When I told Eric we should write a he said, she said post on marriage I was half kidding. He thought it was a brilliant idea and asked when his post was due. Alarms were going off in my head. Abandon ship! I didn’t really want to delve deep into a twenty-five year relationship. Could I even remember what I thought about marriage when I met Eric at nineteen years old? Unfortunately yes.

She Said

The Beginning

I won’t say it was love at first sight, but it was definitely interest at first sight. I was sitting in an apartment building lobby waiting for my office manager interview. He came off the elevator with his shoulder-length blonde rocker hair and flashed the most amazing smile I had ever seen. Soon after I moved into the building, worked in the office and searched the resident roster for his last name. Rausin? What kind of name was that?

Since he was a clueless twenty-three-year-old I stalked him at Sizzler where he worked as a waiter. He saw me and spilled soup on some poor woman. I laughed. A few days later he asked me out and we’ve been together ever since. It has not, by any means, been a fairy tale.

Three weeks after we began dating Eric graduated from the Musician’s Institute in Hollywood and moved to Newport Beach. Dating meant one of us had to drive two hours to spend the weekend with the other. Looking back I’d say this was a good thing because it allowed me time to find myself without him.

We dated exclusively for over a year and then I brought up the subject of marriage. Before I met Eric I had had three young men express an interest in marrying me so I thought talking about marriage at twenty years old was what everyone did. I had the whole marry my prince and live happily ever after dream floating through my mind. Except my prince said he was NEVER getting married AND NEVER having children.

The Bulls Lock Horns

After over two years of dating, I became pregnant with Arielle. The fairy tale was still playing on an endless loop clouding the reality of being with someone who had made it very clear what he didn’t want in his future. I still believed we’d get married, have our baby, and live happily ever after. Well, when my dream world clashed with the real world I woke to find, I was an embarrassment to my family, lacking a good education, and about to be a single mom. It was the scariest time in my life because I was completely unprepared and completely alone except for the extra heartbeat inside of me. It was the harshest wake-up call of my life.

Eric eventually decided he’d give it a try, the daddy thing, but he still wasn’t getting married because it was “just a piece of paper.” I insisted, he resisted. Each time I insisted I lost a little piece of myself. We loved each other and our daughter and that should have been enough for me but it wasn’t.

We went to a couples counselor. After several sessions, the counselor told us he didn’t understand why we were together. We truly were like two bulls locking horns neither one of us budging.  Well, our stubbornness toward each other turned towards the counselor and we developed an attitude of: What does he know about relationships?  We’ll show him that we can make it work! We never went to counseling again.

Looking back, I can say that even though I had a desire to get married I didn’t really believe that marriage made people happy. I believed in the idea of marriage. Society and my family taught me that that’s what young girls did, but the examples I was shown contradicted the fairy tale. My maternal grandparents, who I was very close to and loved deeply, had separate bedrooms. I never questioned it as a child. It’s the way it was. Grandmom’s room smelled of perfume and had a closet full of dresses and shoes. Granddad’s room had a bag of chewy gumdrops on the nightstand next to his bed.

My parents separated twice while I was growing up and throughout middle and high school I was often the sounding board for their marital issues. I promised myself I’d get divorced before I’d live in an unhappy marriage. Yet somehow I still believed in the fairy tale. Seeing the pain that marriage caused didn’t sway me from wanting it for myself. I suppose the fantasy was stronger than the reality.

Finally, when Arielle was two and half it happened. I had the wedding I’d always dreamed of. I knew Eric was doing it for me. He still felt strongly that his love didn’t need a license or anyone’s approval.

Fairy Tale Vs. Reality

I had finally gotten my fairy tale. I was married with a family and now I could feel like I was living the life society deemed appropriate. Then the reality hit. The wedding didn’t suddenly make life easier. As the years went by I began to understand that it wasn’t the ceremony or the marriage license that kept us together, it was the two of us putting forth effort every day to make our relationship work.  Boy, was it work! I taught him how to communicate his feelings and he taught me that not all feelings and issues had to be communicated. Sometimes silence allowed for introspection and forgiveness.

