# This is the person you married???



## fuzzybuddy (Mar 22, 2022)

You have a lot of friends and coworkers. Have you ever felt this when you met their spouses- OMG!! that's the person you married???  You would have never picked those two to be married. I have a friend., who is a labeler. Everything in the house is labeled and neatly stored. All the drawers are labeled,, and everything in its place. His wife can only ever find one shoe, has no idea where the other shoe is. This is the person you married???


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## Aunt Bea (Mar 22, 2022)

I experienced something similar when meeting the spouses of business executives that came up through the ranks to lofty positions within the company.

The childhood sweetheart, loving wife/husband, and mom/dad didn't always seem like a match to the hard-charging titan of business that had evolved over the years.

All that matters is that it works for the two people in the relationship.


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## Nathan (Mar 22, 2022)

Opposites attract, in most cases.   If two people were too much alike they'd drive each other crazy!


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## Bellbird (Mar 22, 2022)

Unfortunately they do attract, and drive you crazy, if they can.


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## Packerjohn (Mar 22, 2022)

Nathan said:


> Opposites attract, in most cases.   If two people were too much alike they'd drive each other crazy!


Not true in my case.  My late wife and I were soul mates and alike in at least 15 ways.  We were always together, thought alike on all sorts of issues and had a wonderful life together.  To me opposites to not attract.  I'm a morning guy.  Don't want some wife sleeping until 11 am.; for example.  I love to read and enjoy the company of people who like  to read also; not someone who sits in front of the TV all day long.

I have heard of this "opposites attract" theory over the years but I never believed in it.  Look at these opposites:
1. You like traveling but your spouse likes to sit home and watch sports all day.
2. You hate smoke but your spouse loves cigars
3. You enjoy wine or rum but your spouse doesn't drink and thinks your an alcoholic for having a glass of wine.
4. You love to budget and save but your spouse buys a new car every year and has maxed out on all their credit cards.
5. You love children; he can't stand the "little buggers."
6. She is a religious nut and wants you to join her church.  You can't stand church people.

One day, you are going to wake up, look at your spouse and wonder why in the world did you ever marry them?


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## RFW (Mar 22, 2022)

I always thought I'd be single for the rest my life. But I have no regrets now.


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## squatting dog (Mar 22, 2022)

When I got married, not one person I knew figured it could last more than 6 months. Well, 50 years and still counting.
Like Packer John, my wife and I are so much alike and shared all the same dreams. Add to that the fact that she has stood by me and my never ending war with demons just makes her about perfect.


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## Devi (Mar 22, 2022)

I don't listen to "they say" types of advice. I listen to what's right for me.

My husband and I are very much alike in many respects, including what we like to do and where we want to go in life. We decided to marry very early on (you're supposed to wait some ridiculous amount of time to find out ... something or other).

And our 40th anniversary is coming up soon.


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## Tish (Mar 22, 2022)

Nathan said:


> Opposites attract, in most cases.   If two people were too much alike they'd drive each other crazy!


Yep I agree with you 100%


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## Jace (Mar 22, 2022)

OMG, yes, at times...but what do they say..."Beauty is in the eye of the beholder".


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## Jeni (Mar 23, 2022)

I actually got this reaction every time i went to business functions for husband .......they often said they pictured someone else ... not me....

My spouse changed a lot and if i knew how he would be like this i might have thought more about saying NO when we were deciding to marry.

I think it is very hard to nail down what works and what does not.....
 i know long married couples that i am asking .. why? how? ..   they seem like a not a good match. 
then i know others who are so easy to get along with so fun and yet the are divorced 2+ times etc.....
i always wondered what about you am i not seeing and why they had a hard time staying in long term marriage etc.


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## Sassycakes (Mar 25, 2022)

I fell in love with my husband the day we met. He had a girlfriend and I had a boyfriend. We broke up with them the day we met. I'm sure there is something like love at first sight. We are married for over 50 yrs now. We have 2 precious children and 3 wonderful grandchildren. I would not want to live one day without him.


