Now if you know me at all, you know that meek, mild, submissive and many other Biblical adjectives used to describe a good wife do not come naturally to me. I am normally much more brass, loud and controlling. When I saw that
Courtney, at Women living well, had issued a marriage challenge for the summer, realizing that I need all the help I can get, I knew I better participate.
The first assignment in the challenge is to share our dating story and vow to do something that will captivate your husband the way he was captivated when the love was new. You can read and join the full challenge by clicking on the "completing him challenge" button. Also, please feel free to join in on the challenge whether you blog or not. If you don't have a blog, leave me a comment about what you will be doing to captivate your husband.
~1994~I have shared some of our dating story here but I will go over it again. Monty and I met while working at Taco Bell. I was a shift manager and he started working there as a second job. Sparks flew with Monty and I from that very first day. Monty says that he fell in love as soon as I walked through the door. I obviously felt something as well because I popped off with one of my famous smart aleck comments. That kinda got the ball rolling and the little games began. It was just within a few days that he was always teasing me and tickling me whenever he was around. He would come by every night that I was working on his way to his other job (he was the overnight manager at a 24 hour McDonald's). He told all of our fellow employees that we were getting married. They all just laughed but he assured them that they would see. I had been in an abusive relationship for several months and was trying to get out of it. One night, after an especially explosive night at home, I walked to a payphone and called Monty. I still don't know what made me call him. We had never talked outside of Taco Bell. Maybe it was because it was the middle of the night and I knew he would be working all night. Whatever the reason, we talked on the phone while he worked all night. We had only known each other and been sharing over night phone calls for a few days (or maybe a few weeks. I'm not really sure but I know it went really fast) before he asked me out on a real date. Our first date was on October 8, 1994. He picked me up in the early afternoon and took me to an arcade. We played lots of games there and he won me a little stuffed monkey, which he immediately started referring to as our first son. After the arcade we went bowling where he had no mercy and really kicked my butt. He was on a league at the time and was pretty good whereas I had not bowled in years. We then had dinner and saw a movie. It was really a whole day together instead of just a date. Even after spending the entire day together, we just did not want it to end so we sat talking in the car until the sun was about to come up. Monty says that he knew I was the one because we spent the entire day together but he was to scared to even hold my hand (something that was surprising since neither of us had been practicing Godly, pure relationships). After that first date it was clear to both of us that we were meant to be together. It took him a whole 6 days before he asked me to be his girlfriend. I tried to discourage him because I was moving 2 hours away in just another week. I knew that moving was the only way I would be able to get away from the abusive ex. Plus he had caused me so many financial problems, I needed to move back in with mom to regroup and get things back under control. Monty convinced me that we would make it work. On October 14, 1994 we officially became an item. A week later I moved and our long distance relationship began. Neither of us had cell phones and long distance calls were still expensive so we had to use the old fashioned post office to keep in contact.
We wrote letters and sent cards almost on a daily basis. I kept/keep all his letters in this notebook. Although I am normally very camera happy, for some reason the picture on the notebook is the only one I have of us when we were dating.
I do however have several of these hand drawn balloony, bubbly, hearty love pictures.
When I was living with my mom is the only time in my life I have gotten cards for EVERY holiday. He wrote me poems and letters and we each really poured our hearts out to each other on paper. I lived with my mom for about 10 months before I was financially ready to move back to Oklahoma city. When I got back into my own apartment, we began our life together. A few months after I got my apartment, his lease was up and we decided to live together. I
f I only knew then what I know now, I would not have encouraged this step. We did all the things that couples do.
We have lots of keepsakes from our times together stored in this little box.
It holds things like movie tickets, bowling score cards, tapes that we had made for each other while we were apart, balloons, the first present(a Taz watch) he gave me, Happy New Year hats and even the receipt from our blood test and marriage license. We spent the next 2 years living like we were married. When we found out we were going to be parents, we knew it was way past time to make it official. Because there was some tension from both of our families concerning the whole inter-racial thing, we decided to just go to the court house and get married without telling anyone. We decided to do that on October 14, 1997-three years to the day that he asked me to be his girlfriend. It was so exciting to decide the date and time, make the plans, get everything prepared , and make the trip to downtown Okc with nobody knowing. When it was official, we stopped in at Taco Bell to show everyone that we really did get married. Just like he had told them we would 3 years before. They gave us free food for lunch and then some of the girls threw rice at us when we left. We then stopped by his mom's job to show her our new license. We spent the rest of the afternoon calling everyone we knew to tell them the news.
Now, part of the challenge calls for me to do something that reminds my husband of the "wife of his youth." I have talked to Monty some in the last few days to get some of his ideas. He is now VERY suspicious as to what I may be up to~hehehe! I have decided to try to bring back an appearance, and attitude and and action.
The first thing I am going to do is bring back the braid. A few years before we met I had gotten my hair cut from very long to about shoulder length. Before I cut it, I braided one little section right behind my ear to keep long. I even bleached the braid blond for a while. When I met Monty, my hair was long again but I still had the braid and he loved it. He still mentions it so I will bring it back, at least for a while.
As for the attitude, I need to bring back my confidence. Monty gets very upset with me when I put myself down and always tells me I never used to do that. In my defense-I wasn't quite as over weight then , and had not yet had the chance to be a horrible mother or wife yet. I know he hates it when I feel that way and especially when I voice it and to be honest, it doesn't make me feel any better either. I am gonna work on that.
Now the action I am going to take is bringing back the game nights. Monty and I ALWAYS used to play games. Before we had kids, our kitchen table always had a running game of scrabble or trivial pursuit on it. We do still play games with the kids but I know my husband really misses the very competitive and very serious battles of wits and knowledge that we always shared. I have to make time for just the 2 of us to play together.
Well there is our story and my plans to captivate my husband again....what are you gonna do???
