Committed: The Ties that Bond
with Angella Dykstra
I'm a mom of three, a professional accountant, and an amateur photographer and writer. I am not a marriage expert. But my husband and I take "Til death do us part" seriously, and here I'll be sharing how we keep our marriage strong while we both do that insane work-life juggle.
Check out my Work It, Mom! profile and my blog, Dutch Blitz.
I read an article over at Yahoo! Shine titled, “How did you know you loved him/her?” The author talks about the kind of love that she shares with her significant other; the kind of love where they love you for who you are and not for who you were or who you could be.
I stopped to think about when I first knew I loved my husband. I’ve mentioned many times over that the time span between our first date and getting engaged was one month. Yes, you read that right.
I obviously love him far differently now, after nearly ten years of marriage, than I loved him in the beginning. The love we have now still has those moments of butterflies but the bulk of it is that comfort and security that comes from a long history together. We’ve worked hard to get to where we are today and have that cozy kind of love.
Back to when I first knew; I remember walking into my apartment after our first date (dinner and conversation that lasted for hours) to see my roommate sitting up waiting for me. It was nearly midnight and she knew it must have been a good night for an early bird like me to stay out so late. She asked me how the evening went and I replied, “This one’s different.”
I knew in my gut that this guy, this relationship was different somehow. I don’t know if I could say that I loved him then, but my heart was telling me that I was on the right path.
How about you? When did you know that you were in love?
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I met him after I had already decided to move to another country. We dated anyway but kept things casual (well, we tried to keep things casual. I think I was in denial about how strongly I felt about him.) After I moved away, I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I moved back a year later and we’ve been together since.
hillary | October 16th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
I had already moved away when we started dating-but unlike Hillary, it was only 4 hours away, not a whole ‘nother country/continent.
One night, we were talking on the phone, and he started talking to his cat like his cat was a person…which is what I do. And it melted my heart and I knew instantly that he was special.
Have I mentioned I’m a crazy cat lady??
Meg | October 16th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
My husband and I were highschool sweethearts. But it wasn’t until we moved across the country together I knew he was the one. We were both out of our parents houses and had to depend on each other so much. It was a make or break situation and we made it.
Jenn
Jenn | October 16th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
I’m still just newly in love… my boyfriend and I have been together for just 3 months… but I think this one is the one. It wasn’t a single moment when I knew I loved him, but I remember about 2 weeks into dating, feeling like things were going too quickly (we were basically inseparable after our second date), completely freaking out, and deciding I was going over to his house to end things with him. I am pretty commitment-phobic so that wasn’t a really big deal for me to decide that after just two weeks. But I got there and lost my nerve… somehow it didn’t seem right to end things once I was there. So I stayed and ended up just talking about how I was feeling… and he was so sweet and willing to do whatever it took to make me feel more comfortable. Spend less time together, not date exclusively yet, whatever I wanted. I completely relaxed and had the best night with him!
Surprisingly, after we’d talked about it, all my fears about things moving too quickly just melted away. In the following week, I stopped being scared and let myself feel the feelings that had been frightening me before, and I distinctly remember several moments where I was overcome by such a strong rush of love for him that I very nearly accidentally said it out loud without thinking. It only took one week of that before we both said “I love you” - we both blurted it out at the exact same moment! It was awesome.
sparklytosingle | October 18th, 2009 at 3:10 am
It was months into our relationship before I figured it out. I had worked a long day but we went to one of his work related social events. After we left it, we hopped into his car. I put my head back and fell fast asleep. And he let me sleep the entire way home. He woke me up so gently when we got to my house. I knew that I loved him at that moment.
Grace | October 18th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
We knew each other for 7 years before we started dating, and when we started dating, I knew this one was different. And about 2 weeks after we started dating, we had our first date together. (Heh, we were dating by phone and email because we lived three hours away from each other!)
That first date was a weekend together at my grandparents’ farm. During a competitive game of croquet (believe me, it’s competitive when my cousins are involved!), I looked over at him in a shaft of sunlight and realized…I love him.
Krista | October 22nd, 2009 at 4:13 pm