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## Autumn72 (Mar 27, 2022)

Sassycakes said:


> I fell in love with my husband the day we met. He had a girlfriend and I had a boyfriend. We broke up with them the day we met. I'm sure there is something like love at first sight. We are married for over 50 yrs now. We have 2 precious children and 3 wonderful grandchildren. I would not want to live one day without him.


What are the secrets the all precious ingredients that is the glue that forms the bond many people miss?
WOULD THE 1ST BE looks? I do notice the prettier the longer the men will stay.
Do correct me if I'm wrong.
As Paul with Gloria she in her early 50s, are still married. 
My cousin, she is very religious.
Her older daughter is a nun in New York.
Not as pretty as your picture for sure


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## squatting dog (Apr 1, 2022)




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## Shalimar (Apr 1, 2022)

squatting dog said:


> When I got married, not one person I knew figured it could last more than 6 months. Well, 50 years and still counting.
> Like Packer John, my wife and I are so much alike and shared all the same dreams. Add to that the fact that she has stood by me and my never ending war with demons just makes her about perfect.


Not to derail the thread, SD, but you must be a fine man to have fought such a horrendous battle for so long, and still be among us. I think your wife is a fortunate woman. I salute your courage, and thank you for your service. A friend  of mine fought in that war, and we lost him. Apologies to other posters for going off topic.


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## JonSR77 (Apr 1, 2022)

The Three Rings of Marriage...

1) The Engagement Ring
2) The Wedding Ring
3) The Suffer - Ring


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## JonSR77 (Apr 1, 2022)

Doctor: "I have horrible news, you only have six months to live."

Patient: "That is terrible! What should I do?"

Doctor: "You should get married."

Patient: "Get married? What are you talking about? With only six months to live? Why should I get married?"

Doctor: "You see, if you get married....that six months? It will FEEL like a lifetime..."


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## JonSR77 (Apr 1, 2022)

My wife is actually completely wonderful.  I fully believe in marriage.  I feel bad for folks who wind up in a bad marriage.


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## dseag2 (Apr 1, 2022)

My partner and I are so different on the surface but so alike.  He is brown and I am white.  I am 8 years older.  I'm sure no one would have picked us to be together.   

He was born in the Philippines but grew up in Central Florida (little hick town).  I was born in North Carolina (little hick town).  We both appreciate the whole "country" thing.  We are both somewhat introverted so we love staying home rather than going out.  He was into journalism when we met, and my father was an English major so I am a stickler for proper English.  Our first night together, I had booked a movie but we just stayed home and talked for hours.  Corny as it may sound, we connected at "soul" level. 

Fast forward... we often think the same thing at the same time and say it.  He often knows me better than I know myself.  I still appreciate how handsome he is.  

We moved in together a month after we met and have spent over 30 years together.  I couldn't ask for a better partner.


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## squatting dog (Apr 2, 2022)

Shalimar said:


> Not to derail the thread, SD, but you must be a fine man to have fought such a horrendous battle for so long, and still be among us. I think your wife is a fortunate woman. I salute your courage, and thank you for your service. A friend  of mine fought in that war, and we lost him. Apologies to other posters for going off topic.


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## Betty&Jeremy (Apr 3, 2022)

I get it a lot, most especially since my husband is nearly 40 years younger.  I also do not look like a cougar, i am a very classy woman. However what is difficult for people to understand is how our relationship developed. It's something I never would have dreamed of nor something I would have pursued, but more so he pursued me. It can also be embarrassing, but my love for him supersedes that. I would have thought the same thing prior to us getting married, I would have thought it of it a bizarre for such a big age gap.


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## fuzzybuddy (Apr 5, 2022)

It always struck me that whenever I met a spouce, he didn't fit the person I thought she'd married. Ya know, a 6 foot 4 inch guy, and a 4 foot, 11 inch wife. Or a runway model wife, and a shot, round guy. A chatty wife, and a guy who hasn't said two words. Somehow you'd never pair the two together.


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## spectratg (Apr 5, 2022)

My wife completed me.  I am greatly diminished as a person without her love and support.  She did give me 4 wonderful daughters (and now 5 grandchildren).  I don't know if people would have said we "go together" but for me she was the right person that I married.


