May 2012 Brides (and Grooms) + Diary of a 2012 Bride

Poppleminster

I know the empty house thing. My children are at their fathers and my h2b is away until tomorrow night.

I married my first love. Was with him over 17 years (I am 37). He wasn't horrible just emotionally controlling without realising it. I became withdrawn and a shell. I lost all my dreams and ambitions in life over time and I think we destroyed each other. Terribly sad but it happened and I realised he didn't love me at all, he needed me to run his life and that is something totally different. I tried to work it out, he refused counselling and wouldn't talk and in the end I said that I was going to follow my dream of an education and move to a nicer place. He refused to come with me and never thought i'd leave. Eventually I realised everything was on his terms. Our marriage was fine if I did as he wanted. After a hell of a lot of guilt and several years (I didn't think I had the right to take away his kids, this still hurts even now), I moved. He's hated me ever since, ignored the children for almost 2 years at one point and generally been vile and not paid anything to support them. It shocked me to the core that he'd react like that. I still don't know if I turned him into a monster or if it was always lurking.

After a long time of collecting cat ornaments, drinking sherry and making jam (I jest here), I met a truly outrageous bad boy. Had a very brief fling with him (probably shouldn't admit this), and got some confidence that just maybe I was not the ugliest most evil woman on the planet. So when my lovely h2b and I got talking, I realised I had a choice. Take a risk, possibly get hurt but have at least tried or not bother and turn from sherry to special brew. I took the risk. He was fiercely independent and opinionated and stubborn and didn't need me in any capacity. The difference was, he wanted me

It worked and we've been together ever since. I absolutely adore him. In some ways it's hard as I still get freaked out that he does things for me like get thigns from the shop he things I might like, doesn't go nuts if I buy something and actually encourages me to buy things for myself. I have spent years only wearing clothes from charity shops, not an issue for me but it's so nice to sometimes have something new. He bought me a Radley handbag because I liked it. A handbag that cost £45 was unheard of for me - that's a weeks shopping! I just can't get used to being spoiled. He can cook and has an opinion over what we have for dinner. Shopping in the supermarket was hard at first as i've always had complete control over what was on the menu all week so him wanting to do different things made me freak - he actually cared what I cooked!

To cut a very long, tedious story short. He's my snuggle-puffin of delight (something I call him when I want to annoy him as he's sooooo not fluffy). He's been a brilliant father to my two children and is the father of my next due in October. I'm so excited, it's his first child and I really thought he'd not naturally have any due to me having complications but here we are nesting I can't wait to stand by his side and promise to be with him for the rest of my life as I will mean every word. People were cynical when we got together as we lived 250 miles apart, I had kids and was just losing my job, he is younger and although we never notice the age gap, people gossiped (it's only 7 years). We did it and now we're getting married

How did everyone else get together?

clairus

Poppleminster wrote: »

How did everyone else get together?

Oooooh, I love reading these stories...

The OH and I have been together for over 8 years now. We were at school together and started going out at 17 (we're both 26 now, although he is three months younger than me so is *technically* my toyboy! ) We both went to Uni at 18, 200 miles away from each other, but still managed to see each other almost every weekend (spent a lot of time on the National Express :money: on the M1), so when I finished Uni I moved back up North so we could finally live together, and it was worth the wait!

As much as I was wanting to think about weddings at that point, he still had a few more years at Uni left, and our plans had a small setback when he ended up repeating his final year (making a grand total of seven years at Uni and a student loan debt between us that our grandchildren might end up paying off!). But, eight and a bit years after we first got together, we got engaged last December, and I am so excited for our marriage! Although we have been together for so long, I still feel all the excitement of seeing him when I get home from work every day that I did when we were making the long trek on the coach to see each other.

ickle_yoda

My dad played matchmaker!
I technically first met H2B when I was 13. Our dad's knew each other vaguely and his dad arranged work experience for him with my dad. I vaguely recall a lad in the office (aka our converted loft!)
We didn't meet again til he was 21 and I was 18. He was doing the odd job for my dad and I worked with him on a gig. We got on really well so dad casually suggested I invite him to the club night I went to every week.
Let's just say a friend poured beer over us to stop us snogging!!

