The Story Of Our Love…

Today I want to chat with you about the story of our love. Who is our? Well, it is my husband and me. Since we are knocking at the door of Valentine’s Day I thought it would be a nice idea to tell you our love story. Our story is far from perfect. But what makes it great is it’s ours to make it however we want. Here is our story.

When Love Was A Seed…

Back in 2011, I was single for about a year. I had to recover from a real toxic relationship with someone I thought I loved. Needless to say, it took me a long time to get myself together. So I took my journey to heal and after a year I felt like I was ready to start dating again.

The first step I took was getting on a dating app. That was a huge mistake. The only thing I found on those apps was a pain in the butt. I’d go on date after date and the only thing that those guys wanted was sex. After a few months, I was so over it. The whole time I was dealing with these losers my mom was urging me to get on Steve Harvey’s dating segment. If you remember back then his radio show used to air on tv. They had people on the show who was looking for love.

After about the twentieth time of my mom telling me to get on his site, I took the leap. Before I set up my profile I said a little prayer. By this time I was tired. My prayer consisted of asking God to make this attempt successful and if it wasn’t I was batting for the other team. (Yes that’s how tired I was). Also, I put a one-month time limit on how long I stayed on the site. That was just long enough for the free trial to end.

Located My Love…

Now it was time to jump. That’s just what I did, I made my profile on Steve Harvey’s old dating site, Locate Your Love. Once I made the profile I checked out the scene. Honestly, things were looking a little sketchy and I didn’t have much hope. But there was something inside of me that told me to hold on.

Then one day, which was about two weeks after I had been on the site, I got a message from a guy. Previously, when I received messages they were from guys on there that were scammers. This message had a different feeling. But when I saw his picture all I could think was, “he looks like the type of guy that I’m trying to stay away from.” There was a bit of curiosity that made me respond to his message. After a few emails back and forth I decided to give him my number.

The Beginning of Love…

You guessed it! The man I was getting to know is now my husband. The first thing that I noticed about him is he was a great father. We had many conversations about his daughter. In one of our conversations, he asked me a question. He wanted to know, “what I thought about a man that took care of a child that wasn’t his?” I gave him my honest answer, I felt like it was a noble characteristic.

Then, another time we had a conversation he took his daughter and her sister to get mani-pedis and he got one as well. This was something that my father never did with me or any other father that I knew of. Because of that one thing, it made me fall in love with him that quick. I know that we weren’t dating yet but I knew that he was somebody I wanted to be with.

The Dilemma With Our Love…

We had plenty of great conversations but during the beginning of our relationship, we lived in two different states. When Tariq and I first met I lived in Delaware and he lived in Georgia. We were around 700 miles away from each other. This was a problem. We both were used to dating people who lived in the same state. The distance was tough to get around. Somehow, we managed.

After talking for three months I made my first trip to Atlanta! The arrangements were all made and I was going to stay at his house. I know I know that was a little crazy and dangerous. I didn’t care. After being lied to so many times about guys’ relationship status’s I needed to see first hand what was going on in his house. I would not advise this for everybody but I just had to get the feel of the situation.

Dilemma Cont’d

He was more nervous about me staying at his house than I was. Once I arrived in Atlanta that’s when the nerves hit. I couldn’t believe that I really came out here to see a man I never laid eyes on other than video chatting. He actually hid in plain sight when I was on my way to the baggage claim. We were talking on the phone as I was on my way to get my bags.

I was describing what I was wearing to him so we can find each other. He was telling me that he could see me but I couldn’t see him. I was looking around frantically trying to find him. He finally told me to turn around and I did. There he was with a huge smile on his face. Later he told me that he had to make sure that I was who I said I was. He was in a catfish situation before. We laugh about this whenever we reminisce.

Courtship…

During our first visit together, we had a great time. He was the first person to take me to an expensive restaurant like Ruth Chris and Legal Seafood. The way I describe those restaurants is the food was like having an orgasm in my mouth. We went to the Georgia Aquarium, I think that was the biggest aquarium I have ever been to. That whole weekend was great. I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to the man I was going to marry.

Did I mention that when I came to visit it was right around Valentine’s Day? He had the most beautiful roses waiting for me at his house. They were the first of many bouquets that I would get during our courtship. He also gifted me with jewelry, no one has ever given me jewelry before. That was it he won me over that weekend.

