When did you know you wanted to marry your spouse?

[punkrockmama]

I've been thinking about this since my anniversary is coming up very soon.

I knew Jim was the man I wanted to marry about four months after we went on our first date. We were on a hike and stopped to take a break. We were just sitting there laughing and joking, and I realized that he was my best friend. I had never felt like any guy had ever really been a friend to me like that. So that feeling, plus me totally being in love made me think "Oh boy, I gotta marry this guy." Jim was married very briefly when he was my age. It ended badly and he kinda shut himself off from getting seriously invovled. He calls me Sheila Sunshine and tells me that I just thawed him out. He says he knew he had to marry me when he started daydreaming about me having his baby. And because I made him feel peaceful, which is something he said he hadn't felt in years.

Oh crap, I'm feeling sooo mushy these days. :)

[ribbit1019]

I jokingly told my mom I wanted to marry DH before we were even dating. IMO he was the perfect embodiment of everything I wanted in a guy. Oh to have those days back, lalol!

We were engaged after 4 mos of dating. Though we didn't start dating until well over year after that conversation I had with my mom.

Christy
My Waterbabies
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[Jo]

It took me six years of living with him.

I was bitter and jaded, and kept expecting to "find out" something that would be a deal breaker and make me ditch him.

I figured he could be a closet axe-murderer, or cross-dresser, or he'd leave the toilet seat up, or maybe he'd just annoy the heck out of me in several small intolerable ways.

After 6 years I realized that 1) He ALMOST NEVER annoys me. 2) He's my best friend 3) I trust him with my life.

So we got hitched :).

[hez]

We met in May on a summer internship and in August when we headed back to our senior years at school, I was willing to look for jobs in the same city. I was pretty sure. My best friends from school noticed it right away-- it was so obvious.

Then, we spent our senior years apart with lots of visits back and forth. I'm not going to pretend I didn't have doubts here and there, especially when the following May we graduated and actually had to go through with moving to a brand new city, new jobs, and all that change happened at once... But looking back on how good my life has been with this man in it, I wouldn't change it for the world, and am so happy we married each other!

[BaileyBea]

I was craving an apple pie... so he showed up at my apartment one day with a home made apple pie! It was love!

ETA that he made the pie himself from scratch. Pie crust and all. ;-)

[dogmom]

Met him at June at a party. Didn't call him until December. (Long story, a mutual friend was supposed to give me his number and say he was interested and wanted me to call. Our mutual friend didn't convey that much enthusiasm when the message was passed on.)Went out on our first date around mid-December, figure out I wanted to marry him by the first week in January. Was going to ask him on Valentine's Day, but I suck at waiting for something once I've made up my mind, so I asked him mid January. He said yes, we were married by August. So I guess 3-4 weeks if you are counting.

I knew my first husband for years and years, and that ended in divorce. So I figured I give this way a go. Been working out beautifully. Besides, his genetic material produces really cute kids. ;)

Jeanne
Mom to Harvey
1/16/03
& Eve 6/18/06

[bcky2]

yikes, i dont even know that i am sure when. we started seeing each other in high school, i was 15. we met about 3 dyas befor thanksgiving. we have had our on and off periods and i guess it dawned on me during one of our off times that no matter who i date i cant stand after a few weeks, the only one that i can stand being around forever is him. i was ready to marry right out of high school but he was soooooo against it so i left him because i wanted to get married one day and he never wanted to. well eventually i realized that it isnt about being married or not it is about being in love and that we always have been from the first day that i met him, he took me home and i had to crawl across the front seat because his passenger side door would not open, when we went thru the car wash and lost the muffler, he cut his friends hand open trying to fix it, the way i felt when just hours earlier meeting him and his friend referred to me as his girlfriend, the way we talked for hours outside my house, the way he hugged me when i got out of the car but did not kiss me(that came weeks later!) the way we just seemed to fit, even at that early of an age. we have been together pretty much all of the past 15 years, maybe a total of 2 years apart. i got to the point that i didnt care about getting married, it just didnt matter anymore. would being married mean that we could never split up? nope, i just would be harder. i decided that i didnt need to be married that i was just happy to spend the rest of my life with him. a year ago(on july 15th) we got married. i didnt feel like we had to and yes, i almost fainted at the court house :) we have our reasons why we did get married but i would still be happy if we were not. so when did i realize he was the man to marry, i dont know. when did i realize that i had to spend the rest of my life with him, i would say the day that i met him. we just fit. we have had a really bad year or two, kids change things. but just over the last few weeks with the help of one of the most wonderful mamas on the bbb i have figured alot out and have done some changes in my way of thinking and so has dh and you know what, i realized i still feel the same way about him as i did 15 years ago in that car while we sat and talked. did i answer your question, no. did i just take the most wonderful trip down memory lane, yes :)

