By Douglas V. Gibbs
My wife and I take pride in being able to say that we have been married for 27 years, and that on top of that, we are high school sweethearts. Trust me, however, it was not rosy for the first twenty years. In fact, there were many times we nearly called it quits.
When I graduated high school I had a number of opportunities available to me, that included athletic and academic scholarships, and a college fund from my aunt that would more than pay for any college expenses I incurred. For the most part, I pretty much could have gone anywhere I wanted, had I have taken the appropriate preparatory steps. As I tell people, I (for some strange reason) thought that immediately after graduating high school it would be much wiser to get my girlfriend pregnant, marry her, and then get into the U.S. Navy (a proposition I had already flirted with, except that originally I had been planning on the U.S. Marine Corps), instead.
Yes, that means my wife and I jumped into life with both feet, with nothing in common, no plan for the future, and in less than a year after our marriage (three months after our son was born) I was nearly killed in an accident that changed our lives forever.
She knew me before I knew her. Virginia, in fact, knew my high school class schedule as well as I did, too. As I understand it, she watched me from afar. To her delight, we had a few mutual friends, so for Halloween of 1982, she set up an opportunity to meet me.
The party was supposed to be a costume party for girls only, but Virginia asked Amy to invite me too. Imagine my delight when I showed up to a house full of females, save for the hostess's younger brother.
That night Virginia and I met, danced all night to "Endless Love" by Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross (we call that song "our song" now), and at the end of the evening we engaged in our first kiss. With both of us fairly unpracticed in this activity, it was awkward, but did the job.
The following Monday at school, I asked Virginia to go steady, and she said, "No."
Many years later, after we had been married so some time, I asked her about that devastating knock-out blow to my aching heart, and she told me it was simply because she was a Senior, and I was only a Junior, and it was an unwritten rule that Senior girls don't go out with younger guys. Therefore, I would have to wait until after she graduated.
A couple months later I got to know a gal in my Legal/Medical Transcription class, and it was going well until one day suddenly Denise began to give me the cold shoulder. She, also interested in pursuing a dating regime with me, went to Virginia (of which she knew I hung out with every once in a while) to ask her what she thought of me. Virginia, being the kind of woman that would never allow "her man" to be with another woman, promptly told Denise that I was a conniving, untrustworthy individual, and that not only was it not wise to date me, but it could be downright dangerous.
Denise never really ever talked to me again.
One of Virginia's sisters, who was in the same class as I, was in an ongoing feud with me, and the feelings were mutual. I had known Virginia's sister for a couple years, and her crowd (for whatever reason) did not like me. Interestingly enough, I was friends with many of the same friends, and Angelica's drill team crows did all they could to sabotage that (or at least that's what I was thinking back then). Today, I tell my wife often that if I had know at that time she was her sister's sister, I would never have dated her in the first place.
Angelica and I still to this day are not the best of friends.
During the summer between my 11th and 12th grade years I renewed a "friendship" with a girl I met the year before at a Christian "Youth Conflicts" conference. She lived in Lakewood, and the long drive to pick her up became old, so the dating program didn't last very long. During that time I had given up on Virginia, but she had not forgotten me. August 22, 1983, we went out on our first date. After that, the best way to find Doug was to find Virginia. We were together all the time - except when I was at school. She got a fast-food joint job while I was at school, and on her days off I would jump the fence (closed campus) and walk to her parent's house to spend lunch with her (a few blocks away from the high school).
My studies suffered a little bit, not that I was one to study much. School came real easy, and I actually sometimes dumbed down on purpose just so I wouldn't get the kind of attention my buddy Robert got academically (who wound up being co-valedictorian). My PSAT, SAT and ACT scores, however, generated some attention. My running, however, kicked up a notch. I worked to impress Virginia, earning a berth in CIF (but didn't get to go due to disqualification since I missed the league final that year - but that is another story). I went from a JV guy that pulled off earning his letter my Junior year, to a solid spot on the Varsity team my Senior year - a feat that earned me the "Most Improved" trophy at the awards ceremony.
During the summer after I graduated, our relationship grew even more. I moved out, rented a cockroach infested rat-hole (just for the purpose of independence) in town, and spent nearly every waking moment with her.
Problem is, the only thing we had in common was our love. We come from very different cultures (myself born and raised in California with some family influence from Arkansas, she was born in Mexico and her parents immigrated here when she was little), we have different religious upbringings (myself non-denominational Christian, her Catholic), and we don't see eye-to-eye on most things (from our personal priorities, to her love of psychology while I disdain most of the brainwashings of psychology). Therefore, the first twenty years of our marriage was murder. Add onto that my accident less than a year into our marriage, where I received a near-fatal head injury, damage to my back, neck, left ear, left knee, and hip area, a seizure disorder that I miraculously was healed from after 1993, and various neurological damage; the strain on our young marriage was nearly more than anyone could bear. She had to endure me having to learn how to walk again, bathing and dressing me for a while, dealing with me while my mental faculties were going through the healing process (my short term memory was severely affected, and for a while I was not even sure who she was), driving me everywhere for about ten years since my drivers license had been medically revoked, and putting up with my daily anger and frustration over what had happened.
Our marriage went through the ringer, and where most marriages would have dissolved, ours became more determined.
Then, at about the twenty year mark, God joined her life in the way that I know Christ, and we looked back on our twenty years of arguing, wrestling, and pretty much hammering each other, and said, "Wow, that was stupid, and a complete waste of twenty years."
Since then, our love has grown exponentially.
When you meet someone new, you are enamored by them, and then as the relationship grows, the flaws of the people in the relationship begin to surface. Those flaws often become focal points of arguments, or "getting back" at each other.
