiting family 200 miles away, my brother kind of pushed his best friend on me. Now, I already knew who he was because he and my brother had been best friends since high school, but other seeing him here and there we didn't know each other. (I left home before my brother met him). Anyway, we ended up going out in a big group of people a few times and then I slept with him. It was only meant to be a one night stand to me, who was leaving town soon anyway to go back home. I had no idea that he thought it was anything more since he was the poster boy for noncommitment. He dated every one. Rumor was that he was sleeping with my brothers girlfriends sister who was married. I asked him about it and he said no. At the time I thought he was lying to me to protect her, so that put me off anyway. Meanwhile, he didn't realize I was married (in a town as small as that one, and him best friends with my brother, I assumed he knew). I went back home and eventually tried one last time with my ex, because though I kind of hated him and it was an emotionally abusive situation, we had a son together and I felt like I owed it to my son to try. 

Eventually I left my ex for good, dated some, went to therapy to work on myself and took a break from men all together. By the time I decided to move myself and my son back home, I had worked out a lot of my own issues and though I was open to dating, I really was not looking for anything serious. I had decided that, even though I had always wanted a big family, I had one great kid, family and friend that loved me, a good job, my own money etc. I was never going to be in a relationship again because I needed to but only if/because I wanted to. And I honestly couldn't see myself ever wanting the whole marriage thing again. 

While I was in process of moving, I was making the 200 mile trip every weekend gradually bringing my stuff down and putting into storage and that weekend I had brought my cats down to stay at my moms house and one night one got outside and I couldn't find him so I was outside looking it was getting dark. At that time my brother was staying in a room he had built behind my parents house and dh had been there visiting him. He was getting in his truck to leave when he saw me and so he turned on his headlights and helped me find the cat. We talked for a little while in the driveway, I thought nothing of it but for some reason kept thinking about him. The next weekend I was coming down and asked my brother if he would ask dh to come over and help me relocated my dogs to my sisters house. He said no, YOU call him and gave me his number. So I called and never got around to asking about the dogs, but I did ask if he wanted to come over and hang out for awhile. He did and we just watched tv and talked. We talked all night in fact, I was wondering why I never realized how much we had in common. The weekend after that he called me and did something that no one has ever, ever, ever done. When he asked me out, he didn't just ask me. He said, "I was wondering if you and ds would like to go to dinner with me". I think I fell for him right that moment!! So I asked my ds who said yes, then we went and let ds pick where (panchos) and after, dh took us to a miniture golf/video game arcade place and ds had so much fun! Well, we all did!!

After that weekend, I went back home and we talked on the phone for hours every day. The next weekend was the final move and we went out every night that week, like six nights in a row and by the end of that week I knew for a fact that I was in love and that I was going to spend the rest of my life with this man. And it took him until the end of that week to finally kiss me one night out in front of my moms house. My son saw us through a window and wanted to know what we were doing so dh sat down and asked him if it was ok for him to kiss his momma. 

We became inseperable, saw each other every day after work, talked on the cellphone after he left my house until he got home then on IM and then he would call me in the morning to make sure I woke up on time. Once we even fell asleep in the front porch swing. This started in July. (the missing cat incident was July 5th in fact) By August I was pregnant with our dd. Now, I knew better. I was using NFP and I knew I was going to ovulate soon and though I had always used a condom when I was single, for some reason, with him, I just felt like we shouldn't and we didn't. From the day I told him I was pregnant, we never spent another night apart. He stayed at my place or I stayed at his. He had always wanted kids and was thrilled, before she was born we were plannig the next two! Before I had met him, he had actually already put a down payment on two acres of land and a house, by october he had got all the water and electrity hooked up and we moved in togeather. We have been togather, and here in this house, since. (That was in 2002). My dd was born in 2003 followed by brothers in 2005 and 2007 and now she has a surprise sister due in 2011! 

And in the begining everyone told me not to date him, "he's not the marrying kind", "he won't settle down" etc. But when I asked him about his previous reputation as a ladies man, he said, "I just never met the right woman til now" he always knows just what to say! Everyone was sure we only got together because i got pregnant and given that was only a month after we started dating, no one thought we would last. Here we are nine years and four kids later, as much in love as ever and the most amazing part is...we never really fight. Sure, we disagree occasioanlly and we have had some issues as my first ds grew into a teenager and he and dh started fighting, but in general, he never raises so much as his voice to me, we are respectful of each other and we just don't find much to argue about, ever and for me, after not one but TWO abusive relationships in my past, I cannot tell you what it means to me to have unconditional love and support.And to see what a wonderful father he is to our children.

And wow, I have never really written it all out before, that was kind of theraputic, it was fun! Great idea! 

[xakana]

I met DH online on a fanfic group for Star Trek: Voyager that I wrote for. He was a fan of my writing and I was in a relationship, so we only chatted a little here and there. For the most part, I barely noticed him. He made a big confession over the summer that I was the only one who said, "Oh, that makes a LOT of sense!" and dismissed it as part of being on the interwebz--not everyone is who they say they are. He'd had no idea when signing up that he would become part of a community: he just wanted to read fanfic in a group he wasn't old enough to join at the time ;) After his 18th birthday, as I was a mod, I let him back on the group because I'd been the only one who kept much in contact with him and he didn't want to apply and have it be a big thing--he was embarrassed.