[kimbe]

I know that this sounds silly, but I really knew the moment that we met. I said to my friend as we were leaving, I am going to marry that guy --- and here we are!

[rprav8r]

We'd been dating a while, and had even bought a house together, and I figured we'd just be together forever, but wasn't sure if we really needed to be married. Then we were supposed to go to Ohio together for his niece's birthday. It was a full house - IL's, some other family friends in town. Basically, there wasn't room for me. DH went without me, and ended up sleeping on a sofa. I knew that if I were his wife, his family, that somehow there would have been room for me, too. It sounds so silly, but it was really a lightbulb moment - I wanted us to be a family. So the next week we started making plans to get married.


-Ry,
mom to Emma, stillborn 11/04/04
and Max, 01/05/06

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[lizajane]

third date.

but i knew he was different the moment i met him. i told my mother that night that i saw something in his eyes that i had never seen before.

[Piglet]

DH and I started dating in high school and we both knew we were in this for the long haul, but of course had far too many reasons to delay getting married. We both felt that we had to graduate from college before we could be taken seriously. I think we were about 17-18 when we really went from "just dating" to being serious. We went for a walk and had a talk about a trip that my mom and I were taking. My mom was visiting my grandfather who was very sick and she was taking me along. She suggested that I bring a friend along because she would be at the hospital all day and maybe I would like to go with a friend so that I would have some company. I was telling this to my DH and ended with the sentiment that I couldn't stand being with any of my friends for an entire week, but I could totally stand being with him (not that my mom would allow me to bring a boy). He looked at me and said "I can stand you too". That was pretty much it! We could stand eachother, LOL.

Of course we still had many more years of waiting before we could get engaged. We finally decided to get engaged after a party when we danced together the entire night and I remember feeling that it was nice to never have to worry about finding a partner on the dance floor. I hated the singles scene even though I was never really single. I just didn't like the excessive preening, flirting and uncertainty of it all. I loved knowing that I had a lifelong dancing partner. We got engaged about a month later. I was about to graduate college that year and DH still had another year to go... we had been dating since 1994 and got married in 1999!

[maestramommy]

Dh and I were set up by relatives. I'd been on first dates with setups before, and they are usually amicable, but I know it won't work out before the dates even over. After the first date with Dh, I thought to myself, I could really go out with him again! We ended up going out every weekend after that "to get to know each other." First date was November, we were dating by January. Then he took me on a 4 day camping trip in Death Valley (sound bizarre but it's really beautiful in the spring). It was the first time I felt like an equal give and take partner in a relationship. Everytime we went out I felt, I really like hanging out with this guy. By May or so I was thinking I'd really like to hang out with him forever. We were engaged by Labor Day, and got married the next June. He wanted to get married by Christmas (!!), but school year had just started and I knew there was no way we could slap together a wedding in 3 months while I was in the thick of teaching.

[boolady]

We knew each other in a work capacity for about 1 1/2 years before I left that job and we started dating. Honest....he was my boss, and was very conscientious about not dating employees. Anyway, we started dating in September, and in December, one of his cousins had a big get-together right like 2 days before Christmas that he took me to. Of course I was nervous the entire time, being surrounded by his family, because they're all very close. At one point during dinner, one of his cousins was talking about her upcoming honeymoon in Hawaii. Having never discussed this before, he grabbed my hand under the table, looked at me, and whispered that he was sure Hawaii was beautiful, but that he'd always wanted to get married in the fall and that "we're going to go to Vienna because it's so beautiful in the fall for our honeymoon." Wow. Since all I'd ever wanted to do since being a kid was get married in October or November and am not a beach person, I just knew it was all fate at that point.

