Tell me a love story

[Sweet Freedom]

I don't think I believe in love, but someday, I would like to change that. So does anyone have a true, happy love story to share? I'd like to hear it.

[DFW]

1. Sure

Once upon a time, a 22 year old recent college grad from the Southern USA, who had no idea what he wanted to do with himself, went off to spend a summer in what was then West Berlin, the walled-in city. There was a thriving folk music scene there then, and there were a cluster of folk clubs off the Kurfürstendamm where anyone could show up, play a set for 20 minutes and get 10 DM for his or her trouble.

It was sort of a pickup place and young people from all over the world gravitated there. One night, he chatted to a friendly young woman from Münster/Westfalen, who was nice enough, but whose mouth didn't have an off button. She was there again the next night, and announced that she was leaving fro China the next day, but that the young American guy should met her girlfriend. He asked where she was. The room was noisy, smoky, and dark. She leaned back and said, "right here!"

The American guy took one look and couldn't believe his eyes. There was a stunning tall blonde woman with a face that could launch a thousand ships, as the legend goes. He figured there was no way in the world a nerd like him had a ghost of a chance with a woman like that, but he tried to hide his pessimism and struck up a conversation. It turned out that the blonde beauty had seen him perform a few times (he was a musician) and liked the fact that he didn't mention that he was a musician, since the standard pickup line in those places was "I'm a musician!"

Much to his surprise, she seemed to like him, too, and in less than 4 days, they spent their first night together. She was still studying social work, and had a ways to go to get her degree, and had never been to America. She couldn't imagine it would ever amount to more than a pleasant summer fling. He was sure he had found his partner for life, but had no idea how to make it happen. He had to think of getting a job, or else take up his mother's offer to get him into business school, which he REALLY didn't want to do. Instead, he sort of lived on like a gypsy in Philadelphia, where he had gone to college, scraping money together as he could with music gigs, and had enough money to go visit his new German friend at Christmas. That visit went well, too. Eventually, he was recruited by an outfit who needed multi-lingual personnel willing to travel a lot. He said, "if it includes Germany....."

They spent three years doing the long-distance routine, noted that they still got along well, and when she had completed her studies, she came to spend a year with him in the USA to see if they could really still get along living together. That worked out, too, but they both were working after the year ended, and her work was in Germany. He got himself promoted to permanent overseas work, and though on the road constantly, managed to spend time in Germany, or have her join him elsewhere (Zürich, Paris, Copenhagen, Boston, Washington, wherever).

In 1981, the guy's brother called him up and asked if he wanted to be best man at the brother's wedding. The brother was with a woman from Japan, and they were getting married in Washington next April. The guy said of course, and mentioned that he would ask if his girlfriend could make it, too. The brother said, well if you both will be there, we could make it a double wedding. The guy called his girlfriend in Germany (he was in Boston at that particular moment), and relayed the suggestion. She said the German equivalent of "sure, works for me." Not the most romantic of proposals, but still, an affirmation that after 8 years, neither of them could imagine the idea of spending their lives with someone else.

That meeting in Berlin was 40 years ago this July. The Washington wedding was 32 years ago. Both couples are still happily married, both with two children now, and still couldn't imagine having anyone else as a partner.

They look at photos from decades ago, and know that decades must have passed, but they still can't figure out where the time went.


That good enough for starters?

[Sweet Freedom]

4. That's an awesome story.

Thank you for taking the time to share it.

[DFW]

7. I left out a LOT of the details

As you might imagine.

This was a post on the old DU about 5 years ago: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x8680479

It tells a little more of the story in pictures.

[shenmue]

2. My parents

They met during a stickball game. (according to family legend)

Mom stepped up to bat and Dad was pitching. Dad threw and Mom knocked the pitch about a gazillion feet.

They just celebrated their 45th anniversary this year.

[Sweet Freedom]

5. Go mom!

Wow! 45 years. Good for them.

Thanks!

[Skittles]

3. my mum's best friend

she was pregnant and unmarried in 1953....the guy ran off........another guy she knew (who had long had a crush on her) offered to marry her, give the baby a name....she told him, but I do not love you......he said he understood that.......they got married......after she had the baby, she grew to love him when she watched him tenderly caring for her baby as his own........they had five more kids together ....they are still together now

[Sweet Freedom]

6. Whoa

What a great guy! He changed her life in so many wonderful ways.

[politicat]

8. Okay...

Once upon a time, a girl threw a dart at a map and moved 1000 miles away from everyone she knew. She had good reasons, but it was still pretty tough. She knew almost nothing about her new town, but pretty quickly, she came to love the natural beauty and knew she could make a difference for the people she worked with, even if the town had a lot of reactionaries and authoritarians who hated the work she did. Then she met a guy who seemed pretty decent. They had a lot in common, had a lot of fun together, and made a good team.

