Why do we marry the people we do?

[sgt.null]

Thanks GF! I still owe you.

you are most welcome.

i don't know where my rep started...

jenn you are awesome and any
guy would be lucky enough to be
married to you.

[lucimay]

it's sorta like i never even posted, huh. why did i bother?

[Rigel]

it's sorta like i never even posted, huh. why did i bother?

Because you have something to say, and we do like hearing it?

[mrsnull]

You are most welcome, Jenn! Wonder what alien lifeform took over Sarge that day? Hmmm...
And Dennis is right- any guy would be luck to have you - you are gorgeous, smart and funny.

And those are the same reasons why I married Dennis - he's gorgeous, smart and funny. I love his sarcastic sense of humor.
And he's a Christian. I truly believe that you should be on the same level spiritually. And the biggest reason why our marriage works is because we not only made promises to each other when we married, but we also made a covenant with God. Christ is in our marriage, and I thank God all day long, every day for the man that is my husband.
We put the other person before ourselves. We don't love ourselves the most. We both would die for the other. And we try to make each other's life easier.
Finally, we don't walk walk away. Sure we get angry. He can be a total jerk (no, really. I'm not kidding) and I can be a total bitch (okay, I am kidding here, but you get the point). But we won't quit on the vows. He's stuck with me.
I am willing, however, to rent him out.

[Cameraman Jenn]

Lucimay, it's not like you never posted. I read every word you said. Sorry if I came off as insensitive. And it was probably me being insensitive, I know you have been through a lot but at the same time you have found a guy who loves you unconditionally and that stupendous

[sgt.null]

julie - i can't live up to that press! i love you for saying it though. and i am not so a jerk, just everyone else needs to ben dto my will. :):)

lucimay - not sure what you mena, because i am dumb sometimes. but you are awesome and deserve the awesome guy you have found.

jenn - some incentive for yo getting married? i will send a clock, everyone gets a clock.

[Cambo]

Don't confuse responses with appreciation, Luci. Often the posts I'm least likely to respond to are those I see as complete and needing no input of mine. Which is why I've been a lurker in this thread up til now.

But since I'm here, I'm giving a big shout out to my Watch Wife Lorin.

[Iolanthe]

Oh, Doc, how romantic!

C & I had just driven back from Romford to Winchester through very thick fog (I had to put my head out of the window to find the edge of a roundabout) when he asked me to marry him. My reply was "pardon?" so he had to say it again.

We got married during my Xmas vacation from college, and spent our two day honeymoon at a hotel in London. We still have the bill - it was £19. My dear friends had filled my suitcase with rice (uncooked) and sewn my nighdtress up. We spent ages picking rice up off the floor - I'm saying nothing about the nightdress. We couldn't afford the restaurant at the hotel so went down the road for a sit down Chinese meal. On the Sunday we went to London Zoo, but most of the animals were indoors and we didn't see them. Monday it was back to college.

And to all the rest of you, including Luci, I have enjoyed reading these posts

[aliantha]

I'm enjoying them all, too.

I haven't commented because I'm afraid my post would be a downer, after all these lovely love stories.

I married the ex for a bunch of deep-seated psychological reasons. And some surface ones, too -- we were both in Mensa, we liked the same kinds of books, we both dislike cooked carrots, we both wanted kids. Bottom line, tho, is that I married him because he asked me. He's the only guy to ever ask, before or since. And I was in my late 20s and ready to get married.

What I should have done, tho, is listened to the voice in my head that hemmed and hawed and had to be talked into accepting his proposal. I wish I'd known him longer before we got engaged. (We met in August or September, he proposed at Thanksgiving, and we moved in together in mid-December.)

I did get two amazing daughters out of it, tho.

[Cameraman Jenn]

We all get married for our own reasons, some work out and some don't. I know that we all learn a lot about ourselves from the experience whether it works out or not. Jeff and I learned about ourselves from our failed marriage and Julie and Sarge have learned about themselves from their successful one. Lucimay and Ger learned a lot from one another and I can't even imagine their twenty year journey together. My sister married her SEVENTH GRADE BOYFRIEND. I can't even imagine that either. Jonathan makes all the money and the decisions and she is happy to just obey him and stay home playing wifey and raise their kids. I'm happy being single. If the right relationship came along to change that I would not be hesitant but in the meantime I don't plan to force it. I worked with Igor for many years and over that time I learned that his first wife leaving him for his best friend was the best thing that could have happened to him. Their relationship was quite tempestuous and when she left the Russian community thrust Larissa at him relentlessly because she was "disgraced" when her husband left her and her two kids. One was only an infant at the time, the other a toddler. They got together and are incredibly happy and he's raised those girls as though they were his own. They now have families of their own and he is the proudest grandpa you could imagine and he has a loving and gorgeous wife. He deserves that. You just never know what life will throw at you and again I'll say that I would not change it.

[deer of the dawn]

Well, you never know.

Lucimay, I read your entire post and did not comment because I didn't know what to say. I guess I found your marriage unutterably sad, although I am glad you are still friends and that you found love with someone else-- why not end what is obviously not a marriage and move on? What is keeping you? Those thoughts of mine were not kind so I said nothing, now I've said them and I hope you don't take them unkindly. The lives of others are sometimes a mystery we cannot enter into without barging, and I am only commenting now because it seems to have bothered you that ppl did not respond directly to your post.

Thanks for sharing the success stories, and the funny-proposal stories, too, Mrsnull, Iolanthe, DocGamgee. Awesome.

[Lefdmae Deemalr Effaeldm]

I guess I'm an expert on this topic to a less than zero level, (was it some other forum or some other people discussing, I could probably say that a person that seriously contemplated how hot the space pirates from Bulychev's stories are has no say in the matter of normal relationships, but this is here and some posts above in the thread are highly encouraging) so just wanted to say thank you to all of you for sharing your stories and your views. Well, not like I'm really on topic or contributing a lot), just so that you know it's appreciated.