We'd always assumed marriage would happen one day but he still TOTALLY shocked me when he produced the ring during a pleasure flight over London just after Christmas 2009. It was an AMAZING proposal but it did set the bar impossibly high for our friends!! :-D

ruthybabs

Poppleminster-congratulations on the baby! How exciting!! I'm super broody, but have promised to wait until after the wedding. H2B never ever wanted kids but now he has fallen for my mad tribe and has decided he'd like a little geordie to add to it much to DD1 &2's horror! (Must be a teenage thing! They're getting to the age where they think we're far too old to be having sex lol!) He's not even sure he can have kids so we'll see what happens, but having fun practising for now! It's amazing how much the little things mean, especially when noone ever did them for you before. I'm glad he's looking after you, it's about time someone did xx

Olokia-the student debt will be a nice legacy for the grandchildren lol! Think mine might inherit mine too. How lovely that you managed to keep it working all through uni with all those other distractions. The endless coach trips show dedication! Life is much easier once you finally get that out of the equation though. How are your plans coming on? xx

ickleyoda-wow what a proposal! Bet your friend's boyfriends hate him now lol! H2B's sister's boyfriend has stopped making eye contact with him now as he's under massive pressure to propose after 12 years and 2 children together. She never thought H2B would ever marry so now he is, the heat is on! It's funny how you cross paths with people you never really take much notice of, then years later they become the most important person in your life! xx

Lovely stories girls. Can't wait to read everyone else's when they get on.

MsShopper

Such wonderful stories everyone - you girls even got me a bit teary-eyed.

I met my H2B on new year's eve. My sister was having a house party and her best friend mentioned that her OH was coming with some mates. My first question was "Are any of them single?" I was in a mad dating mode, having lost my mum the year before, lost a lot of weight to become curvy instead of just heavy, and was just feeling like I was starting to 'live' again.

Turns out her OH had two single mates, and she described them both: one was loud, funny, life-and-soul kinda bloke and the other was cute, shy and sweet. She thought I'd like the first one, but I'd pretty much decided I wanted to meet the second one. They arrived pretty late and by that time I was tipsily curled up on a comfy chair and had forgotten all about them. She brought over the 'loud' one to talk to me and we were having a good old flirt, when the quiet one came over and joined us too. (In my hazy recollection, I thought she'd brought them over at the same time, to choose between (!!) but my OH said he saw me from across the room, liked what he saw and decided to pluck up the courage to come over as well.) So I ended up with both of them sat on either arm of the armchair, all attention on me!

So I was having a great time, as you can imagine, and after a while my sister's friend came over and made a 'Well, which one is it?" face and so I gave the nod to my H2B (the cute, shy one, who was also just my cup of tea: tall, dark rugby player type) and within about ten minutes we were snogging, and mostly didn't stop until about 5am! He rang me the next day, we started dating and just over eight years later he proposed. :j

We've had our ups and downs along the way, of course. To start with, he lived in Birmingham, me in London, and for various reasons he couldn't move down for quite some time (and I have to be in London for my job), so we spent the first five years in a long-distance weekend-only relationship. Looking back now, I can't believe how we managed it!

He's also nearly six years younger than me - I was 27 when we met, he was 21 - and neither of us had had a serious long-term relationship before. So at first that was tricky, for me at least, as I was convinced he would lose interest after a while and want to go and sow his wild oats or whatever. But he proved that wasn't the case, and we barely ever notice the age difference. Although I think age had a part to play in getting engaged. We'd talked about it on and off for the last couple of years, but no proposal came and I was starting to give up! Then he turned 30 in March, and two months later out popped the ring. :rotfl:

Poppleminster

Yay for happy stories What a lovely lot to read on a Saturday morning over a cuppa. Thanks for sharing everyone, it's just so nice to reflect on the things that make us happy amid the turmoil of housework and washing and shopping and mundane stuff! Amusing that a few of us have toyboys, it seems to be normal nowadays but once we would have been frowned upon severely as the norm in the 1970's was that on average the man was 5 years older than the woman when they got married. According to my wedding mag anyway.

Must be good today and not spend too long on the laptop. Must do some work. Ugh. A big happy squee for everyone though. We are lucky girlies

ickle_yoda

On a completely unrelated note, I've just bought my wedding day undies!
H2B has been saying about me wearing a gold bikini on the day so, as a surprise at the end of the night I'll be wearing this:

and a matching thong (freshly put on just before we go to bed after removing the 12hr old pants!!)

ruthybabs

Lucky Mr Yoda!!!;)

Poppleminster

Brilliant

bride2be2012

oh, such lovely stories!

I met my OH through mutual friends. I was away one weekend visiting an old school friend, and we randomly decided to go to the pub on the Saturday night. We met some of her work friends in the pub, one of whom also had people visiting that weekend - and I spent the whole evening talking to one of those friends! Ended up he came back with me to my friends house and stayed the night (not the sort of thing I'd ever, ever done before, must have known he was special lol!).

And then we started seeing each other long distance for just over 2 years, got engaged Feb 2010 and he moved up to live with me in April 2010. So our wedding day is the closest Saturday to our 4 year anniversary!