For young stallions like myself (and CV?) these kind of stories are of interest, intrigue, and inspiration.

Tell yours!

How much/little did you have to compete or fight? How long did you wait? How did you change after you met her...after the wedding...after 20 years?

If you planned some elaborate proposal like during skydiving or something, I guess that would fall under this category as well.

I'm no longer young, but I'm still wondering how it all works. Feel free to enlighten me.

Psst...CV...Oil of Olay...

22 years and a divorce later and I'm left wondering how its all supposed to work. Go to the deaf monk for enlightenment.

Since I already had this written out.... (I have a "light", 9-page autobiography that I wrote fifteen years ago. Come to think of it, I should pick it up again to update the last 15 years!!):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was at this point that I met Joyce. My parents were in the beginning stages of a large-scale cat collection, and Joyce worked for a local veterinarian. I met her while bringing the cats in one by one for pills. She worked alone, running the animal hospital while the vet wasn't in...which was several days a week. We talked for a little while over the first cat's appointment. I went home and back, bringing in a second cat and we talked a while longer. I did the same for a third cat, talking for another hour before asking her if she would like to go out on a date with me on my birthday, as I had no plans and would be alone. She politely declined.

A week later, I was packing for a visit with my grandparents when Joyce called. The problem was, I didn't know who was calling at first and didn't get her name. When I did realize who it was, it seemed too late to ask her to repeat her name, and I didn't remember it from the week before! She said she had some old photos that she had found, and was wondering if could give her an idea of the age of the photos. I told her that I would stop by at her workplace in another hour or so on my way to New Jersey. I expected to be able to impress her by dating one-of-a-kind historic photos of long-dead ancestors using all of my knowledge of the history of photography and various chemical processes. When I arrived, I found her with a handful of snapshots, all from the same period.... some of which had 1960's cars visible in them.... and all of the prints stamped with the familiar "This paper manufactured by Kodak" on the back of each one. My potentially impressive detective skills would not impress.... I told her that the photos appeared to be between 19 and 20 years old. She sheepishly admitted that the photos were a ruse.... and she just wanted to give us a second chance at getting together. I still didn't remember her name, but we made plans to go out when I got back from New Jersey.

Her name was still only on the tip of my tongue the day of our date, so I decided to be a little sneaky about finding it out. Knowing Joyce was the only one at the animal hospital that day, I had my mom call and ask a few generic questions. This way, she could casually ask at the end of the call "by the way, who am I speaking with"? Problem was, my mom said who she was at the start of the phone call. Joyce and I went out to dinner and I ended up telling her the whole story. It ended up ok, we were married two years later.

Lovely story Mark. Well written.

However, I do find it humorous that a story about the joys of marriage ends in a disclaimer that true happiness is making sawdust.

My story is not nearly as fun and I don't have time to make it elegant but here it is..
My wife Sharon and I actually went to the same high school together but never met and never even noticed each other. I have no idea how. It wasn't a big schoolby any means.

In my second year of college, I ended up sharing an apartment with two guys and at some point some girls I did know from high school moved into an apartment right beside us. Sharon was friends with these girls and was visiting them frequently, especially to go out at night.

Oddly, we still never met in the apartment building but met in a bar (Sorry Mom but see, you can meet nice girls in a bar.) She had been noticing me in the building but was too shy to approach me. Obviously, I was blinded by all the typical college fun I was having because I didn't see her. Anyways, with a little liquid courage, she asked me to dance and the second she did, I knew my life as young, frivolous, single student was over before it even really got started, but oddly, it seemed like a good thing.

We started chatting and I couldn't believe that we went through life in a small high school, had similar friends, and that she had been visiting my building for a month and we had never spoken until that night.

we have had ups and downs, a brief breakup while dating, and marriage is not always story book, but I wouldn't trade my life with her for anything.

Oooh, fun!

I met my wife Jessica during my freshman year at UC Berkeley (1995). She lived on the same floor as I did in the dorms. She had a slightly rebellious, powerful personality, and quickly generated a fan-club comprised of other guys in the building. She organized a midnight poetry reading club that met at the base of the bell tower. Naturally, I participated.

My roommate was the first to date her. I was secretly appalled, because I thought I was a better man and thought she deserved better. But as with many things in life, it's the person who puts in the work that gets the reward. The worst part was coming home from classes at the end of the day and seeing the paperclip on the bulletin board outside our door -- our agreed-upon signal that I should not enter the room...

That summer, I stayed at Berkeley and got a job in the computer labs. She went home and got a summer job there. She lived not too far from her boyfriend, but they broke up pretty quickly after school got out. (He actually visited her at work to break up with her.)

