My Real Life Romance

I’m going to continue on the marriage theme we’ve had here on the prosers, but I have to warn you that this really doesn’t have anything to do with writing.  I just feel compelled to share my story.  

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It has to be fate that Susan blogged about marriage so close to my wedding anniversary (either that or almost everyone gets married in June).    On June 20^th of this year (2013-just in case you stumbled on this post sometime in the future) my husband and I celebrated our 15^th Wedding Anniversary.  I can’t believe I’ve been married that long.  It doesn’t feel that long which is probably a good thing.  :)

I met my husband in college.  He was in grad school and a teaching assistant (TA) for one of the chemistry classes I was taking.  The class was working on special projects in lab and to finish early (cause I’m a nerd), I went to a different lab session that my husband just happened to be the TA.  He needed to use a calculator and asked the class if anyone had a TI 95 (a fancy graphing calculator-all us science nerds have fancy calculators although some have those inferior HP calculators).  I lent him my calculator, and that was the first time we ever talked to each other.

A few months later, I was in the chemistry building studying with one of my friends (a very cute guy who was married, but my husband didn’t know that).  My husband stopped by and asked my out right in front of my friend.  I said yes, and we went out that Friday.  I had so much fun with him.  I laughed more than I ever had before, and I really, really liked him. 

But we had problems, religious differences that were a big deal to me, so after a month of dating, I broke it off.  I knew I liked him too much, and I didn’t think I could marry someone outside of my religion.  But the break up didn’t work.  I really liked him, and he really liked me, so we did this friend thing for a while, where we would hang out A LOT, but you know just as friends. 

Then he went away for a weekend to his best friend’s wedding, and I missed him so much.  The day that I knew he flew back, I sat on the floor with my front door open hoping to see his red truck pull up, but he never came.  When I went back to school, I found him, and we went to lunch (which we did far too often for two people who supposedly weren’t dating).  During the lunch, I could feel that he was ready to move on, that he was done with our pretending not to date thing.    I knew I was losing him right when I realized how much I really liked him.

So that weekend, I called him up and asked if he wanted to go hiking with me, and I told him on that hike that I liked him as more than just a friend, and that we either had to start dating or we couldn’t hang out anymore.  He teased me a little bit by dragging out his answer, which was a bit annoying, but in the end we were dating again.

Picture from stock.xchnge

Everything wasn’t exactly perfect after that.  We both freaked out a little when we realized how serious our relationship was getting.  I broke up with him once, and he broke up with me once.  I really hated that drama.  Way too much crying on my part.  But once we got back together the second time, I think we both decided that we were going to marry each other.  He proposed to me at the first place we ever kissed on my birthday.  I think he knew I was going to say yes.

We got married in my brother’s backyard, June 20^th, 1998.

Our marriage isn’t perfect, but no one’s is.   Marriage is hard.   It is tough to meld two lives together no matter who you are.  There is always going to be some conflict.  My husband and I have definitely had our ups and downs.  We’ve had some big fights and times when we’ve drifted apart.  There have been moments where we have both wonder if we should see a marriage counselor, but the majority of our fifteen years, we’ve been happy.

 I love sharing my life with him.  I love climbing into bed with him every night.  When he puts his arms around me, I can feel that we fit together perfectly.

I like reading romance and writing it.  I love the male/female dynamic, that push and pull.  I love seeing people connect on a deeper level and being vulnerable with each other.  I love reliving that feeling of falling in love because there is nothing else like it.  But my favorite romance will always be my real life romance, and it is not over yet.   

I love you honey, and I always will.

~MaryAnn