Well, we started chatting more and became passing friends. That October, my girlfriend and I had a huge fight. THE fight. I came back, distraught and devastated and he was the only one online--so we talked all night, even though he had class in the morning (he was in college). It changed the entire dynamic of our friendship. Over the next few days, I almost died and some friends came over to try to help me get through it, unaware that I hadn't eaten, drank or slept in 3 days and my heartrate had been steadily over 200bpm and I was literally dying of a broken heart.

They mostly ignored me for each other, as I was weak and not very engaging and in sadness, I went online to chat with him one more time--partly to complain about how I could be in a room, surrounded by friends (okay, there were just 2 of them) and still be utterly alone. They noticed and we all started playing a drinking game (except DH, who is a teetotaler, even ignoring that he was underage--I was 21, FTR, although that would pretty much be the last year I drank much at all). I ended up too drunk to type very quickly and passed out, feeling a thousand times better. I woke up ravenous and ate and started the road to recovery.

On November 1st, he confessed that he had fallen in love with me and I realized I felt very strongly for him, so I agreed to date him (especially since there's little risk in dating someone 1850 miles away). We spent the next couple months trying to scare each other off with our issues and I pushed all the big issues (parenting being first: if he was pro-hitting kids, he was gone, etc.; then politics, religion, etc.) and we survived without a scratch, showing that there was definitely something there. We were both into the same music, mostly the same t.v. (he wasn't big on Buffy after season 3, but I was a huge Buffy fan; we had our sci-fi shows in common, though), played video games, Magic: The Gathering (although it was a few times for me and a big thing for him, lol), etc.

We met that January and flew down to meet a couple other friends from the group. While that ended up a disaster, apparently (our friendship with them did not survive--I believe largely because one of the two had a very strong hatred of men stemming from a monster of a father and couldn't forgive DH's being male... she was also a super control freak and our other friend was very passive and the kind of person who loses herself in relationships). But not for DH and I--the feeling for us was one of 'coming home.' I literally got tunnel vision when he stepped off the plane. All my fears of us not being physically/spiritually compatible were for naught.

I had him for 2 weeks of heaven, then he went back to California. We talked on the phone nonstop (he ran up a $600 phone bill very quickly and our first 'date' had cost over $1000, so he wasn't able to save up much money and since I was being diagnosed with serious disabilities, I couldn't save anything since I could not get a job--had been trying fruitlessly for years). But he was determined not to be separated long and flew me out to CA for Valentine's Day. 2 weeks were over too soon and we knew we didn't want to keep doing the long-distance thing. It was too hard when we KNEW we needed to be together. Not forever, maybe, but I had already changed my long-time belief that marriage was a crock and I'd never do it.

That April, I flew out and we returned here, to MO, by train in May. We lived at my mom's for 6 months, then as we were getting our first place together, he proposed on our first anniversary after I freaked out that maybe he wasn't sure (based on something he'd said a long time before) he wanted to stay with me (since he was the one gung-ho on marriage). So we got engaged and got married (a civil handfasting) two years later, on November 1st.

That's our story! As for kids... it took us 18 months of active trying after marriage to conceive our first.

[IwannaBanRN]

I have loved reading the diversity of all of these stories! Thank you all for sharing!

[KayPea]

Hubs and I are high school sweethearts - he's my first and only serious relationship. We've been together for 14 years, so there is a lot of story there, but the gist of our getting together is that he was in a band, and I was the 16-year-old in rainbow tights dancing all by myself in the front. After I finished high school and he was finishing college, we moved to BC together and I went to art school while he paid the bills. We always said that we would never get married - we were devoted to each other, and that's all the "proof" we needed. But then we got an idea, and suddenly getting married was going to be way more fun than not getting married. And so we were married in a small lakeside family-only ceremony, and that summer we went on our "wedding tour" - a six week cross-Canada road trip that brought US to our friends and family, rather than making them fly to us for a big fancy wedding. So we had a series of small, intimate celebrations scattered across the country, and it was a blast. That was 5 years ago. DD was a surprise conception, though we weren't trying especially hard to NOT have a baby either. The only bad timing was that DH was enrolled in school, and so we would be both off work together for an overlapping 6 months after DD was born. We have more debt than we would like because of it, but it worked out. This second one was planned, and after we tried for 9 months to conceive, Tooey came into existence a mere 2 weeks after moving out of our studio apartment into our 3-bedroom co-op townhouse. I guess my body just knew when the time was right!

[SaharaSwims]

Wow I'm amazed at how many couples have met online - I did hear the other day that 35% of married couples met each other online - who knew?!

Awesome to hear everyone's stories.

My DH and I met each other working at a group home for youth at risk. I was 26 and he was 30 years old. The problem was that I was seriously dating someone at the time and my DH had had his eye on me for several months frustrated with what - if anything - he could do about the situation. Eventually my Ex and I broke up and I had a contract to go to Istanbul, Turkey to teach English within a month. While my DH and I were work friends, we had never really spent time outside of work together. He offered to go for a drink to give me some support during my break-up. I thought, sure we're really good friends - that sounds nice. Anyway, after half a beer, DH went off about how he actually felt about me  and how he thought I was the most amazing woman in the world and then threw down a 20 and exited the building. I sat there dazed and confused.

Fast forward two months - I am in Turkey and my DH is in Nicaragua starting a surf hostel - both of us seemingly focused on executing our adventure-based goals.  Well I lasted 2 1/2 months in Turkey and then decided to put a man, my DH, for the first time ever in my life as a priority before my own plans.  PLUS, I decided that I really disliked teaching English! So we reconvened in Canada for a couple of months and then headed back to Nicaragua to build up the hostel business. I've never looked back since and have only looked forward with hope, gratitude and love knowing I found the person for me.