How did you meet?
As I read the challenges every day on this site, it is so depressing yet informative. I thought maybe an uplifting subject would bring some joy through our memories of our LO’s. Tell us all how you and you LO met. Here’s my story. I was 54 and just got out of a terrible 30 year marriage. I told myself that I didn’t want anymore commitments or marriages. I was a grocery manager of a family owned chain. Every summer we had a booth at the local street fair selling local produce. This year we were selling giant white peaches the size of a soft ball. I was helping this nice lady( my future wife Pamella) who had never eaten a white peach. I sampled her a piece and we must have talked for 30 minutes like we’ve known each other for years. She was 42 and beautiful. The following weeks Pamella would stop by the store and we would talk more. Eventually I got the nerve to ask her for a date and 18 months later we were married. It’s been the happiest 15 years of my life.
Comments
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Love the pic and store. It was uplifting!
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This is a lovely thought. Thank you for sharing your story. I love the serendipity of it all! Here’s mine: Tom and I were working at the same small company. I was new and hadn’t met everyone yet. My boss asked me to go to another department and ask for something for a project. The technician asked me what I needed it for but he took it one step further and began building me something better. But apparently this technician was supposed to be running tests for his boss (Tom) for a deadline. He got quite upset and went to my boss to complain, since he didn’t know who I was yet. When he finally said something to me later, I said “I didn’t ask your guy to build me that - he offered”. His response “what do you think a guy is gonna do when a pretty girl asks for something? He’s gonna drop what he’s doing”. So he’s ranting on and on and I’m half listening, thinking “oh, this tall, good looking guy thinks I’m pretty! But he is a bit of a hothead…” Little did I know that at that moment I had met my soulmate and we were married a year later. We had 38 happy years before he left this world early this year.
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DH and I had a blind date. Fixed up by co-workers who were an item (they've since gotten divorced) We drove up to a lake way out of town and I was thinking…I have no idea who this person is. No one knows where I am! Not smart! Then we went to a movie. Whew! The rest is history. September will be 33 years married.
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This is probably not the type of story you expected when you ask how people met, but it's the story of a wonderful marriage that lasted 53 years and 16 days — and it would have lasted longer if Alzheimer's hadn't come along and taken her away from me.
I have to admit, I'm a little ashamed of how my wife and I got together.
She was married to a friend of mine who worked with me at a small factory. In May of 1963, he invited me to go with him and his wife to an air show, which I did. I think the first time I met her, our hearts went out to each other. She had dated her husband in high school for three years, plus one more year after graduation — four years altogether. They got married a year after they graduated, in June of 1962.
I never thought anything of it at the time, but he would go to bed around 9:00 every night, and after he went to bed, she would call me. Not every night, but a lot of nights — sometimes we'd talk for an hour, sometimes for three or four hours, never about "us." To be honest, I don't really remember what we talked about. I guess it was about life, our childhoods, just things in general. Never once did she say anything about having feelings for me, and I never said anything to her either.
In July of that year, she had her tonsils out, and her husband and I went up to the hospital to see her, then we left. About 9:00 that night, she called me. I never thought about it at the time, but looking back, I think she already had deep feelings for me.
In August of 1963, four months after we met, we were alone one day — he was outside — and she told me she loved me and wanted to be with me. I told her that I liked her, but I could never be with her, because he was my friend. She still called me almost every night after that, and again, she never said anything more about loving me or wanting to be with me. It was just normal chit-chat; she just wanted to know what I was doing and how I was.
I did try to stay away from her, thinking her feelings would pass. But he kept inviting me over for supper, or asking me to help him work on his car or fix things around the house. He wasn't very handy with those things, and I was.
I often think about it and wonder what would have happened if I had told him I had feelings for his wife. I wonder what would have happened. She once told me she realized one day that she didn't really love him. They had only been 15 when they met. His dad liked her, but his mother didn't care for her much. I think things might have turned out differently for them if his mother had liked her — he was their only child, and they had money, and his mother was kind of snooty. My wife wanted children, but his mother didn't want them to have any. I think that was another big reason she ended up leaving him.