After a couple years together, the guy came across an article on polyamory and said, "Hmm." He gave the article to the girl and said, "You like girls, too, right? What do you think?" The girl spent a few weeks thinking about it, really giving it a good chewing over, and eventually said, "Well, we can try it, as long as we talk it all out and respect each other's boundaries and vetoes."

At the same time, another couple was having almost the same conversation, except it was the other woman giving the article to the second man, and the second man advocating the talking and the boundaries.

The girl and the guy met several others who had the same thoughts, including the other couple, and the guy and the second woman had pure chemistry going. The girl and the second man spent a lot of time being elsewhere, often together, doing stuff as friends while the guy and the second woman reveled in their new relationship. Which was pretty fine as far as the girl was concerned. She liked her new friend in the second man. She was also finding a city she liked a lot more than the town with the reactionaries, and realized that the heavy weight she always felt on her shoulders was her unhappiness with the place. She started looking for another job, then found one in the new city, and had fallen in love with the new city.

And then the guy and the second woman had a falling out, and it went from bliss to mutually assured destruction in about 8 seconds. Both the guy and the second woman were so angry with each other that they didn't want anything to do with the others, and the guy told the girl that he didn't want her talking to the other man ever again. And the second woman said the same thing to the other man. And the guy did not want to move to the new city and he did want to move to a place where the girl had relatives she didn't like. And then the guy hit the girl during an argument.

So the girl moved out, alone again, to the new city. The guy went... Away, she supposed. The girl tried to mend the friendship with the second woman, but the second woman was still hurt and angry and jealous. The other man and the second woman weren't working out their differences very well, either, so the second woman left the other man. But the girl just went to work, lived in her new city, and enjoyed the peace of being not in the chaos of the last year.

Then one day, the other man pinged her through ICQ. The girl and the other man shared a deep affection for a certain video game, and the man wanted to know if the girl wanted to play (this was before MMORPGS, but the game had a multiplayer by modem option.) So they did, after work, for quite a while. A few weeks later, the girl told the man that no, she couldn't play on a certain night because she had to do laundry, and the man offered his guest room, his network connection and his laundry machines for the weekend. So the girl took her laundry and her computer on the bus to his house for the weekend, they played games and did laundry and just had friend-fun for several more weeks, every weekend.

And then the girl got sick. It was a pretty nasty sick and the girl didn't have anyone nearby in her new city. But the man found the way to make it work to take care of her, even if it did mean putting his two cats in carriers and bringing them on the bus to her apartment for a week so he could care for all of them. (Neither the girl nor the man had a car then, but they lived in a city with good public transit.)

After the girl got better, they went back to playing games and spending weekends together and six months after the exploding relationships, they realized that they were incredibly happy together, happier than they ever had been before. So they tried an experiment, to see if not using the guest room would work... And the girl proposed, even though she had never planned to marry at all.

They went to the courthouse a year after that, which was thirteen years ago. He's still my best friend, and we're still enormously happy together, and yes, we still play video games. We're monogamous, having come to that the hard way, but we learned the best parts --communication, boundaries, honesty -- and that start made us stronger.

[Sweet Freedom]

11. Aw...he brought his cats

and took care of you. Sounds like a sweetie!!

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

9. Probably the most famous love story from Vietnamese folklore

The story of Truong Chi and My Nuong. Every Vietnamese person knows it. Unfortunately it's not a happy love story but I find it an absolutely fascinating one. I once had a Vietnamese girlfriend who told me about it.

http://www.advite.com/vietnamese_cyrano_de_bergerac_an.htm


Truong Chi and My Nuong.

Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful young lady, My Nuong, beloved daughter of a great and wealthy mandarin. She seemed to have every thing in life to be happy.

Yet the beautiful My Nuong was not happy, for she was lovesick. Day and night she dreamt of the charming voice of a mysterious stranger who used to row his craft along the river, down there, beyond the garden, singing wonderful songs. He sang his love for living, his love for nature and mankind, and whenever he expressed his thanks to Heaven for all these blessings his voice was so enchanting and ethereal that no other human voice could match it.

"Oh! That the mysterious stranger were here", sighed the young lady," then I should be able to see his handsome face and his manly manners-for he must be a noble prince and a learned scholar. That is the only thing in the world that I am longing for!"

Then she grew thinner and thinner and became seriously ill. Doctors were called for, but the more medicine she took, the weaker she became. Then the youngest and cleverest of the maids said: "Our lady became thoughtful and sad since the stranger came and sang wonderful songs on the river yonder". Then the mandarin said:" Let the stranger be brought here, and let him marry my beloved daughter, if such is her wish."