[jbowman]

We had been dating for a few months, and were driving around. It was hot outside, and he blasted the air conditioning. Then he rolled down the windows of the car. I remember thinking: how extravagant, I would never do that! That's the man I'm going to marry! LOL! :)

[aliceinwonderland]

Uh, a couple of weeks after meeting him. We married a couple of months later.

ETA: Ok, we met in August (he lived in Indiana, I in Boston), I visited his parents at Thanksgiving, we were engaged by Christmas and civilly married by end of January at City Hall (just the two of us and an awesome city clerk. Awesome day.). We had a wedding party then in Martha's Vineyard in May. Our son was born 2 yrs later.

He still writes me poems, and he is no poet :) :) Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

[mudder17]

Well, two years before we started dating, I told my sister that the only person in my school (we met in college) I would ever consider marrying would be him. On the night we "clicked" I knew we would get married. All told, I knew him for 3 years before we started dating and we dated for 4 weeks before he graduated. We were apart for one year, then I joined him in grad school. We got engaged that Christmas and married the following summer.


Eileen

http://www.windsorpeak.com/dc/user_files/33734.gif 28 months...
http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/t/catcatcvi20040222_-6_Kaya+is.png
http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/p/dev317pp___.png
http://www.windsorpeak.com/dc/user_files/33732.gif for Leah

[buddyleebaby]

THe first time he ever looked me in the eye.
(He was trying to be suave as he put a book on my desk. I thought he was deaf, lol.)

[saschalicks]

Our conversations on the phone were unbelievable. I just wasn't attracted to him physically. But yet I kept going out with him. Then I went to NY for 5 days about 3.5 weeks after we met. I talked on the phone with him the whole time I was gone. I got home at 4 AM and picked him up on my way home. We both ditched work the next day to be together. That day I absolutely knew he was the one. He never went home again. He officially moved in 3 months later and we were engaged 9 months after we met. The whole time telling our friends we were taking it slow. 6 months into our marriage we got pregnant with DS#1. He tells me he knew our 2nd date. I couldn't imagine a better life partner :D

OOOOHHH this is so mushy.

[mamicka]

On our first date, my roommate told me that I would marry him. I hoped that she was right but was a bit jaded.

Allison

[lorien_ca]

12 days. that is, 12 days after the first time we met in person. i was 19. we actually met online first (in the way early days of the internet and LONG before internet dating sites). we had emailed back and forth for about a month and a half and talked on the phone a half dozen times before i came home for the summer (from freshman year of college) and we met in person the first time. that was a thursday. we went out the following friday, saturday, sunday, etc, etc. 12 days later i knew, i think he did too. long story short, we surrvived 3 years of long distance (for the school year)/living together in the summers. then got engaged and surrvived another 2.5 years of grad school for me before we got married. i think part of what makes us 'work' so well together is all of that time in the early years we spent just talking. absense does make the heart grow fonder in our case, and we really learned how to communicate. meeting his 'mind' first was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

i went into labor with DS 10 years to the day of the first day we met in person :).

lori
Sam 5/19/05 How lucky I am that you chose me.

[maestramommy]

LOL! That must've been Marian, because I don't remember hearing that part. But for anyone who is skeptical about Kismet, let me just say that Eileen and her Dh circled around and crossed dating paths for 3 years before they finally got their act together and got single at the same time. When it's meant to be, it will be :-)

[mudder17]

Yep, it was Marian--it was one of our late night talks. :)


Eileen

http://www.windsorpeak.com/dc/user_files/33734.gif 28 months...
http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/t/catcatcvi20040222_-6_Kaya+is.png
http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/p/dev317pp___.png
http://www.windsorpeak.com/dc/user_files/33732.gif for Leah

[mommyoftwo]

