We became really good friends — we talked every day and took hikes every weekend together. This went on for nearly a year, and then, around Christmas I realized he might have feelings for me when he got me a little gift for Christmas. A few weeks after that, we stared dating! Over two years of dating later, we still hike every weekend with the dogs, too!
He said that actually, in retrospect, I was like his little sister. So, yeah, no, that did NOT work out. We threw a pre-housewarming hotel party with some of our friends and ended the night cuddling together, but nothing else happened. I met him outside his parents' home the next day to talk about it, and we both confessed we had caught feelings, and shared our first kiss. We decided to just see what happened, and moved in together a day later, officially dating.
It was the riskiest, most terrifying thing I've ever done, but 14 years later, we've now moved into our second home, we have two wonderful rescue dogs together, we've been married almost four years, and just had our first child last summer. Had three children. Twelve years later, my mom was killed by a drunk driver in a car accident.
He reached out to me and came to the funeral. It had been 15 years since I saw him. He poured his heart out to me as he never had before — he had grown into a man. I wanted to be in love and be loved. Getting a divorce was so difficult, but he waited for another year until I could get my life going again.
He got sober and is a new man. We are now madly in love, and very happily married. He accepted my children and is a wonderful stepfather. Sometimes, I am so sad for all of the years we could have been together, but I know that things were supposed to work out this way.
