GatorFarmer
Member
It's spring and presumably love is in the air, or at least there's been several threads about marriages, both positive and negative, as of late. Not really wanting to derail any of them, I figured that I'd make another one. Then next week argue the comparative merits of product X versus product Y again of course, but for now it's an interesting topic isn't it? Interesting enough that I thought I would go ahead an pose the question of "How did you..."
Long time forum readers may recall what happened with me since I posted about it at the time.
It was the summer of 2006. I was still living in Lansing (MI) in all its weird glory. Two things happened in sequence that caused me to meet my wife. The first was that the air conditioner that my friend Dan had found laying by the side of the road somewhere and then installed in my apartment had finally made a horrible noise and then died. The second was that both the good folks at Marlboro and at Newport had sent me coupons. Thus I recall finding myself hot, unable to sleep, and in possession of a pillow case filled with 13 packs or so of cigarettes.
It was late on a Saturday, August... Hot, sticky. The Sci Fi channel movie had killed some time, but I was bored, and couldn't sleep. Thus I got up off the futon that I called my bed at the time and say down at my computer to smoke. I'd gone feral, but I still knew enough not to smoke in the next of books, papers and live ammunition that I cozied up at night. It was a slow night on the forum here too. Found myself browsing personals ads online. The one that randomly came to the top of my screen showed an attractive woman, and as I read her profile, I felt really drawn to it. So I wrote her. And with baited breath waited to see if she'd write me back. It was near midnight, and it showed that she'd read my email. So I waited. And she didn't write me back. I remember feeling disappointed for some reason.
It was hot again the next night, nothing good on TV even though I paid to have all the channels. Turned the computer back on again. I had an email notification saying that I had an email at the personal's sight. The woman I'd emailed the night before had written me back. At the time, her profile said she was living in Fredericksburg VA. I didn't know it at the time, but she was still living in WA and simply planning to move after the first of the year and looking to meet someone where she'd be going. Which wasn't where I was... but I'd written her anyway. Also unknown to me, she'd printed out my email the night before to read again later since she thought I was funny in a good way and had simply been too tired to write back. So we emailed a few times that night, and that lead to a conversation on yahoo IM, which led to a phone call. We talked all through the night when she had to leave to go to work.
During the course of talking to her, I found out that she was in the Navy, stationed on an aircraft carrier that I'd never heard of, doing a job I'd never heard of, and living in Bremerton, WA for now. Since I was deathly afraid of flying, I remember feeling somehow crushed by that. Not that Fredericksburg was exactly around the corner, but it was driveable and WA wasn't.
Anyway... This is where this very forum comes in. She couldn't remember my email address while she was at work, but she'd remembered the interesting handle that I had for forums, ie this one. So she googled me. Yes, internet stalking, isn't it great. Finding my posts here about guns and such, she also got my email address. So she wrote me. She'd late feel she fell odd doing it, and wanted to wait a few days, but... emailed me anyway.
Having been up all night, I slept during the day and didn't see it until later. For various reasons related to her being on duty, and me having things to do related to go back to school, nothing happened more until Tuesday when I sent a text message. This led to a phone call. We were up all night again talking.
Wednesday was much the same.
That Thursday I went over to my friend Dan's to eat. Being poor at the time, but a good cook, Dan and I had an arrangement where I'd bring food over, he'd cook it, and we'd feast. It would be his one big meal of the week, and the rest of the time he'd live on gas station hot dogs and dented cans of expired soup from the bargain bin. Anyway, I'd stopped off and got some Rolling Rock beer. I was talking to the woman from online as I walked up to Dan's house (thanks to on street parking). I hung up and promised to call the woman later.
Naturally Dan asked who I was talking to. I'd mentioned that I'd met this woman online and yada yada. After dinner and after some beers, Dan started mentioning my long and sordid history of adventures with women that I'd met over the internet (some of which were related here in years past). I said this one was different. After goading me a bit about how, I admitted that I thought that I loved her.
