<p>I know that my husband would do anything for me, and that my happiness is of primary importance to him. And I would do the same for him. It’s a nice feeling, this rock to lean on. Oh, and I think he’s adorable. (25 years)</p>
<p>“Do you find that you married to achieve some larger personal goal (like redeeming a difficult childhood, finding someone to change the world with, becoming financially successful, etc.)? Or was the goal just to be with the person?”</p>
<p>No other goal than to be with someone I not only loved, but liked. Someone mentioned best friend and I did, indeed, marry my best friend. My husband and I knew each other for 3-4 years before we married. The flip side is my parents, who knew each other for 3 months before they got married. They are now in their 53rd year together and it’s the 2nd marriage for both of them (!). I am betting it was lust at 1st sight for them, but no one wants to think like that about thier parents - lol</p>
<p>In the end you have to find what works for you…and no, it really isn’t easy. I wish I could give you a formula.</p>
<p>When I was little my favorite show was I Dream of Jeannie, and told my parents I was going to marry Tony Nelson. The day Bullet proposed to me my Mom laughed and said I should have known you would marry Tony afterall! (Bullet was an AF officer that flew fighter jets)</p>
<p>We have been married over 20 yrs, and this summer together for 26. The minute I saw him I knew he was it. I know it sounds strange, but I remember looking at him, he had yet to see me, and felt a strange wave of calmness come over my body, and thinking to myself I found my soul mate. We met the day after my HS graduation at a party, only a few days later I found out he was in the AF ROTC program and was already tracked to go to flight school!</p>
<p>He has been everything to me and more than I could ever have imagined he could be! My only fear now is that my kids have an unrealistic opinion of marriage b/c of us.</p>
<p>The only thing that took time for me was becoming best friends, he was always my friend, but for yrs it was my sisterthat was my best firend/confidante, until 1 day I woke up and realized he took over that spot.</p>
<p>BTW the only goal I had in marrying Bullet was I knew I would never love anybody else like him, or be happy with anybody else, and that he had to be the father of my children! It was all pure selfishness on my part. However 26 yrs later he still kisses me goodbye and tells me every a.m. you know you are the love of my life as he walks out the door. When he walks in after work, the dogs will be jumping on him, kids will try to be talking to him, but he ignores them and always kisses me hello first…you’d think the kids at least would figure out by now that is how it works in our house!</p>
<p>returningstudent, please don’t take this the wrong way but given that you mention childhood issues, I strongly recommend personal counseling…work through your own issues before you go seeking a life partner. I have seen this play out within families, inclulding my own, trust me on this one.<br>
Get yourself in a great place and you will meet someone who is also there.</p>
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<p>Seconding this! I would be nowhere near the healthy mental state that I currently am in if it weren’t for counseling. If you’re one of those people who have to wade through bad situations that life throws at you, and I’m one of those people, then counseling can help keep you balanced and can keep your worries about those situations from ping-ponging around in your head.</p>
<p>My husband and I would absolutely not have a good, solid relationship if I hadn’t sought help to deal with my background.</p>
<p>Regarding the OP; My wife of thirty six years informs me that this is indeed the case for both of us.</p>
<p>I will also say that the night Bullet proposed to me, reality hit me in the face with the baggage I was carrying (Dad left Mom for another women and infidelity was a huge fear). We talked about it in a very open manner about what if…not typical engagement night conversation, but he knew the baggage I was carrying and loved me enough to soothe those fears. He also knew my prior love cheated on me with my best friend and neighbor. It took him yrs of love and understanding to get me past it. The most wonderful thing was he always understood that it had nothing to do with him and everything to do with my fears. The ability of him to do this allowed me to realize he would never cheat on me, since he saw the pain it caused and anybody who stayed while I built trust in them when they never hurt me was a person who truly loved me!</p>
<p>I feel that if you have imagined and calculated if it is a good one and all other analysis, then you do not love person and it is not worth it.</p>
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That IS a big problem. I am glad that you are aware of it, and know that you have to address this…</p>
<p>At age 20, I chose the wisest, kindest, and most mature guy that I had ever met.
After 38 years, he’s still the wisest, kindest and most mature guy I know- even though he’s a few months younger than I. I don’t know how I had the good sense to go with him at that age, and I never really expected to find “the one” at that point in my life. Something about the way he treated me- with respect and admiration- really sealed the deal.