Then servants went to fetch the stranger, a very poor fisherman called Truong Chi who lived in a shabby hut on the edge of the city. The very moment his eyes met hers, he fell desperately in love with her.

But Mi Nuong, seeing his plain face and ragged clothes, recalled the picture of a charming prince she had imagined of him, and burst out laughing. And with that laugh, her love sickness was cured forever.

Truong Chi grew very sad and melancholic when he was taken back to his hut. He sighed:" It was so pleasant when I was free and happy, singing and enjoying life. Now it is all past. I shall carry a sweet remembrance of my first and last meeting with her in my grave, when I die."

One morning, people found him dead in his miserable hut.

Years passed by, and one day, they dug his grave to remove his ashes to another place. His heart had been crystallized into a magnificent gem, and knowing his sad love for Mi Nuong, offered it to her father. It was carved into a lovely teacup, and whenever tea was poured into it, the image of Truong Chi appeared in the amber liquid. When Mi Nuong saw the sad face of Truong Chi, a tear of remorse rolled down her cheeks and fell into the cup, which suddenly vanished.

It was thought that even a tear from his beloved was sufficient to calm forever the restless spirit of Truong Chi, for now that the "debt of love" was paid, the "crystal of love" could at last disappear.

(Adapted and abridged from Vietnamese Legends by L. T. Bach Lan.)

[Sweet Freedom]

12. I like that story

thanks for sharing it!

[Tribalceltic]

10. I have a short one

In 1976 I moved to upstate NY and started high school. She sat next to me in homeroom. We dated for the next 5 years, Then got married. 27 years after that we held a re-dedication of our vows. We are still in love, have had 2 children and one grandchild. The only thing hard times ever did for us was make our love stronger.

Thank you for letting me share

[Sweet Freedom]

13. Yay!

Why at 27 years? Was that number significant?

[Tribalceltic]

16. Yes a very good reason

We had the money and the time and a bunch of friends. I surprised her at a gathering, by putting on a Scottish kilt and asked her to renew our vows in front of about 150 people. I had asked her to wear her wedding dress which still fit her.
Other major anniversaries had been screwed up by hospital visits, friends and family passing away or other problems. on our 27th everything just came together.

Also, we often wake up holding hands.

[MissMillie]

14. My parents

The "met" on Halloween 1946. (They had seen each other before and knew each other's families.) She was 12 and he was 15.

They were married in September 1950. They were expecting a baby when they got married. Mom was 16, Dad was 19.

They are still married. As they putter around the house they often stop to embrace or kiss. They hold hands when they walk into a store or church.

[Sweet Freedom]

15. Aww...

That's so sweet!!

[femmocrat]

17. I met my husband at a college dance...

It was the typical "I saw you across a crowded room" moment. He used to date my best friend, but I never met him before. It was absolutely love at first sight!

We have been married for almost 46 years! I don't know where the years went... but they flew by.

[Sweet Freedom]

20. And what did the best friend think?

[femmocrat]

22. They had both moved on by then.

She sent me a wedding present, so I guess it was cool. LOL

[mokawanis]

18. here's mine, the short version

I met my future wife at work, moved in with her a month later, and married her two years after that. We raised three kids and are delighted to have two grand-children. We've been married for 32 years and we're still in love with each other.

[Sweet Freedom]

19. Wow!

If my daughter ever moved in with a man after only one month, I'd be like, .

But, apparently I don't know what I'm talking about.

[Boom Sound 416]

21. We had a good couple weeks on the road but

I didn't know if was real or not.

We had to fly home together, so I figured I'd know then. But unexpectedly she had to take the next flight.

So at the connecting city I told my story to the attendant who confirmed empty seats on her flight from the connecting city. Then he sent a message to the destination city to hold my luggage. Then I bought flowers and waited for three hours.

I stood at the gate and waited for to exit the plane. I figured I know in an instant from her reaction.

I did.

We married 18 months later.

[Rowdyboy]

23. I met my partner of the last 25 years on a Monday night in a gay bar in Jackson Mississippi....

He, 39, was on his first night as a gay man after 18 years being married. I was 35 and a regular. I learned he was a school teacher, a liberal, intelligent, lived in a rambling old house 15 miles from me and was very approachable. We talked for several hours before kissing goodnight-the gay friends he rode to the bar with were scandalized! I told my boss Margaret the next day I had met the man I wanted to spend my life with. That night we had dinner at my trailer, later that week at his house. Six months later I moved in.

We cared for our aging mothers, refinished one floor of this albatross of a "money pit", developed a kick ass garden, raised various animals and crops. He's seen me through a diagnosis of HIV in 1998 and 15 years later of liver cancer. He's my rock and my life. Now I'm going to join him and read awhile in bed.

Thus endeth my love story