That's when it happened. Dan said, "Well if you love her so much, why don't you ask her to marry you?" He then bet me a hundred dollars to do just that. So I did. Via text message. She said yes. Unknown to me at the time, after I'd hung up the phone earlier, she'd laid down in her bed and suddenly had the feeling that one day I'd ask her to marry me. She made up her mind that whenever I did, she'd say yes. So... she'd said yes, also via text message.
I never did get my one hundred dollars from Dan. To this day, he claims that it wasn't a real bet, because I'd just done something that I'd wanted to do anyway. Eh. But that's how I asked Martti to marry me and how she said yes. We'd known each other existed for only four days and had never met in person.
Over the months that followed, Martti had had a deployment and had to go to sea for a bit. We kept in touch via email and sporadic phone calls. But... several other things happened. One was that she agreed to marry me sooner rather than later. Another was that she purchased plane tickets for me to come out to WA. And the final thing was that I began selling literally everything that I owned, yes including all my guns, to basically up and fly across the country to meet a woman that I'd never met in person before, but who I knew that I wanted to marry.
Which is precisely what I did. Martti returned from sea, we obtained a marriage lisc to have ready, and lined up a judge. I arrived at SeaTAC on Oct 20, 2006 with literally the clothes on my back, my watch, and my ID. And I'd end up tossing those clothes at the hotel since they got dirty on the plane.
I asked her again in person that very night to marry me and again she said yes. I moved into her apartment the next morning and we were married by a judge on the 26th, exactly six days after first having set eyes on each other.
It hasn't been easy, I'd be lying if I said it was. For a long time, when I'd tell this story, albeit in abbreviated form, I'd add the line "And it worked out about as well as this sort of thing was going to". Things got bad for a while. I asked Martti why she didn't just divorce me, she said because I just wouldn't leave. Maybe I was stubborn, but neither of us stopped loving each other, we just had problems to work out, both demons with in and problems in adjusting since we'd both gone feral in our own ways and developed our own modes of living.
For all that... by the first Jan, Jan of 07, Martti was pregnant. We PCS'd to Quantico VA her new duty station. She gave birth to Liam, our first son, that October. Our second child, Broderick (Brody) would be born in Feb of 2009. By Christmas of 2009, we were in bad sorts.
Martti had moved downstairs and my troubles with my marriage and other issues led to a doctor giving me Xanax. Which unfortunately made me more anxious and I was also apparently on a heavy dose and had been told to take it at a level that was basically keeping me doped up. This led to what is sometimes called a Xanax panic attack and it was a doozy. I'd called Martti and work and when she came home, I was sitting in the tub crying.
She took me to an ER. At the ER, I tried to explain that it was the medicine that had made me sick. They had me talk to a social worker. The social worker asked me if I'd felt like I was going to or wanted to die. I said that I had felt that low during my panic attack. He then asked leading questions such as "If you were going to kill yourself, how would you do it?" I had to pause and think and said finally that I'd use a gun, since that was all that came to mind. He then found out that I owned guns. One thing led to another and he wrote down that I was suicidal with an active plan. I was basically presented with a choice, admit myself to the psych ward or face the risk of having it done involunatarily and being in there over Christmas since the courts wouldn't be open for me to have a hearing.
That's how I got to spend a night in the loony bin. Fun place, the food was pretty good. I spend the next day serving as an advocate for other patients helping them to learn about their care, their rights, etc. After the doctor finally got around to speaking to me, they made arrangements to release me(when you get to go home, you get your shoe laces back), though they almost didn't when they found out that I had a "bunch" of guns. Apparently that scares people. Fortunately I was vague about just how many I had, and nothing came of it, especially when the doctor called my wife who said that I wasn't a threat, she didn't feel endangered etc.
Eh. I eventually went to group out patient therapy for about a week afterwards to placate everyone. Voluntarily I might add, since I was never court ordered, nor declared loony, I can still stack guns and ammo to the ceiling, thank you very much. After two weeks, I'd spent a lot of time talking and trying to help people much sicker than I was. On my last day six different people came up and shook my hand or hugged and told me how much they'd appreciated. And then I was home all day again. Home to a marriage that had soured. Soured over... I don't know anymore. We'd grown apart, we had money problems, Liam had been diagnosed with autism, my OCD was acting up, Martti's OCD was acting up, her job was stress full...
