How did you meet?

[TexanSummer]

I was just curious....how did everyone meet their spouse/person caring for? I guess I'm getting a little nostalgic....my hubby & I will have our 1st anniversary on May 15th....just 2 1/2 weeks away & I got to remembering how we met.
I was working in a small cafe in Galveston, TX. It was late Feb '06 & he was the guy who ate at the bar...sometimes alone, sometimes with his boss. We got to talking & eventually went out one night after I got off...Mardi Gras in Galveston...just a short walk away.

[lmunchkin]

We met at a Waffle House. He hired a close friend of mine to work for him. He was always hanging out with her after hiring her.  Come to find out, she was not the one he was interested in. I didnt know until after a couple years, she told me, " Girl can you not see that he is very interested in you."  Actually I was quite shocked, cause he is such a shy kind of guy. So when I found out, I pretended Not to be interested!  Well we see how that turned out!   lol.  No regrets, been going on 17 1/2 wonderful years.

lmunchkin     

[cath-hater]

I met my wife online. NO, I didn't use one of those websites like eharmony or match.com. No no no, we got together before those type of websites were even invented. We met on Yahoo Chat, when Internet chatting was on the rise. It was back like 1996 and I wasn't on dialysis yet.

I was in the US and she was in Canada. It took some time, but we managed to get her over here legally by filing all the proper paperwork with immigration. We got married and been married since 1999. Get this, she studied for her bacherlors in social work in Canada. When she got over here, she went for her masters in social work.

 Then my kidneys totally failed. Got on dialysis. So once you get on dialysis, you get your doctor, your dietician, your nurse and your social worker. She would come with me on doctor visits sometimes and sometimes meet my social worker too. She got to thinking and said, "Why not go into clinical social work?". And BAM ! ------I've had my own personal dialysis social worker for about 5 years now.  She doesn't work for my doctor, but she does work at another dialysis clinic for RAI (Renal Advantage Inc.).

[cookie2008]

In June we will be married 28 years, my hubby was a friend of the family for years, then he finally asked me out and we been together since.

[Bruno]

I met my girl 54 years ago and whilst it's vivid in my memory these days I'm thinking how fortunate I was. Not because she happens to be the best person in the world but because she was/is a nurse which has been really helpful on home dialysis. This is my latest thought on her (I have it pinned on our fridge)....

How many loved your moments of glad grace
And loved your beauty with love false or true

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you
And loved the sorrows of your changing face

I wish I'd written it but it is by William Yeats

[willowtreewren]

When I was in high school I went looking for my girlfriend at one of the marinas in town. I found her on a cabin cruiser owned by the father of a college friend of my husband's. My husband had come to the boat with his friend from college for the weekend. (My brother actually worked with the dad.) That was in October of 1966.

Fast forward to March or April of 1967 and the same thing happened again. That day I decided that Carl was the man for me. We were married in March of 1969. Yep, it has been 42 wonderful, wonderful years.

Aleta

[del]

We just celebrated our 26th wedding anniversary.   met my hubby in 1983 when I moved here for a teaching job.  I was teaching a challenging needs class (handicapped children) and he was the bus driver.  He asked me out just before Christmas but I had to call and cancel because I was really sick with a cold.  He thought I just didn't want to go out with him. I went home for Christmas and when I came back he asked me to go on a skidoo ride with him and we have been together ever since!!

[monrein]

I moved to Canada from Jamaica when I was 15. My family was moving to Miami and I was finished high school but Canada had an extra year of high school (Grade 13), my mother had been to school here and my family worried about me being in college at 15 so they wanted me to age a bit.
I went to university at 16 and one day in a hallway ran into my husband who was in his final year, who was on student council and knew everybody there.  We became good friends and hung out every day but I had another boyfriend who was at another university in the US.  When that ended, my husband became a bit of a "guard dog" around other guys who seemed a bit taken with the "young blonde girl" with the Jamaican accent.  He was very outgoing, funny even hilarious while I was serious and "responsible".  We still joke that he was 23 going on 13 while I was 16 going on 61.  I wasn't interested in him at all but over time I liked his respectfulness towards girls, his "feminism" and his support for my career ambitions.  He had planned to travel to Asia, Africa and all over after he graduated and I was excited by the plans he had to follow a bit of a different path in life.  He's 6 years older than me and I had very serious academic ambitions including years of graduate school and study abroad so when we started going out and in fact living together when I was 17, I continued to encourage him to stick with his plans and we'd resume where we left off when he got back in a year or so.  He decided instead to "wait" for me to go too which sort of happened when I did my third year of university in France and he came with me but then took off for two months at a time to travel to Morocco, then India and so on but coming back to pick me up to travel together at holidays from school.

After 5 years we got married, mostly for purposes of immigration, but we changed nothing.  We still have no joint bank account, still have different names, different interests and indeed many friends that we don't share with each other. We do own property together and I will say that my very early instincts about his basic integrity were absolutely correct.  He still "protects" whomever seems to need looking out for and is passionate about fairness, justice and the rights of people. 