Well, we had known each other for a few months, but I was interested in someone else at the time. Then one day he took me out to lunch after church because I was hugely stressed out about a big test in medical school and needed a break. My good friend couldn't go so he volunteered. That day I realized that I definitely needed more friends like him. This was right before Thanksgiving break so I called him when we got back and asked him if he wanted to go to a movie as friends. It wasn't supposed to turn into a date but we talked until midnight even though I had class at 7am (on a saturday morning no less) and I knew he was different from every other guy I had ever met. We ended up doing something every day that weekend and were officially dating within a few days. A week after dating we knew we were in love and a couple days after that we started talking about someday if we get married. We started dating during finals week before Christmas so we didn't have much time together before being separated for a month. My best friend knew we would be getting married within a couple of weeks based on what I was saying about him. We had been back to school together for about a week when one day we were kissing on the couch and it hit me like a lightning bolt that I was definitely going to marry him. Always being one to speak my mind (often without thinking first), I exclaimed "I'm going to marry you!" and then held my breath in horror because I was afraid I would scare him. He simply looked at me, smiled and said "That's good. I'm going to marry you too." So it took six weeks but we were only physically together for a couple of them. I didn't get a ring until six weeks later but only because our parents were flipping out about how quickly things moved. We actually had the ring for a while before he officially "proposed". I had already bought a wedding dress and booked the church before I got to wear the ring so it really was kinda silly but it made our parents happier. The other amazing thing about my husband is that I became chronically ill just a couple months after we started dating (before we were officially engaged) and spent nine months in bed (while planning our wedding). He took care of me and gave up a lot to be with me. I don't think anyone else would have stuck with me during that time and I'm still not healthy. I think he is an amazing person and an amazing husband. Thanks for the chance to walk down memory lane. Sorry this is so long.

[bostonsmama]

When I first met my DH, I was so, so young (freshman in college) and just wanted to enjoy a fun, healthy relationship. After our first couple of dates, I told him I couldn't see him anymore b/c he "made me sick." But when I say sick, I mean physically ill. I was SO nervous (butterflies in my stomach) on dates or when he called that I couldn't eat or sleep. I was a mess...reluctantly in love, but I just kept praying about the relationship and I really felt God telling me this one was special. He wasn't hard to love; he really woo'ed me over. Every morning before work, he'd drive over to my house & secretly scrape the ice from my windshield and leave me love letters under my wipers before I drove to campus. He went to church with me. We both loved and were loved by each other's parents.

While on his deployment (4 months after we started dating), he sent me an email from Australia saying that he felt like he could spend the rest of his life with me, and I accepted a promise ring from him, but still made no talk of marriage.

I think it really sunk in when he had an accident at Airborne School and I received a call from the emergency room saying he might have irreversible brain damage from a possible stroke and to come ASAP. I called my professors and then booked the next flight down to Georgia. I drove all the way down to Ft. Benning from Atlanta sobbing uncontrollably. I told myself that no matter what, I'd stay with him as long as he'd love and let me. I practically vaulted the steps of the hospital when I arrived and collapsed in his weary arms in his hospital bed. His recovery in the following days was nothing short of miraculous. I realized then that I loved him unconditionally and that everything else was just gingerbread. Two years later (including a full six-month deployment to see if I could handle the separations involved in being a military spouse), we got married.

There have been plenty of ups and downs, but there's no one I'd rather go through them with than him! :)


Larissa, the sand-filled cloth tomato. Asking advanced forgiveness for typos, omissions, & incredibly incoherent posts. Baseline July 25th.

Proud Aunt to Jack Dorian, born to my bro & SIL 3/06

[Lovingliv]

When I first walked into Wheel Works in Belmont, he was standing straight ahead of me. There was a guy that I had a crush on to my left, that I knew really well. I was completely and utterly drawn to Matt. I will never forget the feeling that I had when I first saw him. We didn't start dating for another year.....but I knew that first day, when he sold me a bike!

He is my best friend, my night in shining armour, my confidant, and the best father I have ever seen. He was truly made for me and I am so blessed to have him in my life each and every day. I love him so much, it hurts!

[BillK]

The first time I saw her climbing out of the Taylor Alderdice high school pool all sopping wet I knew it (a friend of mine later cued the term "she's dunkable" ;o ).

I was an assistant dive instructor and my good buddy that was the instructor forced me to help him teach that particular "leasure learning" scuba class that the University of Pitt was having because she was in it and he wanted me to meet her. Ironically enough her best friend at the time had signed her up for the class with the intention of her "meeting someone" - without her knowing it.

It took me the entire class - an open water dive trip to Florida for 5 days - and the drive back to Pittsburgh from Florida - to work up the courage to ask her out. We were engaged about 5 months later. :)

[lizajane]

and i can add that eileen's dh is one cool guy!!! they are a great couple!