Martti was already due for this assignment. Down here in SC. It was up in the air for a while whether I'd even go with her. Eventually we tenatively agreed that I'd go, the kids at least liked me she said.
One thing led to another, and we were still together, still with our kids. I started getting better, better at really growing up and being more of a dad anyway and more of a husband. Martti got better about some things too.
By Feb '10, the movers had come and taken our stuff to move it down here and we were all living in a motel room on base. It was oddly wonderful, since we couldn't avoid each other any more. Rather than get on each other's nerves and kill each other... we started talking again. Really talking.
Feb is when, as near as can be figured out, Martti conceived our third child, which will be born in Nov.
She doesn't do mushy stuff she says. Tells me it makes her uncomfortable. She'd had a rough life as a kid, and other things had happened over the years. Some of that led to some of the problems that we'd had, but I was not easy to live with for a long time either. Anyway, today I'd asked her if she'd marry me again, if she had it to do over. The answer to that question would have been no for a while. But now she says she would have.
I actually took time to write her a letter last night. In it I told her how much I loved her and missed her and things of that nature. Left it taped on the door so she could take it with her to work, to help give her something to take her mind off the morning sickness perhaps. For not doing mushy stuff, she told me today that she did love me, that she'd marry me all over again. And somehow I knew that was the truth, and even with the bad patch we'd gone through, I'd marry her again.
I loved her from the first, and I never stopped loving her. Or she me I suppose, and that's how we got through it. That's how we had two beautiful wonderful sons and have another baby on the way. That's how I know we'll still be together in four years when she can retire from the Navy and we can leave this swamp... That's how I know I made the right choice. Because we made it.. We're still together. Still in love, maybe more now than ever in some ways because that love matured and grew up, changed over time, was weathered, tested, and still survived.
So that's the story of how I met my wife and went from slumord and generally wasting away my days in Lansing whilst living in a condemned crack house to... becoming a Navy spouse, stay at home dad, and father of three. Interesting what can happen in a few years when you least expect it or see it coming.
Long time forum readers may recall what happened with me since I posted about it at the time.
It was the summer of 2006. I was still living in Lansing (MI) in all its weird glory. Two things happened in sequence that caused me to meet my wife. The first was that the air conditioner that my friend Dan had found laying by the side of the road somewhere and then installed in my apartment had finally made a horrible noise and then died. The second was that both the good folks at Marlboro and at Newport had sent me coupons. Thus I recall finding myself hot, unable to sleep, and in possession of a pillow case filled with 13 packs or so of cigarettes.
It was late on a Saturday, August... Hot, sticky. The Sci Fi channel movie had killed some time, but I was bored, and couldn't sleep. Thus I got up off the futon that I called my bed at the time and say down at my computer to smoke. I'd gone feral, but I still knew enough not to smoke in the next of books, papers and live ammunition that I cozied up at night. It was a slow night on the forum here too. Found myself browsing personals ads online. The one that randomly came to the top of my screen showed an attractive woman, and as I read her profile, I felt really drawn to it. So I wrote her. And with baited breath waited to see if she'd write me back. It was near midnight, and it showed that she'd read my email. So I waited. And she didn't write me back. I remember feeling disappointed for some reason.
It was hot again the next night, nothing good on TV even though I paid to have all the channels. Turned the computer back on again. I had an email notification saying that I had an email at the personal's sight. The woman I'd emailed the night before had written me back. At the time, her profile said she was living in Fredericksburg VA. I didn't know it at the time, but she was still living in WA and simply planning to move after the first of the year and looking to meet someone where she'd be going. Which wasn't where I was... but I'd written her anyway. Also unknown to me, she'd printed out my email the night before to read again later since she thought I was funny in a good way and had simply been too tired to write back. So we emailed a few times that night, and that lead to a conversation on yahoo IM, which led to a phone call. We talked all through the night when she had to leave to go to work.
During the course of talking to her, I found out that she was in the Navy, stationed on an aircraft carrier that I'd never heard of, doing a job I'd never heard of, and living in Bremerton, WA for now. Since I was deathly afraid of flying, I remember feeling somehow crushed by that. Not that Fredericksburg was exactly around the corner, but it was driveable and WA wasn't.