Our differences, which is pretty much everything, held us back for twenty years. After twenty years, we finally realized, with God at the helm, that our differences are not something to be at each other's throats about. Opposites attract for a reason. Our differences compliment each other. My strengths are her weaknesses, and her strengths are my weaknesses. We fit together like a couple of puzzle pieces. We are meant for each other, even though it took us twenty years to figure that out.
My dad once told me, when I was at a low point in my marriage, "Regardless of whether or not she was the right person when you married her, in the eyes of God she became the right person the moment you said 'I do.' Don't argue with her about these differences. Work on growing. As you grow, she will have one of two choices. Either, she will choose to grow with you, or you will leave her in your dust, and her next decision will become obvious. Grow, and love her. Just love her."
Now, here we are at 27 years of marriage, and we are happy. The road was rocky. The storms of life were severe. Many times I just wanted to call it quits. It was a difficult road.
Nothing worth having is ever easy.
Now, we have gotten over the wall. The mistakes of the past have been forgiven, the bone-headed moves have been forgotten, and our human flaws are embraced as an important part of this relationship.
We plan to have the big wedding we never got on our thirtieth anniversary. That is only three years away. We better start planning it now.
We've got plans for our fiftieth too. . . Can't wait.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
One of Virginia's sisters, who was in the same class as I, was in an ongoing feud with me, and the feelings were mutual. I had known Virginia's sister for a couple years, and her crowd (for whatever reason) did not like me. Interestingly enough, I was friends with many of the same friends, and Angelica's drill team crows did all they could to sabotage that (or at least that's what I was thinking back then). Today, I tell my wife often that if I had know at that time she was her sister's sister, I would never have dated her in the first place.
Angelica and I still to this day are not the best of friends.
During the summer between my 11th and 12th grade years I renewed a "friendship" with a girl I met the year before at a Christian "Youth Conflicts" conference. She lived in Lakewood, and the long drive to pick her up became old, so the dating program didn't last very long. During that time I had given up on Virginia, but she had not forgotten me. August 22, 1983, we went out on our first date. After that, the best way to find Doug was to find Virginia. We were together all the time - except when I was at school. She got a fast-food joint job while I was at school, and on her days off I would jump the fence (closed campus) and walk to her parent's house to spend lunch with her (a few blocks away from the high school).
My studies suffered a little bit, not that I was one to study much. School came real easy, and I actually sometimes dumbed down on purpose just so I wouldn't get the kind of attention my buddy Robert got academically (who wound up being co-valedictorian). My PSAT, SAT and ACT scores, however, generated some attention. My running, however, kicked up a notch. I worked to impress Virginia, earning a berth in CIF (but didn't get to go due to disqualification since I missed the league final that year - but that is another story). I went from a JV guy that pulled off earning his letter my Junior year, to a solid spot on the Varsity team my Senior year - a feat that earned me the "Most Improved" trophy at the awards ceremony.
During the summer after I graduated, our relationship grew even more. I moved out, rented a cockroach infested rat-hole (just for the purpose of independence) in town, and spent nearly every waking moment with her.
Problem is, the only thing we had in common was our love. We come from very different cultures (myself born and raised in California with some family influence from Arkansas, she was born in Mexico and her parents immigrated here when she was little), we have different religious upbringings (myself non-denominational Christian, her Catholic), and we don't see eye-to-eye on most things (from our personal priorities, to her love of psychology while I disdain most of the brainwashings of psychology). Therefore, the first twenty years of our marriage was murder. Add onto that my accident less than a year into our marriage, where I received a near-fatal head injury, damage to my back, neck, left ear, left knee, and hip area, a seizure disorder that I miraculously was healed from after 1993, and various neurological damage; the strain on our young marriage was nearly more than anyone could bear. She had to endure me having to learn how to walk again, bathing and dressing me for a while, dealing with me while my mental faculties were going through the healing process (my short term memory was severely affected, and for a while I was not even sure who she was), driving me everywhere for about ten years since my drivers license had been medically revoked, and putting up with my daily anger and frustration over what had happened.
Our marriage went through the ringer, and where most marriages would have dissolved, ours became more determined.
Then, at about the twenty year mark, God joined her life in the way that I know Christ, and we looked back on our twenty years of arguing, wrestling, and pretty much hammering each other, and said, "Wow, that was stupid, and a complete waste of twenty years."
Since then, our love has grown exponentially.
When you meet someone new, you are enamored by them, and then as the relationship grows, the flaws of the people in the relationship begin to surface. Those flaws often become focal points of arguments, or "getting back" at each other.
Our differences, which is pretty much everything, held us back for twenty years. After twenty years, we finally realized, with God at the helm, that our differences are not something to be at each other's throats about. Opposites attract for a reason. Our differences compliment each other. My strengths are her weaknesses, and her strengths are my weaknesses. We fit together like a couple of puzzle pieces. We are meant for each other, even though it took us twenty years to figure that out.
My dad once told me, when I was at a low point in my marriage, "Regardless of whether or not she was the right person when you married her, in the eyes of God she became the right person the moment you said 'I do.' Don't argue with her about these differences. Work on growing. As you grow, she will have one of two choices. Either, she will choose to grow with you, or you will leave her in your dust, and her next decision will become obvious. Grow, and love her. Just love her."
Now, here we are at 27 years of marriage, and we are happy. The road was rocky. The storms of life were severe. Many times I just wanted to call it quits. It was a difficult road.
Nothing worth having is ever easy.
Now, we have gotten over the wall. The mistakes of the past have been forgiven, the bone-headed moves have been forgotten, and our human flaws are embraced as an important part of this relationship.
We plan to have the big wedding we never got on our thirtieth anniversary. That is only three years away. We better start planning it now.
We've got plans for our fiftieth too. . . Can't wait.
-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary
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