20 years

We're coming up on our 20th wedding anniversary of which next month I am going to post wedding pictures and maybe some from when we were dating.  My husband and I have known each other 25 years this summer. 

We met at the Brigham Young University Deseret Towers swimming pool that used to be behind the old dairy/store.  We both had been invited to attend BYU during the summer semester of 1987 because our high school grades and test scores were lacking.  Recently, we went to dinner with some friends from our freshman year and their wives and everyone asked what each others ACT scores were:  25, 24, 27, 30, 25 and then mine.  A whopping 19.  Yep, there it is.  Not good at testing and maybe a B- student.  They all laughed and wondered aloud how I had been allowed in.  My theory is that I graduated in 1986 and took a year off.  Works for me.

So, by the grace of God we all met and had an awesome time all that year.  We all went to dances together, movies, had plenty of classes together, shopping.....bemoaned our dating woes....you know, the things that matter to 18-19 year old kids.  However, at the end of Winter semester 1988 I was asked to leave the BYU for grades because "apparently" I hadn't quite captured the focus of the purpose of college.  The boys all got ready and went on LDS missions and I went to what was at the time Rick's College which is now BYU Idaho.  I had a great time there also and was again politely asked to leave. 

I went home for 6 months and got ready to go on a mission wherein I wrote to my husband and our two friends faithfully the entire time.  After our missions we all congregated back in Provo, Utah where they had all maintained their grades and were invited back to BYU .  I worked.  My husband was dating lots of girls.  Girls really like him. He's cute but he treats women very well so everyone wanted a piece of that pie.

While I was on my mission I had decided that I wanted to own him.  He needed to be mine.  I wasn't in love but I recognized his great qualities and knew they were something of worth other than a dance partner or a study buddy.  The boys had been living in Provo for about a year before I was able to move back there but within 2 weeks of me moving back I asked him out.  That  took a lot of courage for me because we had always been taught that the boy called the girl, the boy asked the girl on dates, the boy had to chase the girl, thus I had never done this before.  (Plus, I'm not much of a flirt.)  He said yes.

He took me out to an outdoor play near the Utah State mental hospital down the road.  I know.  But they used to do a really cool haunted house at the hospital every year, too so we all thought it was tame.  He held my hand.  I had hoped he would but I didn't know.  The next night we went out somewhere else--I'm sure he remembers but I have no idea where.  When he brought me home on his Honda 80cc scooter (yes.) we were sitting on my front porch and he went in for the kiss.  I backed away and said, "We need to talk about this first."  We had been friends for 4 years up to this point and this was not going to work out in the end I wanted to know that we'd all remain friends.  He just wanted to make out so he said that of course we'd still be friends but I determined that we should wait.

But the next evening we kissed.  The morning after that I woke up and the first thing I thought was, "I love him.  We're getting married."  I just knew.  But I also had the feeling that I shouldn't do or say anything about it or I'd scare him off.  So I waited.  About 2 months later we were sitting in Burger Supreme in Provo (mmmmmm....Burger Supreme....) and he said, "If we were to get married...." and I don't even remember what he said after that.  I'm sure it had something to do with money cause he's always worried about money and supporting the family while I'm am always under the auspices of "it will all work out."  But I do remember thinking, "Aha!  I've got him!"  Poor guy.

We officially got engaged on Friday, December 13, 1991 and married two months later on Friday, February 14, 1992 (yes, I do realize that is Valentine's Day.)

We have 3 college degrees, 4 children, 8 moves, two mortgaged homes, and a dog in the last 20 years and not a penny of extra money to spare.  One of us was in school full time for the first 8 years of our marriage.  He graduated with his bachelor's in 1994, his masters in 1997, and I graduated with my bachelor's from BYU in 2000.  I finally figured how to be a decent student.

You know that saying that girls marry men like their fathers or boys marry women like their mothers?  I married a kind, gentle, loving man like my father.  My wonderful  husband has supported our family by working 60-80 hour weeks for the last 12 years.  He's a marriage and family therapist in private practice which is sometimes a feast and famine industry.  He has lived with my moods, depression sarcasm and inconsistencies and still loved me and wanted to have sex with me even though he saw me give birth 4 times.  He's definitely the romantic of the two and is always surprising me with creative ways to show me and everyone else he loves me.  Every year for our anniversary he does something special to let everyone know he is still crazy in love with me.  The big galoot. 

I don't know what I'd ever do with out him.  When we were first married we both said that if the other had an affair then that would be it for the marriage but I changed my mind several years ago because I think I could forgive him.  I wouldn't want to be without him.  That's not an invitation, although he never would.

So here's to another 20 years with the man I had to have.  I love you, Jonathan Sherman, Friend to The World.