My starting dialysis at 26 was a tough time for us since many of our life plans were abruptly shelved.  No more far flung exotic travel, career interruption (Phd on hold), no kids unless we adopted etc etc.  He did however take advantage of the free tuition that my teaching job at the University allowed and did a degree in Geology and then went on to law school, becoming a lawyer at 40 years old. 

Anyhow, here we are 41 years later, still hanging out, laughing quite a lot, bickering about rubbish at times, traveling to safer locales whenever we can and planning to change nothing in case it changes everything.

[willowtreewren]

I am loving reading all these stories! 

Thanks for starting this thread TexanSummer! 

Aleta

[natnnnat]

Ah romance!  Loving these stories. 
I met my big crazy husband when I started as a librarian.  He was a library technician in the same library.  We started chatting while shelving.  I said to him, something about his shoes.  He said that he only had two pairs of shoes.  I said, "whaaaat???"  I said, "how many pairs of trousers do you have?"  ... and it developed from there.   

[Jean]

We both lived in the same mobile home park. At opposite ends of the park. He was nominated to be the president of one of our organizations and I was the secretary. When I walked in and saw him, I thought, hmmm, what are my chances he lives here and is single. Then I thought, probably zero. Not so, and after working together for a couple of months, he was calling me daily and visiting me daily That was in Nov when we met, and June when we got married. I still think he is cute, too!!

[Poppylicious]

I met my wife online.

I met my Blokey online.

NO, I didn't use one of those websites like eharmony or match.com.

I did!  You make it sound like a bad thing ... *sad face*

I joined match.com for a giggle.  I'd been out of a serious (but very abusive) relationship for eighteen months and was enjoying being single.  I was a big Yahoo! user (met a couple of blokes that way, and am still very good friends with two of my intense Yahoo! flirtations.) An ad popped up on the computer and so I joined, for free (I couldn't contact anyone, they had to contact me).  I wasn't at all serious about it and my profile was pretty daft, but the boys came running ... Ha.  I was getting on really well with one of them (via daily email), but then he went away for a computer-free weekend and Blokey contacted me.  By the end of the weekend I was smitten and Charlie (the other chap) had lost out.

*grin*

That was in the March of 2002.  After about four weeks of very long daily emails we actually met (he came to mine and we watched Shrek and ate Chinese).  I proposed in 2004 (it was a leap year ... I'd still be waiting if I'd left it up to him) and we married in 2006. 

Then he only went and got ill.  Bah. 

 

[cath-hater]

Hey Poppy -

I didn't mean to make it sound like a "bad thing". No no. I was just bragging to the fact that I did the online dating thing well before these websites. 

Funny thing is, my wife being the social worker that she is, is actually embarrassed about the fact that we met online and when people ask her how we met, she tells these insane lies. Too funny.  She still thinks that online dating is "socially unacceptable", especially in her field of work.

Me, I tell anyone who asks the truth. I'm proud of it.  Being a computer geek by profession, it kinda suits me. 

[Poppylicious]

Me, I tell anyone who asks the truth. I'm proud of it.  Being a computer geek by profession, it kinda suits me. 

Me too!  (Although Blokey is the computer geek by profession rather than me.)  I often think myself and Blokey should be an advert for match.com because we've done rather well for something that started as a bit of a giggle (for me, at least.)

 

[looneytunes]

Poppy...your story gave ME a giggle!   

Hubby and I were matched up by some well meaning friends though both of us were determined to resist the matchmaker's plans for us.  We started out playing a little joke back on them for it and ended up married 2 years later! 

[texasstyle]

 I was in a burning building. He was passing by and heard me yelling for help. Like a true hero he came running in for me amidst all the smoke and flames. He grabbed me and wrapped his coat around me so the flames wouldn't touch me but  no with no coat, he left himself unprotected. Outside he wiped the smoke residue off my face with his shirt. Seeing how shaken I was he held me closley....I'm just kidding!!!!! Oh what a story  for a romance novel lol. Mine was just kinda plain. Met through a mutual friend. that's all lol

[fc2821]