What I learned

Eric and I laugh now when we think of the past and how incredibly stubborn we both were. Whenever our children insist on doing something their way we point at each other and say “It’s your fault. They got it from you!”

Marriage is difficult, but it’s also incredible having someone in your life who knows you so well all it takes is a look, and they can tell what you’re thinking. Even though we’ve been together a long time I never take our marriage for granted. I’m constantly evaluating our happiness to make sure we’re OK. Eric has put up with my tendency to grade our marriage and coined the phrase “When you have more happy days than sad days you know it’s working. We’ve had more happy days.” I fully understand that if we don’t continually nurture our love for one another it can fade. Even a tree with deep roots needs water to live and grow.

Marriage is a journey. Whether it begins with a walk down the aisle isn’t near as important as whether you choose every day to see the person next to you and know that they’re there because they love you.

And now for Eric’s side of the story….

He Said

I met my wonderful wife in Hollywood, CA. She was there trying to make it as an actress while managing apartment buildings to get by. I was there studying music and had the good luck to live in one of the buildings she took over. I kept seeing this cute girl in the building’s office every day on my way to and from school. She always had a great smile and we would wave to each other as I passed. I remember her showing up one day at the restaurant where I worked. I noticed her right away and tried to impress her with my mad waiting skills. Sadly, this attempt backfired as I accidentally dropped a bowl of soup on one of the guests while trying to carry too many plates. She left while I was cleaning things up and I thought for sure that I had blown my chance.

Luckily, Krista didn’t hold that against me. I saw her a couple more times and she still smiled and waved when I went by. I knew I had to ask her out before I could do anything else that would embarrass me. So one day, after making several pointless trips to the lobby to work up my nerve, I asked her out. She said yes and it was the start of the rest of my life.

That is not to say it’s been easy. That has not always been the case. Shortly after we met my school ended and I moved back to Newport Beach, which is a couple of hours away from Hollywood. We did the long-distance thing for a while. It was tricky, but we made it work until all of a sudden I found out I was going to be a father.

I was not prepared to be a father. Unlike a lot of people, this was not something I ever wanted or planned on doing. Hell, I didn’t even know how to act around kids, so the thought of having one of my own was terrifying. Plus it meant that I would have to put my dreams on hold or perhaps give them up permanently. It was a very scary life change but in the end I moved in with Krista and we decided to make it work.

Oh, that sounds simple, but it wasn’t. We quickly realized that we had some fairly major differences. She wanted to get married, have more kids and get a nice house somewhere safe where she could have a lot of animals. I dreamed of doing well at work, having few responsibilities, good friends and lots of free time. Guess who was more determined 🙂

One of the real sticking points for us was marriage. I was not a big fan of religion. I was not raised in a religious household and did not attend church more than a few times in my life. As a result, my opinion of organized religion was rather negative. I could easily see a lot of the problems it caused, but couldn’t see many that it solved. So the thought of having a pastor condone our love seemed rather pointless and hypocritical to me. After all, I had already committed to Krista and Arielle. I didn’t need a holy blessing or a piece of paper to prove that. So, like an idiot, I dug in my heels and refused to get married.

This put Krista in a horrible position. She had been raised within the church community and had inherited all the stigmas that go along with it, particularly the one condemning people for having a child out-of-wedlock. Her whole extended family was religious, so every time she talked to them she was reminded that people were talking about us – and not in a good way. Pressure from society was building, but I felt prepared to deal with all that.

What I hadn’t counted on though, was the effect it would have on Krista. Not being married was hurting her. It was something she had wanted from the time she was a little girl and not having it was making her question everything in her life, especially me. My stubborn resistance to society’s pressure was destroying the rock on which I had built my life.

When we finally got married, it was fantastic. My wife was happy again. I had proved my love to her, and in doing so had made her childhood dreams come true.

It also made me realize a funny thing about dreams, they are contagious. The life that I once thought I wanted no longer seemed so attractive anymore. I realized that it had become so much more important for me to spend time with my wife and beautiful baby girl. And maybe one day even have more kids, buy a house and have lots of animals.

Nah, that was just crazy talk 🙂