When you have been married a long time and still like each other, people have a tendency to ask how you met.

![image.png](https://files.steempeak.com/file/steempeak/whatsup/X1NC7h0m-image.png)
(Aug 1991) He already had salt and pepper gray hair.

The funny thing is that we never had a "met" moment. We lived in the same small town.  I have no specific memories of meeting him.  I just knew he was around, I would hear his name in passing.  I recognized him if we passed in the store.

I didn't think about him much, never really considered him.  He's a good looking man, but there are lots of good looking men.  I just didn't have any strong feelings about him one way or another.

When we first got to know each other we were both in a wild phase.  My parents owned a bar, my mom was sick and I came home to run the bar while she focused on her health.  I was 19.  He was drinking in the bar, playing pool, hanging out.  I still didn't really notice him.  He was nice, polite in the crowd and I remember liking his smile. We'd occasionally have a friendly chat.  I knew he loved basketball as he was often coming to or from league games when we exchanged pleasantries. 

After my mom's health improved I went back to Spokane, continued living wild and made some poor life decisions.

During the next couple of years, separately, we both wanted change.  

By the time I was 21, I realized my life choices were not getting me what I wanted and that I had missed learning some life skills in my home.  My parents were alcoholics and while they did their best, it handed me some weird coping skills and self defeating behaviors and I started to seek healthy choices, emotional healing, and more education.

When I moved back to our small town again, he was in AA, out of the bars, riding bikes, playing basketball, coaching, working on education and we started a friendship based on that connection.


I do still remember the moment when it changed, I looked at him one day and saw him differently, it was a paradigm like moment.  I felt an attraction, a stirring and ... also surprise.  Why hadn't I ever "considered" him in this way?

We dated for 6 months or so and moved in together in 1990.  We were married in August of 1991.  There have been tough times, but it always felt "Right".  That's not to say everything was perfect or smooth.  


That's how we met and also didn't met, we just knew each other.

How'd you meet your partner?

@whatsup