While there is no “formula”" as one poster mentioned, I tell my daughter that whatever qualities she might admire and love about her guy, it’s extremely important that he treats her with the same respect, 100% of the time. Listen to your gut and heart, and don’t let chemistry or charisma blind you. You want to feel that he knows “the real you” and adores you just the way you are.</p>
<p>Interesting topic!</p>
<p>Is Ms3togo the women of which I always dreamed? No, but that is mostly a statement about the fact we met in our late 20s. At 18 I had one vision of a life-partner … a different vision at 22-23 … and a new improved model in my late 20s when I met Ms3togo. </p>
<p>For me there was infatuation at first sight that grew into love. Why did it grow? … mostly around commonality … of interests, of life-style, of goals … and of intellect. We’re hopefully going to spend about 60 years together … we better find talking to each other pretty interesting!</p>
<p>I think for successful marriages there is a common thread. VALUES to be a great marriage you need to share common values, otherwise it is doomed. You need to respect your mate and if you don’t agree with the values that they embrace than you are putting a huge stumbling block that you will have to jump everytime a major life change comes up…kids, money, personal opinions, etc.</p>
<p>For me and my husband it was love at first site, we are still together after 25 years and he is still my best friend. We have always operated form the perspective that, “it is you and me against the world.” As with everything there is an ebb and flow to life and relationships but we always go to the core of our relationship when things may seem off kilter. We still enjoy the same things, we are close knit, Friends and strangers that we may come in contact with, always coment on that we are a great couple. I guess it shows our admiration and love for each other. I respect my husband, and would never speak ill of him to anyone. Yes we do argue and disagree on some things like child rearing, finances and what is for dinner, but who cares, we are in it for the long haul.</p>
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<p>If you’ve never been, you might want to check out a few Al Anon meetings to see if you can find one that “fits.” You’ll find people there dealing with relationships with people who have problems with alcohol, drugs, anger, abuse, etc. Also look at self-help books. I’ve never found one book with all the answers, but I’ve also never read a book without finding at least one helpful concept in it.</p>
<p>What I found was that I had to be enough for myself. I had to be a complete, healthy person to find/maintain a healthy relationship. That meant unlearning a lot of garbage.</p>
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<p>Considering how hard it is to keep a marriage together over the decades, I cannot imagine having married someone for any other reason. We’ve been married for twenty years now. </p>
<p>I feel safe with him and I always have. He’s not the chaos in my life but the shelter from it. He is my home and I am his. We cheer each other on, are fiercely loyal to one another and make each other laugh. He’s not the man of my dreams because I had no idea that a marriage could be this good.</p>
<p>PS I’ll be completely honest here and say it was lust at first sight for me! The love came later. But we still have big crushes on each other and that is really nice.</p>
<p>Wow. I am so impressed with all the happy marriages on this thread! I’m so happy for all of you, and in awe. I have found that all of my favorite people and best friends are happily married after many years. But I was unable to achieve that for myself.</p>
<p>Over twenty years ago, I married a real creep. I thought I knew what I was doing. I was old enough to know what I was doing. To this day, years after my divorce, I can not tell you exactly where, how, or why I went wrong. I have some general ideas as to how I messed up so badly in my choice of a guy, but I still can’t quite explain the whole thing.</p>
<p>He is a really bad guy, a Jekyll and Hyde, it turns out, but for some reason I didn’t see it that way until years into our marriage. I had plenty of clues early on that caused me a loss of sleep and a degree of anxiety, which I used to turn inward instead of acknowledging them for what they were - red flags about his behavior. I no longer ignore red flags.</p>
<p>He was very charming. Very good looking. Pursued me with fervor. In fact, (warning bells) wouldn’t take no for an answer when I had to turn him down for other engagements, like work or the master’s degree I was earning at the time. He’d show up wherever I was! Can you guess that he was ultra-possessive of my time after marriage? And that he was/is very stalker-like after the divorce?</p>
<p>Once I had him figured out for the kind of untrustworthy, deceitful person he is (a shell of a person - all image, no substance - very narcissistic), YEARS into our marriage, I could clearly see all the red flags that I ignored all along the way. But unfortunately, that was long after significant damage was suffered by the kids, my finances, and my (at one time) too-trusting heart.</p>
