Stephanie Little asks blogger, writer and author of When My Husband Does The Dishes, Kerri Sackville to share the first time she fell in love.
The first time I fell in love was with my husband, The Architect. He was also the first man I slept with, which will make a wonderfully moralistic story to tell our children one day. (That I was only 17 at the time, and that I’ve had sex with other people since, is, of course, quite irrelevant.)
The Architect and I started dating when we were teenagers, and I knew he was the one I would marry. Three years later, it was no surprise when he took me into my bedroom and proposed.
Except that that’s not what happened at all.
The Architect took me into my bedroom, held my hand, and broke up with me. And it was very surprising indeed.
I was shattered. I sobbed every night for six weeks. But eventually anguish turned to anger, then anger turned to nostalgia, and I could think of The Architect without pain. He moved to New York, and I found myself a new partner. Life, of course, went on.
Six years later and my telephone rang. It was The Architect, in town for his brother’s wedding, and wanted to meet me for lunch. I said no (what was the point?), he said yes, I said no, he persuaded me (he’s very persuasive), and we met briefly for a picnic in the park. We spent one hour together, talking about nothing in particular, and in that sixty minutes, the floodgates opened. I realised I still loved him, and apparently, he still loved me.
Two days later I broke up with my partner. The Architect packed up his life in New York, moved back home, and a year after that we were married. It was the perfect love story, and we lived happily ever after.
Except that that’s not what happened at all.
We did get married, but there was no fairytale ending. We had kids, we fought over finances, we argued over housework, we annoyed each other, and we got too tired for sex (or perhaps that was just me…). Marriage, you see, is no happily-ever-after, even when it comes after a perfect love story.
But you know what? Fairytale endings are for fairies. Real people are imperfect, and so we lead imperfect lives, which are far more interesting anyhow.
Through good times and bad, my husband The Architect is still my very first love, and I wouldn’t change a thing.
