A Journey to the Past

The Start of a Healthy Relationship

I consider my marriage a healthy relationship.  My husband, Bill, and I have been married now for almost 18 years.  We’re lived through many turbulent events that I believe would have broken most marriages.  However, we are still together and stronger than ever.

This page is dedicated to those events that have made us who were are.  I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy recalling the memories and putting them on paper (well sort of).

It all started in a small town of Bonaire, Ga. when I first met eyes with the love of my life.  Standing in the front yard of my best friend and manager of the Mobile Home Community that we lived, I was doing my usual socializing.  We were approached by a cyclists, he was on a mission to pay his lot rent.  Typically I would have been irritated by the interruption, but this encounter was different.

Was it his six-foot three-inch stature, his long flowing blonde hair or maybe the muscles that define his body?  I’m not sure but he had my attention at first glance. After a short introduction and polite conversation I had no idea this divine individual would be taking me on a non-stop journey for the next 18 years of my life.

In retrospect, I had no intentions of settling down again.  It had been four years past my divorce and I was raising two children on my own.  I really wasn’t looking for a permanent relationship, but it found me.

Slowly, we spent the next couple of years conversing on my front porch, discussing life issues and trivial nonsense.  It was there I learned of his trouble marriage, his four children, life growing up in the Greater Detroit area and how he managed to end up in Middle Georgia.  It was all intriguing and yet scary.  My Father once told me to find a nice Northern boy.  Our family being from Wisconsin, it made sense.  I needed to find someone whom had similar interests and experiences.  Bill and I spent many evening sharing those memories.

As the weeks and months went on our curiosity with each other grew.  If you’re wondering if anything else conspired (wink, wink) during this ‘get to know you’ stage in our relationship, it did not.  I’ve heard it said, “Don’t shit in your own backyard”, so I didn’t.  I waited… and waited.  The news final came, his current marriage was over and the papers were filed.  He was looking for a place to move and found a home to rent one street over which allowed our relationship to grow.

We slowly introduced the children to each other, remember there are six of them, ages fifteen through two.  Our biggest concern was would they all get along?  Undoubtably not all of them did, the most difficult were the two oldest girls.

As time went on, a year had passed and Bill’s divorce was finalized, the children didn’t kill each other and we decided to set a marriage date.  With that out-of-the-way, our next big question was where to go on our honeymoon.  We were looking for a new experience since we both been married before.  Then it dawned on me, what about a nudist camp.  Now that’s different, our first camping trip to a nudist camp grounds, oh my!

Here I will end ‘A Start to a Healthy Relationship’ and pick up my next post with the our honeymoon adventures.  Stay tuned as ‘Adventures in North America’ continues…