Couldn't Be Happier

I was back from the University of Vermont on  break.  Went to visit my high school science teacher in his classroom and saw the “new girl” from Massachusetts.


 She had moved to Vermont when her dad’s company transferred him.  Petite, dark, pretty.  I offered her a ride home.  Her younger sister and brother needed a ride too.  We crunched into my MGA and drove to her house.

Cut to another house, a few years and numerous dates later.  We’re at a party,  home from college on summer vacation.  She’s a sophomore, I’m a senior     Finally she says yes to my request for her hand in marriage.  I promise her father I’ll see to her tuition from college if he’ll let us tie the knot.

With the engagement formalized on Christmas Eve, 1961, I depart for Fort Dix New Jersey and the longest 6 month military training on record.

We are married in late September, 1962, six weeks after my discharge from the Army and three weeks after my father dies of cancer.

We wander – sometimes aimlessly, sometimes with purpose -  through the next 50 years.  Life bangs us up a bit, but soothes the bad times with three wonderful, talented, strong-willed daughters.  They each produce three equally wonderful, talented, strong-willed sons.  The gene pool is a wonderful place for swimming!

 

Today, with Janet’s early-on cancer scare, my stroke and aorta replacement (the tube, not the valve), we soldier on.  A spotted job journey for me – largely in public relations, broadcast journalism, a stint as a Congressional aide, advertising agency owner and retirement  Janet’s 25 year career in elementary education (reading) continues.  I continue to rise at 4:30 weekdays to oversee a 2 hour classical music program.

We have watched our relationship pass through all of the stages, beginning with passion, moving to the child-raising years when not much thought is given to our own needs, to the empty nest and re-grouping of emotion, to the grandparent years which are every bit as fulfilling as the years with our own children.

As we have stumbled through these 50 years, our marriage has survived largely because we have faced the predictable – and unpredictable  -  vicissitudes with lots of humor, teeth-gnashing, fear, hope and, yes, courage.

 

We continue to function as the Bank of Brian and Janet, the arm chair-Freuds, the wizened oracles and the home of last resort.

Us?  We couldn’t be happier.  Younger maybe, or richer, but not happier.

Doug and Mike

Doug and Mike met on gay dot com. It was an “almost didn’t happen” situation because if Mike had used his previous profile picture of him during Halloween in his pimp costume, then Doug wouldn’t have bothered to private message him in the first place – despite the fact that he had already passed the “cute” test.

From Mike’s vantage point, Doug’s picture wasn’t particularly cute as it made him look like he had a growth coming out of his neck. Nevertheless, Mike was a nice guy and responded.

Abram and Racine

Abram and Racine met in August of 2005. They both worked for the same company, but on different coasts. He was living in Los Angeles and she was living in New York. Abram was being sent to New York to provide Pivot Table Excel training to the media buyers in that office. For Abram, this also constituted a free trip to get together with the girl he dated in college. For Racine, this simply meant finally meeting the guy she’d spoken to on the phone so many times.

Making A List...Checking It Twice

In the spirit of Christmas, this week’s “how we met” story is about a couple who share their love with others every day.

Steve and Oddny Gumaer are the co-founders of Partners Relief and Development. Partners Relief & Development is a registered charity in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, the United Kingdom and the United States, working with communities impacted by war in Burma. Partners relief strives to provide free, full lives for the children and refugees of Burma.

Do you know the Alanis Morissette song, 21 things? It’s a guitar led and gritty song about all the things she wants in a lover. The point, however, is not the merits of this rock song, it is that I had a list like this too.

In 1989 I decided that living with Phil Anderson, even though we were best friends, was not cool anymore. We lived on the fourth floor of Hua Mark Condominiums, just across the street from Ramkamhaeng University in Bangkok. Phil had this habit of blowing his nose in the shower between yodeling and doing bird-calls;every morning…really. It drove me nuts. He was also a large he, not a lithe she. He liked to eat Turian. I describe Turian, the fruit many Asians refer to as “the king of fruits”, as a cross between decomposing garlic and dirty athletic socks with a suspiciously urine hue to it. How much better would it be to wake up with Meg Ryan next to me than waking up to Phil with his Turian breath and bird calls? So I started hunting for Meg.

