So this is where I was being directed on the Coffee thread.
Get ready for a LONG story!
Okay...so I'm going to have to mention my first husband, who was never my "Dear Husband" and more my "Damned Husband" - I'll just refer to him as "Ex". I hate to speak ill of the dead, but it's necessary in order to explain why Jabber is such a saint.
Ex was a huge error in judgment that just snowballed. I met Ex in a bar and kind of just never got rid of him. Within days he'd moved in with me. Within 5 months, we were married. Yes, that fast. The relationship was LOADED with warning signs and I ignored them all. That biological clock is a
. I wanted to be married and have babies and I didn't think anyone else would ever ask. He told me everything I wanted to hear. He was controlling and jealous and in the end thought he was a great husband because he never hit me. He wouldn't work. He drank like a fish. He cheated. He nearly bankrupted me. Literally, the only reason I didn't have to file was because I was a lawyer and I knew how to bluff the collections agencies. I had a great wedding! I had a terrible marriage. I was pregnant in 6 months. He took off about 6 months after our son was born. After another 18 months or so I filed for and was divorced...I'd waited hoping his girlfriend would pay for it. He never paid me a dime in child support.
So...that was Ex.
A few years later, I've dated like two guys - one very short-term, like 3 dates, and one old boyfriend, who is STILL a friend...Now HE'S a long story. LOL
Finally a friend of mine (former friend now - another long story) keeps telling me, "
I know the BEST GUY for you!" Jabber and she had dated, even - I think - lived together for a short time. She left him for a friend of his and it's a tribute to how nice a guy my Jabber is that he remained friends with them both! Anyway, she kept trying to get us together, even threw her daughter a birthday party, which if I remember correctly, was mostly adults, so we'd meet. We did meet. I said hello to him and promptly forgot what he even looked like.
She kept it up. She arranged for us to both come play cards with her and her boyfriend. My son conveniently got sick so I could cancel. I turned her down over and over and finally she just said,
"You ARE going out with Jabber! You are meeting at my house this Sunday, you're going to eat at Applebee's, you're going to see this movie, and I am going to babysit!"
So...I went. He picked me up, we went to Applebee's (where he impressed me by only having two drinks), we went to the movie (Payback, with Mel Gibson...not exactly romantic, lol), he took me back to her apartment, where I gathered my son, thanked him politely, SHOOK HIS HAND
, and went home.
She called and asked if she could give him my phone number. I said yes. He called and we went out the next weekend, and the one after that, and the one after that...in fact, we never spent another weekend apart until well after we were married.
I asked her once, when she was bugging me to go out with him, if he was so great, why didn't SHE keep him! Her answer, he was too boring for her. Yeah....