Why I Fell For My Husband

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What made Greg so special to me that I stayed with him and never dated anyone else?

There were so many things I admired about him:

  • My Daddy approved of him and liked him.  That was THE most important thing to me!  I had always been my Daddy’s girl.
  • He was a good student and made great grades in his honors classes – so I felt like we were fairly evenly matched intellectually.  But he wasn’t prideful about it at all.  That was refreshing!.
  • He made me laugh a lot.
  • He was a gentleman.  He got a job so he could pay for gas money to see me and take me out and take me to restaurants and Christian concerts.
  • He was so generous to my family.  At Christmastime, he would come with a huge black garbage bag – as if he were Santa or something – and he always had wonderful, thoughtful gifts for everyone in my family, including my grandmothers.
  • I felt so connected to him.  We talked for an hour every night – on a phone with a cord!  Cordless phones were yet to be invented.  There was no caller ID.  There was no internet.  There were no cell phones.  Yes, I am that old!   He would tell me about his day for about 25 minutes, then I would talk about my day for 5.  Then was my FAVORITE time – I got to ask him deep questions about spiritual and philosophical things and about our relationship.  That was the best part of my whole day!
  • Greg was very mature for his age – he really stood out compared to the other guys I knew.  He didn’t do silly, ridiculous things to get attention.
  • He didn’t flirt with other girls, I always knew I had his whole heart.
  • He knew what he wanted – and he knew how to get it.  He had a quiet, wise strategy about him.
  • He treated me like I was the most precious and valuable girl in the world.
  • We were both in high school when we met – I was in 10th grade and he was in 11th.  But I had total confidence in his ability to tackle challenges and do well in life.
  • He didn’t rush me or push me to go farther than I wanted to.  He didn’t rush my emotions.
  • He respected my body, virginity and chastity.
  • He loved God and had a relationship with Christ.
  • He made going to church a huge priority and we had very similar theological views.
  • He had a quiet confidence about him – not arrogance at all – but a very attractive confidence in himself as a man.
  • He protected my twin sister and me when there were guys who troubled us and wouldn’t leave us alone.
  • He got along really well with everyone in my family.
  • He played with my little brother a lot.
  • His older brother had met his future wife when he was in 10th grade – and Greg was already looking for wife material and a long term commitment, not just a girlfriend.
  • He was EXTREMELY stable emotionally and spiritually.
  • Greg almost never lost his temper.  He had a great deal of patience and self-control.
  • Greg didn’t yell.  He was not an angry guy. BIG points there!
  • He got along well with adults and with everyone.
  • His parents were Christians, his Dad was a pastor and they had a solid marriage.
  • Greg enjoyed life and lived in the moment.  He knew how to relax and savor life.  I really admired that and was intrigued by the way he lived his life.
  • He was trusting and never acted jealous of the friends I had at my school.  We went to different high schools.  He did wonder why so many of my friends were guys.  I just thought guys were easier to talk to than girls.  But he knew that I was completely trustworthy and he didn’t question me or try to control me at all.
  • When we saw someone that needed help – Greg didn’t think twice, he would stop and help them.  That impressed me a lot.
  • He was a very responsible driver and he was responsible with money.
  • He was extremely athletic – he had played high school football until the year I met him.  He was strong and muscular, but I always knew I was safe with him.  He NEVER raised a hand to me or yelled at me or abused me in any way.  He was a complete gentleman and I could trust him.
  • He took such good care of me when I was sick.  He would get me anything I needed.  Even when I had mono in 11th grade and none of my other friends would come to my house – he would call me at lunch every day to check on me and come visit me on the weekends and cuddle with me.  He was very thoughtful and would get tissues or soup or whatever I wanted when I was sick.
  • He was so understanding of my hormones.  I can remember getting on him one time about our relationship and how it wasn’t going the way it should and there were so many problems… He calmly said, “Your period is going to start tomorrow.”  I got so angry!  ”That has NOTHING to do with this!”  And I continued on about what I thought needed to be changed ASAP in our relationship.  Then the next day, my period started, and my emotions were fine.  Hmmm.  Maybe he was right!
  • He never wavered.  He was devoted to me from day one.  He never gave me any reason not to trust him. He was loyal and faithful and committed to me.
  • He asked my Daddy’s permission before he asked me to marry him – I didn’t know that until later, of course.  But that impressed me greatly!

WHY I BROKE UP WITH HIM ONCE

We met when I was 15 and Greg was 16.  We were together from that point on.  I never had another boyfriend.  I think he had kissed 2 other girls earlier.  But he was my first and only boyfriend.

The summer before I started college – I started having some doubts.  I had never been with anyone else.  I never really actually chose Greg.  I just realized months into our relationship that we were exclusive and committed.  I started thinking about how much he loved to watch tv all the time and how much he loved football and how I didn’t like those things at all.  I wondered if I could live with that the rest of my life (it is definitely good to be able to accept a guy the way he is!).  I wondered if he was as strong in his faith in Christ as I was.  He didn’t talk about his faith as much as I did.  He wasn’t as verbal about God.  I wondered why he didn’t pray with me that much.  (Now I know that our personalities were different and that we had masculine and feminine differences – and it wasn’t a deal breaker that he didn’t talk as much about God or want to pray out loud.)

And then I asked some guys in my youth group for advice.  Some of them wanted to go out with me, I guess.  I didn’t see it then!  I also asked this guy I had been pen pals with since 7th grade for advice.  He always said he was like my “big brother.”  But he wanted to date me.  So all these guys told me to dump Greg.  And I decided they were right and came home and broke up with him.

It was AWFUL!  We both cried.  It was the only time I had ever seen him cry up to that point.   He left.  Then the next day he called me and asked why exactly we had broken up.  I wrote out a 3 page single spaced  list of all the reasons why I was breaking up with him and read them all to him.  He said, “that’s true, that’s true, that’s true…”  as I read each item on the list.

One of my concerns was that I tended to just go along with what he thought without making decisions on my own.  So when we saw each other a few weeks after we broke up – and I realized that I REALLY did love him and wanted to be with him – he made sure I made decisions on my own about whether I wanted him to be with me or not.  Looks like I figured out how to get my own way and make my own decisions a little TOO well – based on the first 15 years of our marriage!  Yikes!

That was a painful 3 weeks.  But I think it helped us redefine our relationship and helped us grow and mature.  I hadn’t given him any hope that we would get back together.  But we did.  I was able to purposely choose him and we rebuilt our relationship in a much stronger way. Things were actually better than ever after that.  He treated me even better than before and he grew spiritually and he started writing the sweetest love letters and poems to me.

I AM SO THANKFUL FOR GREG!

I couldn’t ask for a better man.  I wish I hadn’t messed things up so much after we got married.  We were totally unprepared for marriage, conflict and many of the very difficult challenges we faced the first summer we were married.  If only I knew then what I know now about men and marriage and being a godly wife!!!  But I am extremely thankful for God’s gift to me in Greg.  I’m beyond grateful to be his wife – and I can never thank God enough for giving me all this time to make things up to Greg and to treat him with the respect and cooperation he deserves.  I count myself to be the most blessed woman on the planet.