From that weekend on we committed to being in each other’s lives forever. We made it very clear to each other from the start that we were dating with the intent to get married. That’s exactly what we did. After that weekend we both made trips to see each other once a month. That was difficult but we made it work for us.

The Move…

We were flying back and forth for almost a year before we had the big discussion. We needed to talk about who was going to move to the other person’s state. He had his daughter where he lived and I had myself other than my family. Once we went back and forth about the decision, I decided to move. Besides I always wanted to live in Atlanta.

The next steps were to make enough money for me to move and find my place. We didn’t want to live together when I first moved here, so he helped me find an apartment. I had that much trust in him that I let him go look at apartments for me. He would call me after he checked them out and gave me his opinion. We came across an apartment one day that was pretty much perfect. It was in my price range, newly remodeled and only five minutes from where he lived. The manager was super cool and I was able to work everything in order to get my place. I was able to transfer my job down here too.

Engagement…

When I moved here we wanted to make sure things still worked out the way they did when I lived in Philly. Since he had a daughter we had to make sure that we gelled together. Having a blended family is hard work. Being around each other on a daily basis we were able to get to know one another really well. We saw stuff that we didn’t see from each other when we lived in separate states. It was quite the adjustment that we had to make.

After living here for over a year we were becoming more serious about our goal to get married. There were people in my family that didn’t think we would ever get married. By listening to them I started to create unnecessary friction in our relationship. This was a tough road that we had to cross but we made it to the other side. We started living together after I hit the one year mark of being a Georgia resident.

When I Said Yes…

I used to get home around 9 pm from work. One day when I was on my way home from work he kept calling to see where I was. This was odd because we talked when I was driving home but he never continuously asked me where I was. I finally made it to the house and pulled into the driveway. When I got out of my car I heard music playing outside, I was looking around trying to see where it was coming from. Then I realized it was coming from my house.

I opened the front door and was greeted by a trail of rose petals and candles leading me to the living room. The lights were dimmed, music was playing and there he was on bended knee. Well by this point, there was a puddle on the ground from all of my tears. He was proposing to me with the most beautiful words and ring. This man was the love of my life and I finally was getting close to my dream. Of course, I said yes. We celebrated with a bottle of Moet afterwards. I absolutely could not believe this was happening to me.

The Nuptials…

We stayed engaged for about two years. Our goal was to make sure we had enough money to bring our lives together. I planned the wedding on my own. There was no reason for me to hire somebody because I am a certified wedding and event planner. It was all on my shoulders and it had to be perfect.

We worked our butts off to get the money to pay for decorations and the venue. Finding the right caterer was difficult. There was someone that he knew from work that was caterer on the side, she pulled out of the wedding about three weeks before the wedding. Never the less, the big day came and it wasn’t without its surprises. He looked handsome, I was beautiful that was all that mattered. That was the day I became Mrs. Tariq Walker.

Life After The Wedding…

Our life after we got married became pretty busy. Our new life did not come without drama. We figured out how to get through those rough times. We both were in school working hard to graduate. Then, we started planning to expand our family. That’s when we had our beautiful baby boy who is the perfect mixture of both me and his father. At least I would like to think so.

Being a new parent and him starting over had its own adjustment problems. I vaguely touched on that in my post How To Bring Baby Home With No Anxiety. That little boy was exactly what we needed in our lives. He brings so much joy, love, and amazement to us every single day.

Being married to Tariq is one of life’s greatest joys. I made the best decision by saying yes to his proposal. We balance each other so well. The one thing that I love the most about our relationship is that we are willing to work on our problems. When we were both young our respective parents got divorced and this was something neither one of wanted for our marriage.

Today…

Every day we strive to make it better than the day before. He is the breath of fresh air that I needed in my life. He brought a new perspective to my world and showed me how to live. I love experiencing life with him. At first, having a mature relationship frightened me but now it is the longest relationship I have ever had. I thank God that we found each other when we did. There were a lot of barriers that I put up over my heart but he was able to break through them bit by bit. We have a lot more life to live together.

Genesis 2:24 NCV So a man will leave his father and mother and be united with his wife, and the two will become one body.

I hope this post made you get the feels for Valentine’s Day. If you have a love story I would love to hear it. You can tell me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter @itsashleyjw.

Until we chat again…