Fast forward to sophomore year. Ken and I are roommates in the dorms, Jessica is living in a co-op, but working at our dorm security desk in the evenings. Ken and I start to hang with a different crowd, but our circles intersect enough that we remain friends. Jessica and I start to go to the 10pm candlelit mass together on Sundays.

Summer after sophomore year, Jessica and her friends get a rental right next to campus and are going to completely repaint the inside. I volunteer to help. It's a fun summer, lots of good times, but I am yet to make a move. Ken and I and another friend also move into a rental. Our free time starts to fill with computer games (Marathon!) and drinking.

Junior year starts. I'm still going to church with Jessica. I look forward to the walks and talks on the way there and they way home. Eventually, in the second semester, I tell myself I have to make a move. So I write a letter because I know I'd just stumble over my words. But I don't write a letter, I type it. And print it. And push it through her mail slot about 5 minutes after I've said goodbye to her after a post-church walk home. (Pretty pathetic, no??)

So there, I've done it. I go home, feeling like a great weight has been lifted from my chest. She'll know how I feel about her and how I've felt for a long time, regardless of how she reacts.

A few days later, she knocks on my door, hands me a typewritten letter, and insists I read it then and there. It's not what I want to see. In summary, how could I dump all of this on her -- in a typewritten letter no less -- and expect a positive response? She says I'm a great guy but all this is too much for her for the moment. I'm distraught.

A couple days later, she says she's changed her mind and wants to give us a shot. We date for a few days, she changes her mind again. She breaks up with me. This is the worst I've ever felt.

After many more ons and offs -- I broke up with her the last time we were separated -- we finally reunited in late 1999 with renewed commitment and have been together ever since. Married July 5, 2002. Since we've done so much separating and reuniting already, we figure it's out of our systems and we'll last until death.

Sometimes it's fun to play with that on/off switch.

I call 'em the volume button and the channel button. Wait, what were we talking about again?

No one has a direct quote from the Notebook yet. I'm impressed :P.

Cause only our wives have watched it.

We were high school sweethearts.

Summer 1993: The summer before my sophomore year of high school. Her father got a job in a nearby town, and her family moved to my town. She met one of my best friends in band camp over the summer, and they started dating. I was jealous.

As the fall progressed, their relationship went downhill, as the majority of high school relationships do. Early in '94, they officially broke up. After a month or so, I (extremely nervously) asked her if she'd like to attend another friend's birthday party together. She agreed.

One thing led to another and soon we were 'going steady'. We went through a couple of 'see other people' spots, where one or the other would go out on a date with someone else. Had a juvenile/high school fight or two. We'd always come back together after a week or two. By the end of our junior year, to the end of HS, were were practically inseparable. Quite disgustingly sweet.

After high school, I got a scholarship at one college, while she went off to a different college. 4 hours apart. While the reality of being apart was sad, we tried to be practical about the matter. We agreed to a mutual 'date other people' agreement, where we'd allow each other the freedom to explore and have fun. We kept in regular contact with ICQ (woot) and phone conversations. We had a great friendship.

We each had a few minor interests with others, had a few 'college experiences', and so forth. But it quickly became clear that we really just loved each other, and that we both just really wanted to be together. I had a car, and so I started visiting her at her college a couple weekends a month. She'd come see me when she could snag a ride with someone. For her sophomore year, she was forced to move to a different college - this one was now a 5 hour drive away. It didn't matter.

And that's what we did, for the rest of college. I put almost 75,000 miles on two different cars traveling to go see her in those last 3.5 years of college. Unlimited mobile-to-mobile cell-phone minutes and instant messaging (this was before twittering & facebook) kept us together. We started spending holidays together.

By our senior year of college, we and our families knew that it was pretty much a done deal that we'd get married. I proposed to her in Milwaukee, WI (she was attending UWM) in the fall of 1999. Nothing fancy, just an ok ring, on bended knee in a park overlooking Lake Michigan after a nice dinner. She of course accepted.

I already had a good job lined up by the time we graduated, so she moved back here and we got an apartment together. We got married a few months later, in the fall of 2000.

Almost 9 years later, and we're still as happy now as we were back in high school. A lot of people say that long-distance relationships don't work. We're proof that they can. And that was before the hyper-connectedness of today's internet world. In fact, we both think that the long-distance separation played a big role in forcing us to realize how much we really liked each other. It's the whole, "you don't know what you have 'till it's gone" thing. Being apart forced us to realize that we had something special and wanted that for the rest of our lives.

Ding!

This thread needs a link to the most awesome wedding invite ever.

http://metalmother.com/motherboard/index.php/2008/11/married/

Awesome.

I second that "awesome."

I second that second.

I'm going to give you the finger. The ring finger.

Is that what the kids are calling it these days?