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## Autumn72 (Apr 7, 2022)

spectratg said:


> My wife completed me.  I am greatly diminished as a person without her love and support.  She did give me 4 wonderful daughters (and now 5 grandchildren).  I don't know if people would have said we "go together" but for me she was the right person that I married.


And how did that happen?
Tell us the beauty of it all.
I love to read how people came together
It's very interesting.i may just copy cat the best of them.


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## Sassycakes (Apr 28, 2022)

I met my husband when I was 15yrs old. I wouldn't want to spend one minute alive without him by my side.


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## Autumn72 (Apr 29, 2022)

Sassycakes said:


> I met my husband when I was 15yrs old. I wouldn't want to spend one minute alive without him by my side.


All I can say is WOW, what are the ingredients?
You must be one beautiful woman.


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## Pappy (Apr 29, 2022)

We met at a diner in her hometown. I was 17 and she just turned 16. Somehow, as young as we were, I knew I had found my soulmate. Five months later, we were married while I was home on leave from the Army.

This coming December it will be 66 wonderful years. We have been blessed with 3 children, 9 grand children and 18 great grandchildren. Now, in our old age, we are taking care of each other the best we can and still loving every minute of our lives together.


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## Autumn72 (Apr 29, 2022)

Jeni said:


> I actually got this reaction every time i went to business functions for husband .......they often said they pictured someone else ... not me....
> 
> My spouse changed a lot and if i knew how he would be like this i might have thought more about saying NO when we were deciding to marry.
> 
> ...


Yes, that is it! If we could take a survey for this what would it reveal?
That would be a huge time saver for many.
Is there a wonder how this develops, the answer is a huge deal maker!
Imagine, all these eons all the people it would help to whip up what arranged marriages half conquered, yet we just read here the secrets of other lucky partnerships that are thriving.

What a win-win situation if we could only find the package and buy it instead of flip flopping our way through the lawyers areas of divorce. The only ones that gain from these is the Lawyers. 
The pain that could be avoided. Now if any bots out there.......maybe another issue a race to find a solution, this would break all the records. The need is above and beyond this world!.
At 72, my time is wearing thin. Hmmmm, I rest my case....if only .....I'd  be a zillionairer


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## Autumn72 (Apr 29, 2022)

Pappy said:


> We met at a diner in her hometown. I was 17 and she just turned 16. Somehow, as young as we were, I knew I had found my soulmate. Five months later, we were married while I was home on leave from the Army.
> 
> This coming December it will be 66 wonderful years. We have been blessed with 3 children, 9 grand children and 18 great grandchildren. Now, in our old age, we are taking care of each other the best we can and still loving every minute of our lives together.


Oh, my God, with a capital G.
Hearing this is amazing coming from a man saying this is so beautiful!
There truly needs to be a study on this planet.....why are some blessed.


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## Autumn72 (Apr 29, 2022)

Like a DNA for people matching that would be a guaranteed success
I think I've come up with a idea as in a ....who was that man before Edison, I do believevI am onto yet another brainstorm that someone else will open up the floodgates to the future probably when there's flying cars yet I will not be around to have the joy to feel.

It makes me wonder if this post is captured in a time capsule, will I be rewarded with the before Edison great invention starter road map into something the future will develop him maybe a journalistic view, along with a medical DNA  expert linking their heads together.


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## Autumn72 (Apr 29, 2022)

Bellbird said:


> Unfortunately they do attract, and drive you crazy, if they can.


Wondering again is this the ingredients for failed marriages?

Plus, what about these men, who wander in and out of relationships, as human nature is the top ingredient on these misleading packages.

 Why, the Lawyers, make out big time. Only ones so far gaining ground.
How can this war be fought to a more win-win situation.
I know this thread has taken me in and many will look at it as a joke.
Maybe my granddon, will benefit by it way into the future, I do hope so for he deserves it after losing his mother at 4 yrs old.


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## spectratg (Apr 29, 2022)

Autumn72 said:


> And how did that happen?
> Tell us the beauty of it all.
> I love to read how people came together
> It's very interesting.i may just copy cat the best of them.