Anyway... This is where this very forum comes in. She couldn't remember my email address while she was at work, but she'd remembered the interesting handle that I had for forums, ie this one. So she googled me. Yes, internet stalking, isn't it great. Finding my posts here about guns and such, she also got my email address. So she wrote me. She'd late feel she fell odd doing it, and wanted to wait a few days, but... emailed me anyway.
Having been up all night, I slept during the day and didn't see it until later. For various reasons related to her being on duty, and me having things to do related to go back to school, nothing happened more until Tuesday when I sent a text message. This led to a phone call. We were up all night again talking.
Wednesday was much the same.
That Thursday I went over to my friend Dan's to eat. Being poor at the time, but a good cook, Dan and I had an arrangement where I'd bring food over, he'd cook it, and we'd feast. It would be his one big meal of the week, and the rest of the time he'd live on gas station hot dogs and dented cans of expired soup from the bargain bin. Anyway, I'd stopped off and got some Rolling Rock beer. I was talking to the woman from online as I walked up to Dan's house (thanks to on street parking). I hung up and promised to call the woman later.
Naturally Dan asked who I was talking to. I'd mentioned that I'd met this woman online and yada yada. After dinner and after some beers, Dan started mentioning my long and sordid history of adventures with women that I'd met over the internet (some of which were related here in years past). I said this one was different. After goading me a bit about how, I admitted that I thought that I loved her.
That's when it happened. Dan said, "Well if you love her so much, why don't you ask her to marry you?" He then bet me a hundred dollars to do just that. So I did. Via text message. She said yes. Unknown to me at the time, after I'd hung up the phone earlier, she'd laid down in her bed and suddenly had the feeling that one day I'd ask her to marry me. She made up her mind that whenever I did, she'd say yes. So... she'd said yes, also via text message.
I never did get my one hundred dollars from Dan. To this day, he claims that it wasn't a real bet, because I'd just done something that I'd wanted to do anyway. Eh. But that's how I asked Martti to marry me and how she said yes. We'd known each other existed for only four days and had never met in person.
Over the months that followed, Martti had had a deployment and had to go to sea for a bit. We kept in touch via email and sporadic phone calls. But... several other things happened. One was that she agreed to marry me sooner rather than later. Another was that she purchased plane tickets for me to come out to WA. And the final thing was that I began selling literally everything that I owned, yes including all my guns, to basically up and fly across the country to meet a woman that I'd never met in person before, but who I knew that I wanted to marry.
Which is precisely what I did. Martti returned from sea, we obtained a marriage lisc to have ready, and lined up a judge. I arrived at SeaTAC on Oct 20, 2006 with literally the clothes on my back, my watch, and my ID. And I'd end up tossing those clothes at the hotel since they got dirty on the plane.
I asked her again in person that very night to marry me and again she said yes. I moved into her apartment the next morning and we were married by a judge on the 26th, exactly six days after first having set eyes on each other.
It hasn't been easy, I'd be lying if I said it was. For a long time, when I'd tell this story, albeit in abbreviated form, I'd add the line "And it worked out about as well as this sort of thing was going to". Things got bad for a while. I asked Martti why she didn't just divorce me, she said because I just wouldn't leave. Maybe I was stubborn, but neither of us stopped loving each other, we just had problems to work out, both demons with in and problems in adjusting since we'd both gone feral in our own ways and developed our own modes of living.
For all that... by the first Jan, Jan of 07, Martti was pregnant. We PCS'd to Quantico VA her new duty station. She gave birth to Liam, our first son, that October. Our second child, Broderick (Brody) would be born in Feb of 2009. By Christmas of 2009, we were in bad sorts.
Martti had moved downstairs and my troubles with my marriage and other issues led to a doctor giving me Xanax. Which unfortunately made me more anxious and I was also apparently on a heavy dose and had been told to take it at a level that was basically keeping me doped up. This led to what is sometimes called a Xanax panic attack and it was a doozy. I'd called Martti and work and when she came home, I was sitting in the tub crying.