Remember that at this time I was still dressing like a 50 year old, wearing aviator glasses (they weren’t cool back then), and dressing in either grey or baby blue button up shirt-sleeves. The exception of course was the very stylish madras cotton ones, colored like a rainbow, reserved for special occasions. I wasn’t exactly Meg Ryan material.

Darkest Before The Dawn

John and I met, in all places, in a nightclub.

A few days later over coffee, John told me of his situation: he was an asylum seeker in community detention with no working rights.

John had been forced to leave his home and family in Nigeria nearly four years earlier. Even though the civil war had ended, the unstable and volatile political situation continued to take thousands of lives and threaten the country’s stability. Several attempts had been made on John’s life and he finally had no choice but to flee, leaving behind everything he knew and loved: his career, his community, his family, and his future. He had his life, but had lost everything else. 

The Adventure Continues

In 1966, I was 18 yrs old and on my way to college. The last thing my parents told me was, “Do not get involved with those Mennonite liberal girls." During Freshman orientation students went to a Professor's home for social interaction Sunday afternoon before classes started. My roommate and I signed up for this event as well as Alice and her roommate. I was attracted to Alice even though she was not as conservative as the girls from my church. We played the game “Booby Trap,” and I sometimes gave her hints on which piece to remove. After eating pizza we got up to leave. Alice was impressed when I opened the door and waited for them to file through. She was quite happy when her roommate and my roommate went first and it just seemed natural for me to walk her back to campus. We talked quite a bit and decided to meet after evening church so I could teach her how to play table tennis. After church Alice got this scary feeling, “What if I don't recognize that guy?” Oh, well, she thought, “I'll go with the guy who is carrying a table tennis paddle.” Yes, we found each other and went to the Student Center, but it was locked. We sat on the steps and did a lot of talking. By the time the evening was over, we felt like we had known each other for years.

How To Save A Life

As these two writers recognize, there are good and bad people both on and off line. It takes courage to pursue a relationship when your trust has been used up. Sometimes, though, the hero does come "riding in" across the internet lines just in time to save a life.

Before I met Steve, I had been in and out of two long term relationships.  It took a lot of guts, but I had broken up with my previous boyfriend of five years to explore my feelings. After I had broken up with my ex, I was participating in some weird on-line relationships.  Needless to say, that didn't work out...it was just an experience, that was all.  For the most part, I found that (as in any community) the on-line community was filled with people who are good people and people who are not so good.
I had made a lot of online friends over the years and one of them was Steve.  Out of all of the people that I talked to, Steve was the only person that I had a genuine respect for.  Aside from the fact that we shared the same interests, I saw that he had a lot more to offer as a person.  He is the most intelligent person that I had ever met in my life.  He is also very sweet, charming, and funny, and shares the same sarcastic sense of humor that I do.  It's like I had finally found somebody who just 'got me'.

Finding Love Where You Lease Expect It

I was in and out of a relationship with a man for eight years. He wasn't the best of men; he had been in and out of jail, but I still thought he was my soul mate. We had grown up together, so I knew what I was getting myself into, but I didn't care. All I cared about was how he made me feel. I felt special and loved everyday.
Two days before Christmas 2008, this man who had told me how I was the perfect girl for him, and that he loved me, now was not in love with me anymore. It crushed my heart into a million pieces. The day after Christmas I moved out of our apartment. Suffering from anxiety and depression, I was in a very dark place.
Over the next few days, my mom joked around with me about going on an online dating site. With nothing to lose I did. I signed up for a free site and within a few days I came across Eric's profile. I thought he was cute, but he was from a city 300 miles away. I sent him a message anyway. We quickly started emailing each other, and I noticed myself smiling again. He was so funny. We then started to text each other, both of us too shy to actually call. About 3 weeks later, he sent me a text that said "I am going to do something out of character" within seconds my phone was ringing. We talked for about an hour and I remember the whole time I was smiling.When I got off the phone my jaw hurt! From then on we talked for hours on the phone. I could feel myself coming out of that dark place and being able to do things I hadn’t been able to do in months.

A Love With A View

The Mister and I met and started dating over 5 years ago when I was convinced by my 2 male flatmates to attend their friend's birthday party. My flatmates had us married before I had even met him, but like they say, friends know what you are like and who will suit you.