          I met my wife Patricia (born on St. Patrick’s Day) in early 1970 at a Catholic young adult club in Washington, D.C., which was associated with the church where we were married at on October 9, 1971. I had known her for about 6 months before I asked her out, but once we started dating it didn’t take me very long (2 months) to realize that she was the woman that I was in love with and wanted to marry. You see we had initially gotten to know each other as friends, and both of us had been dating other members of the club the first time that we met. Patricia wasn’t quite as convinced; I followed her around her apartment as she was folding towels and trying to change the subject, but true love won out with an eventual “yes” from her (December 30, 1970).

          My wife passed away 8 years ago. My family (4 daughters and their spouses and my five grandchildren) had a beautiful, fun-filled outdoor celebration on what would have been our 50th wedding anniversary, October 9, 2021.


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## JustBonee (Apr 29, 2022)

Sassycakes said:


> I met my husband when I was 15yrs old. I wouldn't want to spend one minute alive without him by my side.



Same here...  I met my husband at age 15 
.... after 49 years of marriage, I lost him to health issues,    and it was a hard blow to take.  That was almost 10 years ago.


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## Bella (Apr 30, 2022)

A business colleague of my husband's got married many years ago. We attended the wedding and my husband was introducing me to some of the people I hadn't met. He introduced me to one fellow who said to my husband, "I pictured you married to a chubby blonde and here you are with a svelte brunette!" Thinking it is one thing, lol! I felt like saying to him, "At first I thought you were a gentleman but you're kind of a jerk."

I never thought I'd get married. You know you get to a certain age and your relatives start in on you. "When are you going to get married?!" ... yadda yadda, blah, blah, blah, lol. I'd finally had enough of it from one aunt and said to her, "You're right. I should follow _your_ example, get married, and be as happy as you are." She was on husband #3. To be fair, she was never divorced, she killed the other two, lol. I'm convinced of it. She eventually killed the third one, too. If she'd been younger when he died, no doubt, there would've been a #4.

The reason I didn't think I'd get married is because my parents were married six times between them. _Yeeess_, you read that right. Six! You think you're >>  << try it from this end. Follow me here. My father had been married before he met my mother, Marriage #1, so my mother was his second wife. Marriage #2. My parents divorced because my father was a jerk and cheated on my mother. How did that happen? They used to go out with another couple, I'll call them Dave and Dorothy. You can fill in the blanks. D&D divorced, my parents divorced, my father married Dorothy. Marriage #3. Still with me? Two years later my mother met a man. She married him and he became my stepfather. Marriage #4. My father was married to Dorothy until she died. It wasn't long before my father remarried, _again_. Marriage #5. #5 divorced him. On to #6. Long before Alec Baldwin starred in the movie, I called him "The Marrying Man". You can see why I was hesitant to get married, lol.

I met my husband when I was twenty-six. He was thirty-one. I never thought I'd meet my future husband in a bar!  We were introduced by a mutual friend. We got married four years later. We took our time because we wanted to be sure. See above.  It was the best decision I ever made in my life. We were crazy about each other. He was wonderful to me. He was the kind of man women want to marry. I was a _very_ fortunate woman. Even though we had a lot in common, and had a blast together, we had our differences. I didn't wanna marry my clone.      He died suddenly four years ago. I miss his company, his kindness, his patience, his counsel, his generosity, his smile, his laugh, his voice, his blue eyes, his beautiful feet, lol. My heart aches for him. I miss him every second of every day and will for the rest of my life. He was my boy. 

Do opposites attract? Can it/does it work? I think it depends on just how opposite you really are and how tolerant you both are of your differences. At first being attracted to someone who's different from you can be exciting... maybe it arouses your curiosity ... different lifestyle, different taste in food, different activities ... _especially if you're physically attracted to them ... _but that can quickly wear thin if you're always butting heads and disagreeing about what you deem important. Committing to and building a life with someone who's_ too_ different can be difficult and frustrating. However if you enjoy the constant push/pull of that kind of relationship and it doesn't drive you to suffocate them in their sleep, go for it! Personally I'd only be attracted so far to someone I had little in common with no matter how physically desirable they were. Some people are blinded by physical beauty/their desires and their brain fogs up. I think that's where a lotta people get f'ed up in choosing the_ wrong_ partner.