This may seem strange to most people, but we were never really alone together. When I was at their house, if he went to bed early and we were still finishing a movie, sometimes she would hold my hand or give me a light kiss. In November of that year, he caught her kissing me one night, and that was the beginning of the end for him — and the beginning of a new chapter for us. Two weeks after he caught us, she moved out and moved back home with her mother and dad.
Christmas Eve of 1963 was the first time we were truly alone together.
Most people assume that when two people get together while one is still married, there must have been some kind of secret affair going on — running around, sleeping together. But we never did that. We were married in May of 1964.
She came down with Alzheimer's in 2006. I took care of her at home for 11 years, except for the last six weeks of her life, when I had to put her in a nursing home. She died two weeks after our 53rd anniversary.
We had a daughter and a son. Our daughter passed away from cancer in May 2023.
There's not a day that goes by that I don't miss her. And strange as it may seem, there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about him, too, and the hurt I caused him. He did remarry, had two kids, and lives 17 miles from me.
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We had a mutual friend that kept saying we should meet, but over a year passed and it never happened. I saw a picture of Suze on this friend's refrigerator and I was already smitten anyway. Our friend finally got a meet up organized when she was doing her public radio show Thanksgiving evening. I walked into the studio and they were both in there. Literally a bolt of lightening for both Suze and me. The three of us went to my house after the radio program for a glass of wine and I can still see when I made Suze laugh for the first time. I can also still feel how I almost danced out of the room when that happened. We were inseparable after that night and made it 21 years before dementia stole her from me.
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Met her in a bar/club I was playing. Someone kept buying me drinks—I was never the kind of musician who could perform while inebriated. This girl (ya know, early 20-something) kept giggling near my side of the tiny stage every time a drink showed up. After the second set, I had a bottle & half's worth of "fine beverages" sitting on my stack, so I asked the bar tender what was up. He pointed out the giggling girl. My jaw hit the floor. She was a knockout (still is). I asked her name & was she trying to put me on the floor with all the drinks or what? Out of nowhere she told me she never kissed a bass player before. "Aight, I'm down"… fireworks. Her sister left her behind, so after she helped us pack up the gear van, we drove her to her sister's place, turned out to be my neighbor (who said I ruined her sister, "she's the good girl, ya know"). She was a HS math teacher, ridiculously smart, and from a poor fam like me. 38 years, 2 kids & a dozen cats, as many mountains climbed and surf breaks surfed & swam (swum?) later… kinda wish I'd been the forward one but, when a fella gets blown away like that… why argue?
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He was walking across a parking lot and I was smitten!
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My divorce had just been finalized and my sister called and asked if I would like to come to their house for dinner the next night. When at the dinner, my brother-in-law told me about his friend Steve and would I be interested in meeting him. I said sure. However when my brother-in-law talked with Steve about me, Steve was not interested in being fixed up. However my sister and brother-in-law didn’t give up and it was a couple months later they invited us both to their house for dinner. I knew Steve would be there, but he didn’t know I would be there. It all went fine but no plans to meet again were made. I knew he was working at a family business and decided I would stop by and if he smiled when he saw me I would ask him if he wanted to come to my house the next night, and if he didn’t smile I would just buy something and be on my way. Well when he saw me he had a big smile on his face. Sooo. He came to my house the next night and every night after!! That first week he told me, “ I don’t want to scare you, but I am going to marry you!. We moved in together in less than 2 weeks and were married a few months after. That was 42 years ago. We had more than 30 amazing, wonderful years together before AD. Still have him with me at home under hospice care.
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My DH and I met our senior year in high school. It was a big school and our paths had not crossed until we had a class together. I was dating another boy not from our school. DH started appearing in the hallway near my locker, near my lunch table and in the parking lot after school. He always smiled and said hello and I responded in kind. I was a bookish, quiet girl who often went to the public library after school to study and read. He started showing up there too. I broke up with the other boy (for other reasons) and then felt having interest in DH was certainly fine at that point. My best friend said, “you should go out with him, he is super nice!” Well, he asked me out to the Senior Banquet and then the Senior Prom. By the end of summer, I was smitten and so was he. But he was leaving for university a few hours away and I was attending my hometown university. Our separation lasted one semester. He transferred back to our hometown and we studied together, did runs on campus together, had no cost/low cost dates like star gazing, picnics at the beach and long walks near the river. My parents adored him.
