Why My Husband Is NOT The Man of My Dreams

I didn’t have the wedding of my dreams.

I’ve been thinking about that wedding.

It was seven years ago this week.

You might remember this, Dear Reader,

As this entire story has unfolded in the lines of this website.

How we got to the waterfall wedding

We got engaged after two years of dating.

And decided to get married just three weeks later.

There was no time to plan for a grand affair.

No time to gather anyone beyond ourselves and our two girls.

I found my dress on the sales rack at Saks.

There were so many clearance stickers on the tag, I couldn’t tell you the original price.

Two sweet little dresses for the girls.

Those came from an online store.

Right after I also found the wedding officiant and photographer online.

The truth about me and weddings

So, no, it wasn’t the wedding of my dreams.

Mainly because I had long before given up the dream that I would ever be in a wedding that didn’t involve me wearing a bridesmaid dress.

We stood by a waterfall that was roaring into an overflowed pond and hung on for dear life so that we didn’t fall in.

A perfect analogy for marriage, you might say.

We scouted this location the week before. It was a nice stream down a boulder. Then it rained for eight days straight almost making this location at Silver Run Falls, NC unusable.

That day, in all its simplicity and symbolism,

Was more than I could’ve ever hoped for.

Better than a million-dollar wedding planned for a year in advance.

We did it quickly because we wanted to be married, not weddinged.

Why Husband is not the man of my dreams

Which brings me to the guy.

Husband.

He comes up a lot in this column.

There is one thing I haven’t shared.

Between you and me, he wasn’t the man of my dreams.

Seven years into marriage, this is biggest thing I know I got wrong as a single woman.

And by single,

I mean siiiiiiingle.

He wasn’t the man of my dreams because I didn’t know I was supposed to dream of a man who was put on this earth to be a husband and a father.

Who would put my life and happiness ahead of his own.

Who would actually like me,

Quirks and all.

Who would obsess over traveling the world with me by his side.

Okay, so call me a slow learner.

Looking back

I think of the many heartbreaks,

The buckets of tears that poured over guys that came before him.

I shake my head.

Those guys didn’t deserve my tears.

They do deserve my gratitude.

For dumping me.

For failing to commit.

For saving me from myself.

I wish I could reach back to frustrated, devastated me and say, “Sweet girl. It’s not that dreams don’t come true. It’s that you need a bigger better dream.”

To that dream,

That man,

Who has made a life with me this last seven years—

Thank you for showing up,

For rewiring my brain,

My heart.