One was to a guy that played me, pretended to be a Christian at first, and then ended up being an abusive jerk. After about 3-4 months, I had enough, and said it was over, but it took another 2 years to get the abuse to fully stop.
The second relationship I had in high school was in my senior year, it involved a guy I had met in class my sophomore year (when he was a senior). Seemed like more than coincidence to come across him again. Definitely thought he was the one, but sadly, he was a player and only in a relationship for the sex. When he couldn't get that from me, he gave up and dumped me over an internet message. He kept giving me false hopes that we were going to get back together and tried to kiss me in front of his friends when we were only hanging out "as friends". So, I figured, it was probably best to stay out of that circus 100%.
It didn't help my depression issues to go from one heartbreak to another so I figured I'd give up on finding a guy. In my mind, as far as I was concerned, I was done. Maybe no one was for me if this is how most guys are.
Although, I still prayed about finding a guy if there still was one out there for me even though my hopes felt like they were slipping.
I ended up going to a college group with my friends that was a Bible study group at a local church. At first, I was so mad...I wasn't thrilled about spending my Friday nights in a Bible study at that time. Although, it was two friends against me so if I wanted to hang out, Bible study it was. We continued to go. I felt that I grew in some ways and then later, a bunch more than I had ever expected to grow spiritually.
There was on Friday where there was a surprise birthday party at someone's house for someone in group. They weren't asking for gifts or anything, just for people to show up as they had a gift or two covered. I think at this point, if my memory serves me well enough, that me and another friend wanted to go and one of my friends didn't want to as they felt bad not bringing a gift and stuff and we were saying, "Let's just go. A gift isn't required. Let's just go spend time with everyone." Then they're kinda hesitant, but then say, "Well, I guess." and we all go lol.
At that party, it was a bit crowded. Some people playing a board game here, some a video game there, other people chatting, etc. I was standing a while, not sure what to do with my introverted self. My friends weren't exactly talking to me and I needed to sit down. After I couldn't take the standing anymore, I started to walk to opposite direction towards the living room to sit on the couch until a voice from below said, "Sit here." and patted the floor right next to them. I looked down and this guy was insisting on it, so I thought, "Well, all right."
He was playing a board game and we were chatting. While during the night we moved around from place to place, talking with different people, we always seemed to circle back around to each other. I didn't have any contact info for him, hadn't seen him at college group before then, but when I got home, I noticed my friend added him on social media. I thought, "Hey, it's that guy from the party!" So, I added him and he added me a few moments later. From then on, we couldn't stop chatting. We went from talking online, to texting, to spending time in person, and rinse, wash, repeat for about 12 - 20 hours a day lol. I mean, what's sleep for anyway?
It had been a month of being together and he proposed to me, and I said, "Yes!", but was too afraid to break the news to our parents. Me, especially, to mine. I was 19 years old, in college, still living with the parents, and he was a few years older than I was, almost done with his bachelor's degree, taking care of his elderly parents.
We hid this successfully for about 3 more months until I decided I should tell my parents and couldn't hide it forever. We went out to eat, and I wasn't sure how to just say it...but when I did, my mom dropped her silverware onto her plate in the restaurant so loud the entire restaurant was quiet and she wasn't happy about it, and said not to expect any financial help for our wedding whatsoever. Didn't stop us, though.
When we had ordered our rings and such, we went to the courthouse to get married. I never told my parents about this. They said we needed an appointment, but the same lady the week before said, "No appointment needed." We had our witnesses that we knew wouldn't gossip about it to other people and my husband said, "Any licensed clergy can sign this marriage certificate?" The woman said, "Yes." and then my husband said, "Okay, let's roll!" So we went to his house and his mom married us in the yard (his parents were licensed clergy) and signed the marriage certificate. My husband forgot it was his brothers birthday so he's sitting inside alone at the table with candles burning on his birthday cake, wondering where everyone was.
Ended up going with him to another town to get my last name legally changed and all this stuff. I kinda forgot some of that documentation would come to my house...my mom was mad.
We planned a big church wedding so we could invite friends and family, but we were already married so there was no need to sign the certificate in front of everyone, which we had to break to the person that married us and many others. It was kind of a shocking moment. >_<
If I could go back and change anything, I would've tried to be more kind to my mom and tried a bit harder to include her in on things to hopefully find some middle ground because I know at that point I didn't feel she was being all that nice or fair to me and it made things miserable.
My mom did pay for catering for our wedding. She had something in mind, but we had heard nightmares about the catering she wanted and it was so overpriced. I didn't want her to pay for so much, when my husband and I knew of a friend, that my mom had also known for many years that did catering as her own business. She did an excellent job and was like 1/4 of the price of the catering my mom wanted. I also would've chosen a different bakery because the cake wasn't even close to good.