She took me to an ER. At the ER, I tried to explain that it was the medicine that had made me sick. They had me talk to a social worker. The social worker asked me if I'd felt like I was going to or wanted to die. I said that I had felt that low during my panic attack. He then asked leading questions such as "If you were going to kill yourself, how would you do it?" I had to pause and think and said finally that I'd use a gun, since that was all that came to mind. He then found out that I owned guns. One thing led to another and he wrote down that I was suicidal with an active plan. I was basically presented with a choice, admit myself to the psych ward or face the risk of having it done involunatarily and being in there over Christmas since the courts wouldn't be open for me to have a hearing.
That's how I got to spend a night in the loony bin. Fun place, the food was pretty good. I spend the next day serving as an advocate for other patients helping them to learn about their care, their rights, etc. After the doctor finally got around to speaking to me, they made arrangements to release me(when you get to go home, you get your shoe laces back), though they almost didn't when they found out that I had a "bunch" of guns. Apparently that scares people. Fortunately I was vague about just how many I had, and nothing came of it, especially when the doctor called my wife who said that I wasn't a threat, she didn't feel endangered etc.
Eh. I eventually went to group out patient therapy for about a week afterwards to placate everyone. Voluntarily I might add, since I was never court ordered, nor declared loony, I can still stack guns and ammo to the ceiling, thank you very much. After two weeks, I'd spent a lot of time talking and trying to help people much sicker than I was. On my last day six different people came up and shook my hand or hugged and told me how much they'd appreciated. And then I was home all day again. Home to a marriage that had soured. Soured over... I don't know anymore. We'd grown apart, we had money problems, Liam had been diagnosed with autism, my OCD was acting up, Martti's OCD was acting up, her job was stress full...
Martti was already due for this assignment. Down here in SC. It was up in the air for a while whether I'd even go with her. Eventually we tenatively agreed that I'd go, the kids at least liked me she said.
One thing led to another, and we were still together, still with our kids. I started getting better, better at really growing up and being more of a dad anyway and more of a husband. Martti got better about some things too.
By Feb '10, the movers had come and taken our stuff to move it down here and we were all living in a motel room on base. It was oddly wonderful, since we couldn't avoid each other any more. Rather than get on each other's nerves and kill each other... we started talking again. Really talking.
Feb is when, as near as can be figured out, Martti conceived our third child, which will be born in Nov.
She doesn't do mushy stuff she says. Tells me it makes her uncomfortable. She'd had a rough life as a kid, and other things had happened over the years. Some of that led to some of the problems that we'd had, but I was not easy to live with for a long time either. Anyway, today I'd asked her if she'd marry me again, if she had it to do over. The answer to that question would have been no for a while. But now she says she would have.
I actually took time to write her a letter last night. In it I told her how much I loved her and missed her and things of that nature. Left it taped on the door so she could take it with her to work, to help give her something to take her mind off the morning sickness perhaps. For not doing mushy stuff, she told me today that she did love me, that she'd marry me all over again. And somehow I knew that was the truth, and even with the bad patch we'd gone through, I'd marry her again.
I loved her from the first, and I never stopped loving her. Or she me I suppose, and that's how we got through it. That's how we had two beautiful wonderful sons and have another baby on the way. That's how I know we'll still be together in four years when she can retire from the Navy and we can leave this swamp... That's how I know I made the right choice. Because we made it.. We're still together. Still in love, maybe more now than ever in some ways because that love matured and grew up, changed over time, was weathered, tested, and still survived.
So that's the story of how I met my wife and went from slumord and generally wasting away my days in Lansing whilst living in a condemned crack house to... becoming a Navy spouse, stay at home dad, and father of three. Interesting what can happen in a few years when you least expect it or see it coming.
Just kidding, I had known the girl that would become my future wife for seven years, but we had not gone out. I saw her in a club one evening and ask her out, we dated for one year, got engaged, and married the next year. Not really a very exciting story, but three daughters, seven grandchildren, and a great grandchild on the way, and forty-three years later we are still together and having as much fun as in the beginning. As sung by Johnny Cash and June Carter, we gave each other "The Loving Gift".
