"How I Met My Spouse"

All my thanks to everyone who took the time to send in stories.  They truly gave me inspiration.  Here are just a few of the stories.

First from the winner, Jo Ann Zimmerman:

At 25 years old and with the birth of my daughter (I was still in the hospital), I found out that the man I was married to no longer wished to stay married.  Little did I know he did not want a child much less a wife.  I packed up a few of my belongings and filled my old Chevy Camaro with as much baby stuff as would fit.  The trunk was tiny on that old car so I piled most things in the back seat all the way up to the ceiling and made a bee-line back home with my daughter to live with my mother and her brand new husband.

After being home for some months I began dating a good friend from “the old neighborhood.”  His name was John.    He was a really fun person, but eventually I discovered he was alcoholic.  I called him and told him I wasn’t going to date him any more.  It just wasn’t safe to have my daughter around an alcoholic.

My mother overheard my phone conversation and quickly called her best friend Sara.  I had known Sara from the time I was in high school and even her daughter graduated with me.  I never knew Sara’s son Gary because he was 5 years older than me and was never around.  He attended college away from home, and then graduated and married.  His marriage was ending around the same time mine was.

My mother and Sara decided they definitely wanted Gary and me to both move on with our lives and they decided that we would be a good match.  They hadn’t really anticipated marriage for us, but they thought by having us meet and go to dinner and the movies together that we would become good friends.

 Sara and my mother arranged what they tried to make look like a chance meeting for all of us.  

I had been cutting the grass, was sweaty and had grass stuck to my legs.  My mother tried her hardest to get me to change clothes prior to them showing up, but I insisted I didn’t need to get dressed up; no need to if she was having visitors … not me.

 It was one of those “I just happened to be in the neighborhood” type meetings.  Gary and his mother stopped by my mother’s house one Saturday afternoon in mid summer.  He was driving his motorcycle and his mother was riding on the back.  They made a real sight -- a nice looking young man with a much, much older woman hanging on to the back of the bike.  They weren’t the typical bikers with leather jackets.  They were sporting summer time casual clothing.

When we met, Gary also got the opportunity to meet my daughter, who was by this time 3 years old.  She like him from the moment she met him.  She pulled out all of her favorite story books for him to read with her.

A day later he called me to arrange dinner and the movies.  I had never actually had a real date with anyone who wanted to take me to dinner and the movies on the same evening.  My ex-husband never had; he spent his money on other women. My high school and college dates never had any money.   And my alcoholic friend John … well, you know what he spent his money on.

After 6 months of dinners and movies, Gary proposed and I quickly accepted.  He adopted my daughter immediately after we were married.  We both knew this marriage was right.  This week we’ve just celebrated our 24th wedding anniversary.   Gary put my daughter through college for her to earn her doctor of clinical psychology degree, and we also had a son together who is entering his junior year of college.  Our lives together have been wonderful.  The only regret we have is that we didn’t meet each other sooner. 

I loved these next two.  Chuckled all day.  First from Allison Collins:

I met my husband at the nut house....Morrow's Nut House, to be precise!  I was working there summers during college, and he worked at the warehouse.  I met him when he made a delivery to the store I was working in.  I thought he was really attractive and TALL (he's 6'6"), which is perfect for me (as I'm 5'10"); I found out later that he had just turned 18, and I was 21 at the time so I was afraid people would think I was robbing the cradle.  We became friends and fell in love through letters after he left to join the Army.  We were married a year and a half later, and we celebrated our 20th anniversary last September!

And from Suzanne Bischoff:

I met my husband in prison.
I was a nurse and he was a guard, talk about opposite ends of the spectrum. I had to patch the inmates up after the guards rolled on the discipline for infractions (especially throwing nasty things, or hitting a guard). We met at the Attica prison, he was there during the riot. Stories to tell you would not believe. I met Mark David Chapman (John Lennon's killer) and David Berkowitz (Son of Sam Killer). How
is that for a story line?

Then there were the stories of friends becoming lovers:

Janine:

I was friends first with the man I will be marrying in October.  I first dated his brother while he was broke up with his girlfriend (my mother set me up with him because he was her neighbor and thought he needed a good woman).  He introduced me to Russ and we hit it off pretty good as friends only.  Then, the relationship become more after about 6 months.  Has that been done for a book yet?  I don't know.  But, it's been pretty much a soap opera for us and his family who did not trust me for the longest time.

Kelly:
I wish the meeting of my husband was exciting as some, however, ours is a funny one.  We both were in high school choir.  The first time I noticed him was when he came in the room all gregarious and annoying and he tripped up the stairs in front of the entire room.  I thought he was the biggest jerk I ever saw.  Not two months later, we were on a choir trip to the state capital.  He’d managed to switch seats with the person next to me on the bus and began to pester me (work his way into my heart).  That night he took me to the top of one of the campus buildings and we danced in the moonlight.  Not bad for a high school boy!  This July we’ll have been married 28 years!
LibraryPat:

Sat next to him in chemistry class my junior year of High School.  His father passed away that year (they were stationed at the air base in town in upstate NY) and when school got out his mom moved to Florida.  We wrote a couple times a year through our senior year and throughout college.  After college, I went into the Peace Corps and he joined the Air Force.  When I extended for a third year, they sent me home for 30 days vacation.  My husband was at a base in California for training and my cousin and her husband happened to be stationed there.  I stopped there for a few days (to recover from jet lag).  My cousin had him over for dinner, he took us out for dinner the following night, and I saw him the next day before I left.  He was transfered from California to northern Maine.  He visited his Mom in Florida and stopped by to see me on his way to New York (very much out of the way).  Visited for a few hours and he went on his way.  I returned to the Philippines.  He had family friends that got stationed at Clark AFB, the Philippines.  In May  (I think), he came to the Philippines, they came to our town fiesta, I showed them around the region and went back to the base with them.  Two days later he proposed.   We really never dated and that December in CA was the first time I'd seen him in 7 years.   We got engaged in September after I got back and married the following June (a 6 month tour in B-52's  over VietNam got in the way).   He got sent back for 6 months only 5 weeks after we got married.  It must have been meant to be,  we celebrate our 37th anniversary this year.

Roberta:

Where to begin? About 8 years ago, I had started dating this guy, who shall remain nameless, when he decided to take me to a bar I had never been to. While there, he introduced me to several of his friends, which just happened to include Junior (my hubby now). Needless to say, my relationship did not work out with nameless dude. However, he had introduced me to Junior. Junior happened to be in another relationship at the same time as well. Once we were both single. We decided to get together. Within a week, we had moved in with each other and 4 months later we moved to Kentucky to be closer to his family. As of this coming July 14th, we will have been together 7 years. Hope this sparks your imagination. Oh by the way, Junior was the bartender at the bar.

And then there are these ideas for good plots from a couple of creative readers and friends:  (You guys rock!)  (No one else gets to use these, but me!)

SS:

We met on a fire escape which was used as a short cut between buildings in our complex.  The funny thing is that I was dating the man who introduced us and the both had the same first name and the same nickname.

Good luck finding a "where they met" site.  A friend met her S O at the dog pound.  They were both searching for the "right" rescue dog and wanted the same one. 

Joy:

How about having the girl meet the guy when she goes to decorate the inside of his new Lear Jet, he being financially able to afford one and he doesn't like any of her ideas, she gets upset because she is a perfectionist, and he flies her in it to some neato place so she can experience the ride.

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