We were married after graduation when we were just 21. I went on to graduate school for a Master’s Degree in Counseling. He went on and obtained his law degree and practiced for 42 years. I had two careers, one as a guidance counselor and the other as his legal assistant in his own firm he started half way through his career. We have two children who are both law professors now and two lovely granddaughters We have been together now 57 years and married almost 54.
Our lives have been a beautiful partnership until now. The thief, Alzheimers, is taking that away one day at a time. It is cruel and no one should have to suffer it or witness it. But here we are.
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Joe and I met on e-harmony when we were 50. He was always a nice guy—we'd go to coffee shops, dinner, just driving around, walks (so many walks) cruises. After a year or so he moved in with me, and a couple of years later we married. We had nine years of marriage, but a third of our marriage he was in memory care.
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@blacksparky, what a beautiful story and you have yourself a beautiful wife. Thank you for sharing. I am so sorry she has this vile disease.💔
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working at Eureka Wiliams ( vacuums) in Illinois and saw this cutie walking into work. Grabbed the Company Nikon snapped a pic had it developed at work and sent it to her with a note: “from your secret admirer”. Interoffice memos went back & forth (forerunner of email), started dating, married 12 mos later,
and 52 years later, here we are.
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I loved this! Beautiful story and beautiful wife.
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It sounds like all turned out well for everyone in the end and you and your wife had many wonderful years together. I’m sorry about losing your daughter and your wife. I hope your memories of both bring you peace.
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She’s still a beauty!
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@eligius, beautiful wife…
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We met on Match.com. I had recently separated and joined the site to start dating. My DH had been on the site for some time, had some bad dates and was planning on quitting the site when his prescription ran out. Had a few fake people I talked with, people looking for money, so my rule was meet in person in a week or so or move on to the next. I had seen his profile, liked it, and decided to chat with him. Shortly after we started to chat, he told me he couldn't meet for a while as he was busy directing a play. I thought here we go again. He told me where the play was, so I decided the easiest way to make sure he was real not a fake cat fisher was to get a ticket to the show. Turned out he was directing a play and shortly after we had our first date. I fell for him on that date.
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together 15 years married 11
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She sat down next to me after work in an upscale bar. We talked non-stop until I had to go home to fix dinner for my children who were spending part of their summer with me. I called her after they went to bed and we talked. Dated or talked on the phone every day. I asked her to marry me three weeks after we met. The deed was done two weeks after that. She was my soulmate for 43 years before this terrible disease started taking her from me. I was truly blessed.
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Thank you, @blacksparky You come up with some fabulous ideas to get all engaged. Pamella is lovely and I can still see the twinkle in her eyes between this picture and the one you took at her MC.
Thanks to all for such wonderful stories. They speak volumes of the love you share with your loved ones. Here’s ours:
March 1973 I just graduated from college and went with my family to a sports car race. My step-dad had recently advanced to the professional circuit in his class and this was his third race of the year. Mom had me bringing lunch to the two pit crew guys and I found one of them underneath dad’s car. All I saw was two feet. He told me later, when he peeked out from under the car, all he saw was legs!
In May, I went to another race, and the picture below has me sitting on the pit wall with my Mom. I’m in the green shirt; Mom has on the hat. (I think DH took the picture). After the race Mom gave him my phone number. He called several times, and each time I had an excuse. (Figured if my Mom was trying to be a matchmaker, I was not going to have anything to do with him!)
He was persistent, and in July I agreed to go out with him. We were engaged in October and married in February 1974. We’ve had a wonderful life together. Are blessed with one son who is my support during this horrible journey.