[kijip]

I knew I was done dating when after a late night out of music with him right as we started dating, I woke up the next morning to a spotless kitchen and FRESH, HOT, HOMEMADE bagels. That being done dating meant marriage came sometime after and was just a mutual understanding. We knew each other for 2 years before we started dating, dated for 2 years and eloped in 2/2002 and then Toby was born 6/2003. We had a family appeasing wedding on our first anniversary when I was about 4-5 months alond with Toby. I used to tease that he was meant to be a 1 night fling and he just never left. J was and is a very special person. I've never had to fuss or fight with him over chores, childcare, divison of labor. We complement each other perfectly. Even during the last 8 months that we have been separated, he has given 110% of his effort to me and Toby. That makes me convinced that I want to be married to him forever.

[ChunkyNicksChunkyMom]

Larissa - you made me cry! wow!
Susan

#1 Nick 11-18-04
#2 Kate 04-26-06

[Corie]

Your question made me laugh. :)

I met my husband at a fraternity/sorority mixer. Someone
introduced us. We shook hands and he would not let go of
my hand. I finally got my hand free and walked away.
I could feel him watching me the whole party. I kept telling
my friends that the 'cute drunk guy' in the kitchen was staring
at me.

Anyway, my ride to the party was leaving so I had to go.
We were in her car leaving the apartment complex and
I said, "Take me back to the party!! I'll find another ride
home!" (All of my sorority sisters were at the party. I could
get a ride home with one of them.)

A bunch of us including 'cute drunk guy' went to several
more parties later that night.

'Cute drunk guy' told everyone all night at every party
that I was the girl he was going to marry. I thought he
was very drunk but very cute.

I married 'cute drunk guy'. :)

[elliput]

When we were asked by someone (whom we had just met) how long we had been married, and we responded that we had been dating for two months. We were engaged a month later.

[kijip]

>When I first met my DH, I was so, so young (freshman in
>college) and just wanted to enjoy a fun, healthy relationship.

As someone who must be the same age as you or so, I want to say that we are both still so, so young! LOL. My birthday is next week and I am just getting around to embracing the term "mid twenties".

We share the getting married young, prior to finishing college, thing so I can agree that it is a crazy ride but a great one. I feel like J and I are growing up together, and I assume I will feel like we are growing up till Toby is out of college, ;).

[Jo]

I have never seen a homemade bagel in my life, I would have married him too!

[MarisaSF]

I love having Melinda here to give us the scoop on Eileen. :) Anytime you want to share embarrassing moments, we're all ears. :P

[MarisaSF]

DH was the one who needed to be convinced that *I* wasn't a serial axe murderer! }(

I told a friend that I was going to marry DH about a week or so after we started dating. We were 19. There was just something about him that was "husband material" to me. He told me early that he would "never ever cheat on his wife" and that was darn near enough for me to hear, lol, but it's also a measure of the rest of his personality. He needed a little more convincing about me, but came to his senses 7 years later after I finally learned how to ski and around the time when I decided we should have kids together and he agreed. We were polar opposites when we met, but have grown up and around each other like a vine or tree.

For practical purposes, I say I married him so my kids could have his long legs and long eyelashes. He says he wanted his kids to have my melanin instead of his skin-cancer-prone epidermis.

[jbowman]

>For practical purposes, I say I married him so my kids could
>have his long legs and long eyelashes. He says he wanted his
>kids to have my melanin instead of his skin-cancer-prone
>epidermis.

LOL, Marisa. In all honesty, Ray and I married so our kids would have my work ethic and organization skills, and his SAT scores. ;)

[kijip]

They are t-a-s-t-y! He used to make them a lot but I told him he had to slow it down because I did not want all that high-carb bread around, adding to my waistline since i was not running and hiking enough to melt it off like before. So now he only makes them on special occasions. The man also makes tarts, pastries, bread, pies and lots of other goodies.

[american_mama]

So many romantic stories. But not really me! I knew I would marry DH when I got a positive pregnancy test, LOL.

But it was OK. I'm an indecisive person and hadn't been convinced to get engaged even though we'd been dating for 3 years, known each other for six years before. I was 31 at that point too, prime "when am I going to get married and have a baby?" age. I just decided that getting pregnant made the decision to marry really clear.

