A
awsmith1861
Guest
To respond to your comment, you are quite right. All about foundations and including God. We’ve been ridiculously fortunate in my opinion and very well blessed in our relationship with the Church community where we live now (a bigger city… still in Dixie).
I was very very leery of the whole relationship at first. I had never dated anyone more than 2 years away from me and honesty had not dated at all for 7 years before I met my wife. I was resigned to be a single man and actually was OK with the idea. Being single has its own rich rewards as does family life. But… well… she was one in a million and to this day we marvel at how fortunate we were to have found each other.
— thread derailment for cute story
We actually found out after the fact that we had crossed paths when she was WAY too young for anything remotely like considering marriage. She was SIX MONTHS OLD the 1st time we crossed paths. I was 15 or 16 and at a faire in Louisiana. Her family went every year and stood at the exact corner that I was at. Same thing when she was 1 year old and 2 at the same fair. Granted, I didn’t notice her or her family in the crowds.
THEN – this is the amazing part – I sold a CAR to her biological father when she was 8 and she actually came with her father to sign the papers. It was that same day that I dropped atheism and had to admit there was a God. Anyway, her father bought the car, failed to put insurance on it, and resulted in me getting a fine for not handing in the license plates which at the time I was unaware I had to do. I DO remember her from then because she was so quiet and well behaved and respectful (she said, “Yes, sir,” to me when I talked to her that day).
Fast forward after that another 9 or 10 years and then we met.
We didn’t put together the above chance meetings until we had been married for 2 years. Keep in mind also that she lived in South Mississippi at that time and I was living in Baton Rouge, Lousianna. So although she is from a very tiny town, that town was over a hundred miles from me yet I ended up selling her bio. father my car.
— thread derailment
We’ve actually been forced to move out of a house in large part due to the age difference and a neighbor running her mouth in the property owner’s ear about it.
“That’s illegal!” said the herd.
“Prove it!” said the judge.
“Pay me more than its worth!” said the lawyer.
No, we didn’t sue him. We just left when he started using subjective things to try and say we were in breach of the lease (ie. “the grass is 1/2 inch too high”, constant inspections, mysteriously saying he never received the rent check when it was in the mail, threatening letters about fabricated noise complaints from the neighbor who had huge issue with our ages, a neigbor who let her viscous dog bite several memberso f my family, etc).
All the adversity against us is easy to bear though. I suspect the most viscous of opponents are merely jealous that we have stayed married (8 year anniversary coming up real soon) and that she has been able to be a stay at home mom (we drive junker cars) AND that we put the kids in Catholic school (we drive only ONE junker car and eat lots of gumbo, jambalaya, potatoes, beef stew, and roasts… big cheap meals for our big family… and occaisonally bounce a check or two oh, and we buy 2nd hand clothing for everyone in the house).
I know I’m tooting the horn of my own marriage here, but its really easy to get everything to work if you just remember to say a rosary every now and then and to do prayers with the kids at night. The only ‘bad’ thing that has come of this is that some of her sisters have seen what happened (she got married, has a wonderful marriage, has a happy happy life) and think that the key to all of that love and happiness is getting married and having kids. They were very… very… wrong. They want all of that sans God. Needless to say, the dads involved in those children are not around and have nothing to do with their children.
Running off and getting married after a brief courtship is not recommended even by us. I would actually be more likely to agree to a marriage between my daughters and a man in his early 30s than I would be to my 17 year old daughter marrying another 17 year old boy. Bleh. Ya’ll know what I mean here. We even had pre-marital counseling from clergy because I wanted to be 110% sure we can NOT get an annulment. It could probably be proven to a Bishop the marriage was ‘invalid’ based on some baloney excuse. But we both know that would be a lie. 8)
I’m so sorry about running on. She’s sleeping this morning / her father is having a medium risk surgery today and I needed to just paint the fact that I still love her on the rooftops of the Internet. I’m worried about her when her parents die (they are adoptive parents – she was adopted by them at the age of 13 for a variety of sad reasons). Her biological parents are only 7 and 8 years older than I am so they are still relatively young.
The things I could go on and on about about her are endless. We still are ridiculously in love
Our 4 year old has all of the trimmings of a boy being groomed by Our Lady for priestly duties as a man. Lord, I could go on and on about that possibility.