When first meeting, people usually put their best foot forward. You can't get to know someone overnight. It takes time to really get to know someone ... to see how they are in day to day life, how they act around your family/friends, how they act around their family/friends ... how they react to problems/challenges that surface ... and how they treat you over time ... do they support you? ... can you trust them? ... do they make you feel secure? ... do you share the same goals/values/dreams? Some couples meet and jump in because they're absolutely sure they belong together, and they live happily ever after. Others rush in and end up wanting to jump out the third floor window head first.

There can be physiological/biochemical reasons for later coming to the realization that you married the "wrong" person. It's about how chemistry/biology gets in the way of what Mother Nature intended. We can take a deeper dive into this if you're interested. It's an eye-opener. 

Ruby


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## Sassycakes (May 10, 2022)

Autumn72 said:


> What are the secrets the all precious ingredients that is the glue that forms the bond many people miss?
> WOULD THE 1ST BE looks? I do notice the prettier the longer the men will stay.
> Do correct me if I'm wrong.
> As Paul with Gloria she in her early 50s, are still married.
> ...


In our case looks didn't come into the picture. My Husband always got teased that he looked like Buddy Holly and except for my hair color I got teased that I looked like Patty Duke or Sally Fields. I think it was our personalities.


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## jujube (May 10, 2022)

I had a blind date with my husband and then a second date.  I wasn't "smitten" but he sure was.

He went back to California where he was stationed and I headed back to college on the east coast.

What followed was 9 months of phone calls and letters.  We decided to get married before he went overseas and he got home just in time to get a tux and go with me to grab a couple of wedding rings and pick up the marriage license.   I had to go apply for the license with a Sarge from the local Army base who had all our approved paperwork from the Army in order to get past the 3-day waiting period.  

I remember getting the "cold sweats" the day I was waiting for him to arrive.  What if, after a few hours together, we just didn't click together?  What if he had bad habits I couldn't endure?  What if, what if, what if???  I threw up twice that morning.

A cheap honeymoon and he flew away.  I followed three months later.

Did we *really* know each other?  Hell, no!  If we did, we probably wouldn't have married each other.  We had to grow up together and we had to do it in a foreign land with a baby 18 months later.

We had 37 years of a good marriage until his death.


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## Em in Ohio (May 11, 2022)

Betty&Jeremy said:


> I get it a lot, most especially since my husband is nearly 40 years younger.  I also do not look like a cougar, i am a very classy woman. However what is difficult for people to understand is how our relationship developed. It's something I never would have dreamed of nor something I would have pursued, but more so he pursued me. It can also be embarrassing, but my love for him supersedes that. I would have thought the same thing prior to us getting married, I would have thought it of it a bizarre for such a big age gap.


I believe it was George Burns who said:  "Age is a matter of mind, and if you don't mind, it doesn't matter.  (-:


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## Blessed (May 15, 2022)

I met my husband at age fifteen, we could not even drive yet.  We were both rather shy and unsure about ourselves.  We got to know each other at school.  Once we could drive to see each other everything changed.  I met his family and he mine.  I loved his parents and his large extended family; I did not have that.  His family embraced me as one of their own.  I was never so happy.  We married at 20 and I got to live a life with a man I adored and a huge, loud and loving family.  We built a wonderful family, spent every holiday, every Sunday at his parents.  There was no one that was not welcome in their home.  As I look back, I can say that I was truly blessed to be included in this family.  It ended when my husband died and 9 days later my MIL died.  Truly, the most devasting things in my life. I still have not regained any strength to keep going, I have done it, but I still long for what I can't have.


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## Della (May 15, 2022)

Devi said:


> *I don't listen to "they say" types of advice. I listen to what's right for me.*


I could start a "Quotes file" on all the wise things Devi says!


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