My girlfriend Robin and I did most things backwards leading up to our wedding. Aside from my proposal, which was really sweet, and Robin’s acceptance, which was pithy, everything was a blur. After I proposed and received my Yes, followed by a few shrieks, we went on campus to show off our pending union. At some point, after people kept asking Robin, “What did your parents say?”, it dawned on me that I was supposed to ask her father for her hand in marriage.
I was pretty sure there was no dowry or anything but I believed the tradition was that I was supposed to go to the farm (Robin’s Dad owned a farm) and ask him for his daughter’s hand in marriage. While I support tradition, when it’s easy and convenient and doesn’t interfere with anything else I want to do, I really didn’t want to drive to Central Virginia to ask Robin’s dad for her hand. Especially since she had already given me her hand and I put a ring on it.
I’m not sure what we actually said to her father. He took a while to wander off the back 40 acres and, when he arrived, we just showed him the ring and told him we wanted to get married. Robin’s Dad smiled through the encounter then quickly reminded us that he already had two children, Robin’s older siblings, that had been divorced. He then asked us about jobs and we responded with something reeking of boundless optimism. Of course, we would get jobs and a big house with a garage and two cars and a nice backyard surrounded by a picket fence. I don’t know whether he ever gave an obligatory approval but we left happy and drove back to campus as giddy as we came.
My announcement to my family was much less descriptive. I think I just called and said something like, “Robin and I are getting married…it’ll be in a few months…I don’t know…I don’t know…See you at graduation, Bye”. It was about a year after we were married that I realized how inconsiderate I had been.
Apparently, Robin and I viewed our wedding as our wedding. Others viewed it as their opportunity to observe tradition, decorate rooms, make suggestions, buy things and coordinate events. There were only three things that were important to us; Robin had to be there, I had to be there and Dr. Parker (Robin’s childhood pastor) had to be there to make it legal in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Beyond those three things, nothing else mattered.
While I’m not saying that you should follow our version of, “The Selfish Couple Plans a Wedding”, I do think there is a valuable lesson to be learned here. I can probably best explain it by telling you about an incident that Robin and I had in our first year of marriage.
Robin and I had dinner at a restaurant called, Kodiak, a place with a wild outdoors theme that sold frog legs and bison sausage. We walked in doing a snuggle step as if we were really one very wide person. We made googly eyes as we waited for our food then proceeded to feed each other off of our plates in between kisses. Now, that type of behavior usually gets one of two reactions. To most, it’s sickening and causes people to fake hurl and talk about how pitiful we are. But to those looking for love, we get that “Awww, that’s so sweet”. At this restaurant, the waitress was definitely in the second camp.
Our love-bound waitress came to check on us and asked if she could ask us a question. Then, before we answered, she sat down next to Robin and said, “Ya’ll seem like you’re so in love…my boyfriend and I are in love….but… how do you know?” She paused then continued, “You know, like, how do you know he’s the one?” Then she rambled for another few minutes while I stared at Robin. I realized that Robin was actually going to try to answer her question, which she did while I found out that frog legs don’t taste like chicken.
I didn’t say much during the conversation about knowing when you are in love. I made some inaudible grunts to show interest but I didn’t think about the question until much later. It may have been a few years before I realized that the question was a good one and another few before I came up with my answer. Then I spent a little time trying to figure out a response that would have been suitable for a waitress trying to make a lifelong decision while in the middle of serving multiple guests at a restaurant with a 9-foot bear at the door. Now, I’m ready to express a deep answer to a deeper question. How do you know that “he’s” the one? You know when you don’t have to ask the question.
During the ramp up to Robin and my wedding we never asked anyone’s permission. We never asked if it was ok to get together or alright to move from Virginia to Oklahoma or whether someone thought we were making the right decision. We didn’t just jump into it without thought, but we did the thinking absent the wary eye of a jealous best friend or the scrutiny of parents who had been burned before. I made the decision that Robin was the best thing ever. I knew that every time with her was the best time of my life. And I knew that marrying her was the logical next step to commit to keeping the good times rolling. (And I wanted her to commit to me before she came to her senses, realized that she was better than me, and left me for that, now, pro athlete that was eyeing her in college.) How did I know Robin was the right one? I knew Robin was the right one because I never thought to ask anyone that question.
With 7+ billion people in this world, there must be, at least, that many people with a reason for connecting with someone in a relationship. I have multiple reasons but, with the benefit of time, I have settled on only one that really matters. The only reason to marry anyone is if you are convinced that your life will go from great to fantastic with them. No lesser reason is enough to make the move. And once you make the move, you must be willing to put them first in your life, as part of yourself, and above anyone else.
That is how you know you have found, The One. But I’m curious if there are other methods. How did you know you had found, The One?