<p>He scares us to death to this day. It’s still all very bizarre to me in the wake of this very old matter. I’m actually smart. So how did I voluntarily walk into this mess and then stay there for so long?! My friends and family saw things that alarmed them. They were too polite to tell me until things began to unravel in a horrible, frightening way.</p>
<p>I don’t know if I’ll ever know how I got into that mess. But I can tell you that I can pick out people like him from a mile away now. So can the kids. It seems we are no longer vulnerable to pathologically deceptive, manipulative people. My kids amaze me with their sixth sense about that quality in a person. That’s the good news.</p>
<p>Oh… and that we’re very happy now, with our simple little lives that are focused on all the “big pieces” that mean so much to us. </p>
<p>Here’s to happily married folks who take good care of each other!</p>
<p>returningstudent-
Read this thread <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/427081-how-did-you-know-your-spouse-one.html?[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/427081-how-did-you-know-your-spouse-one.html?</a> from about a year or so ago. It has some priceless responses and should answer all your questions. It was a great thread. Hope everyone here will take a few minutes to read it.</p>
<p>Thanks a lot, SimpleLife. I too am happy for my happily married friends, but remain single (tho not without a special friend).</p>
<p>Its easy to get involved with a verbally abusive man/woman. They are so charming at first, and the early stage can last many years. Having a critical parent and being a people pleaser sets one up to attract such a person, and then to walk on eggshells rather than to leave. It gets harder to leave once children and finances are involved, but the children suffer anyway. Fortunately, there is a lot of lit. in this field.</p>
<p>Simplelife - my daughter is your clone and dated your husband’s clone for 2 years! We were *not *too polite to say what we thought but it made no difference. Fortunately she did see the light after 2 years then endured a year of rather scary stalkerish behavior but now is happily seems to be in a good place. </p>
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Could be my daughter’s words (except she fortunately never got as far as marriage). We have heart to hearts about it now and I will say I just can’t understand what she put up with what she did for so long and she is baffled herself. So many red flags and warning signs. Go to any web site about abuse and read the warning signs and she could put a check mark by almost every one. Honestly do these types have a manual or something?</p>
<p>I am so happy you are free of this and living your simple life.</p>
<p>I am also very impressed with all these wonderful stories. I’m afraid I’m not much of an expert on happy marriages, just unhappy ones. My parents’ marriage was very unhappy; I have vivid memories of lying in bed at night as a child and listening to them yell at each other. I never saw any visible signs of affection between them. I so hoped that I wouldn’t end up the same way. I fell in love with my ex on our first date, and we were married nine months later. I really thought we were perfect for each other. I’m embarrassed to admit that it was the first long-term relationship I’d been in, even though I was 31, and every friend I had advised me to wait longer. But I didn’t listen, and that was a huge mistake, because it didn’t take that many years to realize that this wasn’t the right person for me – even though we were together for 13 years. The one good thing that came out of the marriage was our son. There was a lot of verbal abuse, and no affection of any kind (verbal or physical) for the last 10 years we were together (my ex told me when our son was very young that I was no longer attractive, and that was that), and I found out after the marriage was over that there was infidelity throughout the marriage (I had been very gullible in accepting explanations for mysterious absences).</p>
<p>After that kind of personal and family history, maybe it’s understandable that the concept of a happy marriage is very difficult for me to comprehend! But I do know they exist; I just can’t imagine, especially at this point in my life, that I’m meant to be in a happy relationship, or another relationship at all. The thought of pursuing one just depresses me. I’m not even exactly sure what my sexual orientation is at this point!</p>
<p>Anyway, I’m sorry if I’m hijacking this thread. But please remember that love at first sight does not always signal a happy future.</p>
<p>Married 29 years to Mrs p2n and it was not love at first sight for me, though I fondly remember her long blond hair when I first saw her. We became acquainted, became friends, started enjoying each others company and it turned into love. I remember the day it transitioned vividly - she’d gone home while I remained at school. I could not wait for her return. When she finally did, that was when I told her what she meant to me. We still dated three years before we were married. What a woman!</p>
<p>Donna, I am very sorry you had such a time.</p>