My partner

I met my husband through the girl that lived next door to me my freshman year of college. I'd seen my future husband a few times during the first few weeks of school, but I didn't officially meet him until the day he took my neighbor out on a date. The girls on my floor had signed up for an outing sponsored by my residence hall that night, so my future husband and my neighbor went out to an early dinner and then went back to her room to hang out until it was time for all of the girls to leave. It was during their hang out time that I officially met him.

I was getting ready to go out and had accidentally smudged my eyeliner and mascara all over my eye. I needed a Q-tip to clean it up without having to start over completely. I went next door to my neighbor to see if she had one and was surprised to see my future husband there, hanging out. We were introduced and we talked for a few minutes. We were very comfortable with each other and our interaction felt completely natural, like we'd known each other for years. I left my neighbor's room knowing that I had just met the boy I was going to marry.

I fully expected that my future husband and I would become friends, and maybe a few years down the road we'd start dating. Because I knew in my heart that he was my soulmate, I wasn't in a hurry to enter a romantic relationship with him, but I did want to have him in my life. His relationship with my neighbor was over in just a few weeks, but my future husband and I became friends - very close friends. In just a couple of months, our feelings of love developed naturally from this friendship and we started dating.

It's been more than fourteen years since that day I met my future husband, but I still remember that feeling when I knew he was the one I was going to marry. It wasn't like a romance novel, movie, or television show - I didn't see a heart appear around his face, hear music play, or feel some sort of insane physical chemistry. Rather, it was a feeling of peace and calm and comfort. I had found my partner.

I was only eighteen when I met my husband, and I still had a lot of maturing to do to really understand how to be a partner to someone. I'm still learning. But we learned it together, and we're still learning it together, and we'll continue to learn together.

Whenever I feel frustration about where I am in my life, I remind myself of what it was like to meet my husband all those years ago, and how I felt to know that I had found my partner in life. I remind myself that it's not just about me and doing what is best for me in my career, for my happiness, or for my life, just as it's not just about him and his career, his happiness, or his life. It's about us - not both of us individually, but us as a single partnership. We, he, and I need to do what is best for us.

The sum of our marriage is definitely greater than its parts.