When did you know your spouse was 'The One?'

About two weeks after I broke off our first engagement.

 

Smart late is better than smart never.

 

Long, long before we got married.

She was a reporter for the school paper and we met in 1976. Dated on and off for a couple years, tried again in 1979-80 after we were both out of school -- then she left me, married, had two kids.

I moved on, but never quite forgot about her.

Out of the blue, she called me at work in 1997. I had not seen her in all of that intervening time. We talked on the phone a lot and, eventually, arranged to meet again.

It was really like we had never been apart. (And, right there, is how you know.)

Some complications emerged as we were trying to figure out how to be together, but we finally married in 2004. And lived happily, etc. etc.

 

I'm sorry if this story is long, it's been about five years in the making.

I met my future wife at work. She was the intern. We spend three years doing this dance of being interested in each other and not being interested in each other. During that time, she went back to school, and I never thought I would see her again. But she came back to work for us and we picked up the we like each other, well maybe not, dance.

We finally got our act together and started actually seeing each other seriously for about six months, when I broke it off because I wasn't sure if she was the one. Well for the next four or five months, she basically fought for me to come back to her.

The more she fought, the more I realized I actually missed her. I just wasn't sure she was the one.

So my sister was in town visiting one weekend to attend an event I was involved with. They spent the entire evening together and we later went out to dinner, before parting ways. I was basically trying to get my sister to give me an excuse to not get back together with her. But my sister told me she was sorry, she loved her. I was sold. We got back together and I knew I would never want to leave her.

Just as a confirmation to my decision, we went to her family reunion about a year later. During the reunion, there was a grand gathering of the family to ask questions of the patriarch. I realized then, I should have brought a ring. Three months later (which is now five months ago), I asked her to marry me.

 

Thread title suggestion: "When did you know there was a such thing as love?"

And dooley, it is better to be feared than loved.

 

RE: Proposals. This is how it's done ...

Mrs. Novelist and I met in a French class I was taking at the college where I worked in my first job after college and where she was a student. I knew she was the one after five or six months of dating. We had a fight - I don't remember what it was about - and she didn't want to talk to me for a week. I was miserable.

I think she was testing me.

Anyway, more on proposals. Our first date: Chinese food (me, broccoli with beef; her, moo goo gai pan). Saw Die Hard. Some of her friends sat behind us and were throwing popcorn at us. Went to local park and played on the swings. So when it was time to propose, I took her back to the playground. She thought I was going to break up with her. She was sitting in a swing when I took a knee. To my everlasting amazement, she said yes.

 

Often times, I would imagine, that would elicit a different thread than this. I was completely, utterly, dangerously in love with my first serious girlfriend. Twenty-odd years later, I have no doubt that's when I knew there was such a thing as love. (I like to think she does too, but I can't say for sure)

 

When she refused to accept the money I left on the nightstand.

 

I am so curious now as to who you were in a previous sj life. That is old-school.

 

These are two different topics. The number of times I was "in love" or at least lust were innumerable. I can remember every detail of the evening I decided Alice was the one for me if I was lucky enough for her to have me. I still have strong feelings of affection and, well, comradeship, I guess with some of those other women and we're still pals, probably something better than pals. But they're not Alice.

 

I had a whole thread at one point on my story but here's the Reader's Digest version.

In October 2008, Bruce Springsteen was doing some get out the vote concert/rallies for Barack Obama. I had recently begun posting on the Springsteen fan message board and posted that I was going to one of these in a nearby town.

Another fan sent me a private message asking me to buy a T-shirt for him. I bought the shirt, called him that night after the concert and about an hour later got off the phone.

That was followed by e-mails and phone calls back and forth and about two months later, the first meeting in New York City. We then decided to spend the holidays together and a few months later, he moved to my city to live with me. Six months after that we were engaged.

But the main thing was, I kind of had a feeling during that first phone conversation. I kept getting all kinds of thoughts in my head. We were telling each other we loved each other after about a month. The whole love right away thing really does happen!