The other day DH and I were at his PCP for a routine 4-month check up. While we were waiting in the exam room, DH turns to me and says “I am so glad you are here with me!” And in the next breath says “And I am so happy our marriage is finally coming together!” My reply - “After 52 and a half years I surely hope so!” 😂
~ J
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We met in college. I was a freshman and had a boyfriend back home, he was a junior and had just had his heart broken by a pert and perky cheerleader. We dated casually through the fall: football games, pizza, movies, walks. When we parted for Christmas vacation and he knew I would see my boyfriend back home, he gave me “a month to fall in love with him.” I complied and the rest is history. We were married for 55 years, had three great kids, nine sweet grandchildren, and a good life overall. No regrets. He was a keeper from day one and I love and miss him with all my heart.❤️
2010. The beginning of the end.
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I first met my husband in 1966 when my sister invitesd us both over to play cards with her and her husband. She had told me about him and though we should meet. That first date didn't go too well. He had had a few beers and I was not impressed. I didn't see him again for sometime. Then my sister invited us over again and for some reason I went. This time was different . He was charming and funny and I enjoyed the evening. He called me the next day and asked me out on a proper date. I had been married before and had two small children. The first time he met them he was so good to them that I knew I liked him. We were married a few months later and had two more children. We have been married for 59 years and I still love him. He has been in MC for two and a half years but still says "I love you" most of the time when I visit him. Once in a while he thinks I am his mother or sister and he speaks mostly in word salad but he still rushes over to greet me when I arrive at the MC.
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I loved reading everyone’s stories of how they met. I met my DH a few years after the ending of my 29 year first marriage. We met on Match. We dated for 4 years and then had a wonderful small wedding with close friends and family. We have been married 11 happy years. The dementia is taking him away little by little every day. He is stage 5/6. He has heart failure and I am hoping he never suffers the pain of stage 7/8. The last 15 years have been so happy. I am grateful for the time we had before this terrible disease.
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I met my DH at a Speed Dating event. Upon walking in, my friend and I were informed that there would be twice as many women as men, which was disappointing. At that moment I glanced around and my eyes lit upon a man in the back of the room, standing alone at the bar. Something about him struck me as very appealing and I looked forward to meeting him, my disappointment being replaced by intrigue. Coincidentally he was the first man I met that night, as we were given the same seat number to start and, in the end, he was the only one I wanted to get to know. All of the participants had to wait 2 weeks to find out whether we had a match. Lo and behold we did. We started slow with emails and phone calls, finally meeting in person. We've been married for 16 years and were together for 7 years prior to that. He is now Stage 6, lives in a small adult care home and has bonded well with his caregivers, but he always tells me he loves me when I visit.
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I love this story…I know people who have found good matches on line but this is the first I’ve heard of a great match at a speed dating event. When you know, you know!
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We were 16 years old.. high school sweethearts. I walked passed him while he was raking leaves for a neighbor… got to my friends house .. asked her “who is that!?” and walked back home. My mom said.. stop walking by that boy!. lol. We had a mutual friend who introduced us. . Our first date was a high school dance.. no drivers licenses .. so we walked a mile.. he had a short cut.. I was met with climbing a 6 ft high chain link fence.. 🤦♀️.. that was the first of many “shortcuts “ gone wrong. 🤣 Our 50 year anniversary is this year.. been together 53 years. Married at 19 in our home town on Long Island … took a 70’s van, with moon and shooting star mural, cross country. Started our life in Sunny San Diego, no jobs.. little money to tied us over… but when your young life is still good.
Two amazing kids..3 beautiful grandkids all living nearby . Thankfully traveled the world when we were younger. We are each others best friend. We’ve had an amazing life! Thought it would go on forever.
My mom had Alzheimer’s… this is much harder.
Thank you to all of you pouring your hearts and souls out.. sharing your experiences.. I’ve learned soo much.7
Commonly Used Abbreviations
DH = Dear Husband
DW= Dear Wife, Darling Wife
LO = Loved One
ES = Early Stage
EO = Early Onset
FTD = Frontotemporal Dementia
VD = Vascular Dementia
MC = Memory Care
AL = Assisted Living
POA = Power of Attorney
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