In five months, I got pregnant, got engaged, planned a wedding, got married, quit my job, moved across the country, and became unemployed. Two months later, DD1 was born. To be trite but succinct, it's worked out well.

[mommd]

6 months before we started dating. :)

A bunch of my friends would get together to study calculus during my senior year of high school, and one day in December when he was leaving my house, I told my Mom that he was the man I would marry. He had a girlfriend at the time, but we started dating in June the following year. We got married four years later after college and have been married now for almost 8 years. :)

[psophia17]

I thought I'd replied to this thread, but now I see I didn't...

DH and I had been chatting online off and on via ICQ for a year before he said he was going to marry me, and when could he come meet me (he was on the west coast of Canada, I was in NYC). I called BS, but told him to go ahead and try and prove it.

For my 24th b-day, he came out for a week. When I met him up at the airport, I wasn't looking as he came out of the gate, and when I finally did realize he was there, he stuck his tongue out at me. He got down on one knee in my parents kitchen to propose (with the plastic ring from an OJ carton) the day he flew back to BC, but I knew I wanted to marry him when he stuck his tongue out.

[psophia17]

Ooooh! So do you have any good dirt to share, Melinda?

[jillc]

Ok, these are fun to read. :)

DH & I first met one evening b/c our college roommates wanted to get to know each other & DH and I each got dragged along as a buddy. We were living in different states at the time, but DH was in my town visiting his former roommate.

We all went to dinner, a party, and a bar that night. About 30 min through our group dinner, I kept thinking "He is absolutely perfect. Where has this guy been all my life?" DH and I talked the whole time. It was as if there was nobody else there. Funny since he's not an overly flirty guy, DH asked me three times that night in front of everyone if I would marry him. And I knew then that I would.

We dated long distance for about 2 years and then came the official proposal. We got married 5 months later. :)

Now after 5 years of marriage, I certainly know he's not perfect, but I'll keep him just the same. Wouldn't trade him ever. ;)

J

[mudder17]

LOL, I should have known my good friends Marisa and Petra would be looking for tantalizing details! ;)

ETA: of course, if you read my response to Chiqanita, you'll understand why I'm such a nut (at least according to Jo). ;)


Eileen

http://www.windsorpeak.com/dc/user_files/33734.gif 28 months...
http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/t/catcatcvi20040222_-6_Kaya+is.png
http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/p/dev317pp___.png
http://www.windsorpeak.com/dc/user_files/33732.gif for Leah

[punkrockmama]

I read all of these. I laughed, I cried. Isn't it nice to think back on how it all started? I'm a freakin' puddle over here. And I'm actually starting to gross myself out with how mushy I've been lately. I'll stop now.

Thanks to you all for sharing your stories. :)

[maestramommy]

Hmmmm, no. As you probably saw by the wild/mild thread Eileen's record is pretty spotless. Although I was suprised that she and I shared a late night run home from the train station when we were teenagers. So you never know! Bwa a a a a a ah!

[spencersmommy]

I loved reading these stories. Wow, it's so neat to see how people meet their "one". :-)
DH and I knew each other in high school, and since we had the same last name, used to joke that we would get married some day. The first time he brought me to his parents' house (as friends), he introduced me as his future wife! We had off and on periods throughout college (we went different places), but always seemed to connect in the summers since we hung out with the same group of people in our hometown. Finally, the summer after I graduated, we started dating "for real" and knew within a month that we would be married. We ended up dating 5 years before we married, though. DH needed to finish school and was working in LA in entertainment, so he was busy! But a month after I moved to LA, we got engaged. Now here we are, 6 years later, happily married with 2 precious boys (though I think some people think I never married b/c my name is still the same! Ha!).

[MelissaTC]

When he told me that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. We were friends at the time. He was my best friend throughout high school and college and when he graduated from college, he decided that our relationship should move on to the next level. Well, I wasn't ready. After not speaking for two months, we finally started spending time together and that snowballed into dating, getting engaged 2 months later and then getting married a year later. I don't regret any of it because absence really did make the heart grow fonder. He is definitely not the dating kind- he is the kind of guy you marry and at 21, I didn't really want to think about that. But he is a sweetheart and I am glad it worked out (as we are celebrating 8 years of marriage!).