    I met my wife when we both attended the same university in 1973.  We were engaged, but things did not work out and the relationship ended in 1974.  We both went on to marry someone else.
    Her husband was a careerofficer in the Army and had been exposed to toxins from the burning oil wells that Saddem Hussain left in Kuwait during the 1991 Gulf war. He died of lukemia in 2001.
    The woman I had married had a serious heart condition when we married. She had been told at age 19 she could not expect to live past her early 30's. We were both 23 when we married. Her heart stopped two weeks from her 49th birthday, in April of 2001. Though I knew it was going to happen, one day, I was devistate.  I did not plan to marry again, did not want to. Because of her condition we could have no childern.
     In 2004 I happened upon a posting on a website seeking info on my present wife's father by their daughter. She was seeking info on his military service during the Gulf War and what he might have been exposed to there. This is because the VA ws denying their claim that his lukemia had been "servie realated".  I was curious what had happened to her father and how her mother was doing in the 30 years since I had last seen her. So I email her, told her who I was, and asked how her mother was. A few days later her mother replied. She was living in North Carolina.
      We began exchanging emails, then phone calls, and afer a few months, she came to Illinois, where I was living, to visit her family. Though I lived on the other end of the state where she was visiting, we made arrangement and met. 
      The emails, phone calls, and emails continued untill she asked me to get married in mid 2005. We did. I could not or would not have married anyone but her.
       I was injured, lost my kidneys and had to retire from work in 2007. Sometimes it bothers me that she has to put up with all my medical issues. I have mobility issues from my injuries as well. But I could not have gone through all I have without her. I llove her very much and am very greatful, even before I got hurt, that she came back into my life.
      I still love my first wife and miss her every day, BUT I love my present wife equally as much and am very, very happy. You see I never stopped loving her. I use to have problems with that when I first realised it before I got married again.
     Now I have, thanks to her daughter, two wonderful little grandsons who were born after we were married. Something I never expected to have, ever.  And even though I am on dialysis, a wonderful new life full of joy.

[carol1987]

We met in HIgh School.. lockers and homerooms were assigned alphabetically and we were always next to each other... started dating in October 1978 and have been together ever since. 

[boswife]

Theres some amazing stuff here and i love reading it.  Im not going to get into mine ...just because     ... but i will say that we've been together for 43yrs of togetherness...  Lived together for around 30 years of that, and married for the rest.  Yea, we were hippies and thought it the thing/way to be   

[WishIKnew]

Love this thread!  I wrote a big long explination of my romance and lost it   ugh!  Maybe later I'll try again!

[Razman]

  We met as kids  ( one of my sisters was her Sunday school teacher) and  started dating as teens.   My wife was still in high school when we were engaged ( I was in college ) and  she was  still a teenager when we were married.  That was  38 years ago and we are still the best of friends.  We have raised 1 daughter ( now a paramedic ) and  we have been traveling every year for the past 18 years ( just came back from Mexico)   and  just enjoy  doing things together . Dialysis will be here someday and she is a great support and keeps me stable through the ups and downs of life.   

[karrye]

I just graduated high school and went to the 'city' to go to college.  As part of my studies, I worked on a program to pay part of my tutuion.  I chose to work in the college library, where we met.  Well after a few months, he asked me out and never considering to ask him his age, as I thought he was a student at the college.  After a couple of years, he asked me to go to the prom with him and I was like prom? He said he was only 16!  Needless to say that was a deal breaker to me.  We broke up that night and that was the last I saw of him for seven years.

Seven years later and living in another state, I was shopping and someone walked up behind me and put their hands over my eyes--which scared me to death.  Then this deep voice said guess who? I was like who the *&^^ are you.  He let me go and I turned around and it was Lee!  I finished shopping and then we went to a small coffee shop nearby and talked for over two hours. I told him I had just finished filing for my 2nd divorced earlier and then when he heard that, he said would I be willing to move back to Kentucky and with him!  He told me how he had been searching for me ever since he heard I had divorced for the first time. I was stunned!  He told me he never lost hope of ever finding me and that he loved me still and asked me then and there to marry him.  He made his point that any man that would wait seven plus years for the love of his life, deserved a shot at happiness, and as I had matured since seven years earlier, I felt the same.  I had never 'felt' complete with either of my other marriages, but with Lee, it seemed that the other half of my soul was there with him and had been since that night years ago.

The next weekend, him and two of his cousins showed up, help me pack and moved me in with Lee.  About a year later, after my divorce was final, we married and the rest as they say is history.  This summer we will be celebrating 18 years together and one beautiful daughter.  We got married 2 months after his 87 year old grandfather remarried for the second time!!  We both wanted a double ceremony, but my attorney took her good old sweet time and grandpa said he wasn't getting any  younger!! LOL

Regardless, we have had our ups and downs over the course of 18 years and now with his illness, I guess this is one of the hugest downs we have faced.  It has placed an enormous strain on our marriage but so far it is still holding its own. 

[Lindia]

I met my hubby about 30 years ago when I was hired as a clerk at Boeing, where he was working in finance.  We got to be friends after awhile, but we were both married to other people and had children, and we were just friends.  We were transferred into other groups but didn't totally lose touch with each other.  After 28 years of marriage, his wife left him for some fella she met on the internet, and after 24 years of my marriage, I found out my ex was spending quite a lot of money on strippers -  so I gave him the boot.  Hubby asked me out, and after that, we were inseperable.   It was sorta odd dating and marrying someone who was a good friend for years -  but it was also wonderful - and I highly recommend it !

[The Noob]

my hubster was the senior medic who acclimated me when i hired on to his company. i came to work one morning at 5 am, he was standing outside leaning against the wall. he said good morning, and i did too. he said it was my southern drawl that did it. we were married 3 months later. we bought a big house and had a 1930's wedding at home. took everyone out to eat afterwards. spent 2 days cleaning the junk out of the new place then back to work. in spite of all the challenges, we have had a very good marriage.

[The Noob]

this is us at work when we first met 2004