Though I have a sneaking suspicion my "knowledge" on this is far not unusual, at least I don't see even a possibility of an actual answer. Or at least it's so complicated and different in every case people hardly have a chance of formulating it. A remotely close one I can get is more from the field of philosophy - people still can't really define love, maybe because it's different every time, even for the same person. If you feel it is right, how much of a matter is if people are similar or different?

One distantly related thing about appreciation and the lack of it

Ouch, quiet response this year.
...

from kevinswatch.ihugny.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=22133 How could we allow this? Or did we run out of the smiling emoticons?)

[sgt.null]

not sure if either of us mentioned it - but julie was married once before. it did not go well (8yrs), he cheated and refused to be a husband. julie was unmarried a long while after that (5yrs) - and had not planned on getting married again.

i had two girlfriends before i met julie. one last just about over a year as did the second one. i was 25 when i met julie.

we met january 20th of 1994. i proposed february 17th of 1994. we married april 30th of 1994. we come up on of 18th year together this month.

and what romantic way did i propose? i rolled over in bed and said - "so you want to get married?" julie said yes.

take that guys with elaborate and romantic set-ups that cost a fortune. and time in planning.

[lucimay]

Lucimay, I read your entire post and did not comment because I didn't know what to say. I guess I found your marriage unutterably sad, although I am glad you are still friends and that you found love with someone else-- why not end what is obviously not a marriage and move on? What is keeping you? Those thoughts of mine were not kind so I said nothing, now I've said them and I hope you don't take them unkindly. The lives of others are sometimes a mystery we cannot enter into without barging, and I am only commenting now because it seems to have bothered you that ppl did not respond directly to your post.

oh! LOL!!!! it totally didn't occur to me that the post might seem sad or cause some people not to know how to respond!! LOL!!!!!
but that's me, right? i just blurt (even in posting) and then expect responses and sometimes my blurt makes people uncomfortable or not know what to say! this happens to me frequently!

and in answer to your questions deer, we have "moved on". just waiting for some finalizing details in a couple months and then i will probably be moving.
and that is the hardest thing because i will have to move a long way away and i am not sure how i'm going to live so far away from the man who has been my family for 24 years. like an alchoholic learning to live without alchohol, right?
but life is good and i have only a few tiny, inconsequential regrets. (that's me being realistic because if i said i had none i'd be lying )

and i din't mean to make anyone uncomfortable or feel sad for me.
i mostly posted because of the music thing and how ironic it is that we
never clicked musically.

[aliantha]

Sarge -- Only five years? Julie's a piker. My divorce was final on Tax Day 1997. Holy cow -- it'll be 15 years this coming Sunday....

luci --

[Savor Dam]

Shall we wish you a happy Un-niversary when that date rolls around, ali?

[DoctorGamgee]

I mostly posted because of the music thing and how ironic it is that we never clicked musically.

That was how I gathered it, much like my own first post... Love and Music sometimes works out and sometimes it doesn't. That's life.

And Sarge...

You make me laugh! How lucky you were to be lying beside your love. I was living in Texas and she in Manchester England. If you started rolling over today you might arrive on the scene (considering ocean currents and drying time at the docks.) Just about...

And I am cheap. The day after our wedding, we were back to work. She auditioned for and got the role of The Daughter of the Regiment and we spent most of our first year apart as after that gig, she was hired in Oldenburg to sing at the opera house until July while I typed in Laredo to finish my treatise. But I was going back to Salzburg in July for another summer work program, so that is when we scheduled our honeymoon.

I asked the folks flying me over to send me a week early. They asked me why (as they couldn't afford to house me there for that long), and I told them so I could go on my honeymoon. They agreed, (no expence there and not exactly great lenght of planning), we hopped a train and went down to Florence and Venice. Saw some old things, ate some food, and had a great time trying out Italian on Italians (they were stunned that Americans would know any Italian!). Ate some local dishes (cuttlefish in its own ink over polenta) and then headed back to work.

Flight to Europe: Free.
Week in Italy: $350
Arriving a day late to your own honeymoon due to DFW weather...PRICELESS!!!!

Doc

[aliantha]

Shall we wish you a happy Un-niversary when that date rolls around, ali?

Nah. S'okay. Just kind of took me by surprise when I toted up the years, that's all.

[sgt.null]

And Sarge...our honeymoon. Doc

in 96 we moved to texas. julie drove us down here. spent the first overnight in Cooperstown, New York. visited the baseball hall of fame.'

then drove to Cincy. they were working on the ballpark and a worker let us sneak in to take pics of the ballfield. i have that triptych hanging in my den.

then Nashville for two days. took in the museums, saw a show at a small bar. met some songwriters at a restaurant.

then to Houston for Thanksgiving with her family.

and that was our honeymoon.

[Cagliostro]

What I should have done, tho, is listened to the voice in my head that hemmed and hawed and had to be talked into accepting his proposal. I wish I'd known him longer before we got engaged. (We met in August or September, he proposed at Thanksgiving, and we moved in together in mid-December.

But you'd never know if you didn't go for it, n'est-ce pas? You have to make mistakes in life to know whether or not it is something you want. Few mistakes can't be undone, and you tough through the ones that you can't change. But living a life of inaction is hardly a life. You have to take chances to get the better rewards. At least that is my thinking, especially when it comes to love.

There's two stories of life
That contain all the facts
One's told to your face
The other's told to your back
Which one to believe
Well, that's all up to you
Also to decide which one will come true

Is it the one where love
Is the pounding of a drum
A lone soldier on a hill
An army of one?
Is it the one where love
Is a peace between two
A harmony?