He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

From our first Christmas "In Love"

Six years ago today, Brian and I said "I love you" to each other for the very first time. We had been dating for five days and had know each other 17 days. Some of you may be saying, "Wow. That was fast." I'm pretty sure it gave my parents heart attacks (and when Matthew announces that he and his girlfriend of a week have said those words to each other, I may have a total internal melt down), but for us, it was totally perfect. Part of it had to do with the fact that we met online. Those first six emails we exchanged were long and in depth and took hours to write. We learned a lot about each other right from the start. But we also spent our first two dates talking for hours and hours. We loved learning about each other and did it pretty quickly. It wasn't hard to fall totally in love with each other. And I can't even pinpoint the moment I realized I loved Brian. At some point, it just felt natural to think of him and feel "in love" all at the same time. Neither of us hesitated the first time we said those three little words either. There was no awkward pause. It just flowed naturally. That same night we both discussed marriage and decided at that point that that was where our relationship was ultimately headed. It was a night of revelations. And it's one we always look back at fondly.

All that being said, I had never said "I love you" to anyone outside of my family before Brian came along. At sixteen, I had discerned my vocation was to be a wife and mother, so I never wasted my time dating the guys at high school (pretty sure they weren't interested in the crazy Catholic girl either.) I had been interested in several guys in college and had gone on a handful of dates, but the relationships never progressed past "friendship" (some never even got to that level!). All of that also meant that I'd never waste those three precious words on anyone else. I wanted to say them to my future husband and to him only. They were words meant just for him and give them away to someone else would somehow cheapen their meaning in my mind.

I can't say what a HUGE blessing that has been for our relationship and marriage. I got to discover what love is and how it works with Brian. I had no one before him to discover that amazing adventure with, and because of that, Brian and I are even more bonded to each other than we would be otherwise. I didn't have a fear telling him I loved him because I knew I was meant to marry him and that meant that he'd never break my heart. I wasn't scared to put it all out on the line because having never done it before, I didn't even think that it may backfire at some point. My future spouse would never hurt me, and so I need not worry that the love I felt for him wouldn't be returned. It wasn't stressful or scary to say "I love you" the first time.

Having saved those words for Brian has also made him realize what an incredible he was getting to be the one to hear me say them for the first time. I remember how beautiful and innocent he found the whole scene. And how touched he was that he was the one God had chosen to hear those three precious words. He felt honored and took the job of protecting my heart and treating it delicately very serious right from the start.

To me, it made sense to save "I love you" for my future husband. First and foremost, I didn't want my future husband out there running around and telling some other girl that he loved her. So why would my future husband want me out there telling some other guy I loved him even if it wasn't really love? That thought just hurt my heart (and honestly, it was something I had to work hard to overcome in our relationship. Even Brian will say when he said those words before he never truly  knew what it meant to be in love until he met me, and that helps a bit.) I have never been one to believe that you can be "in love" multiple times throughout life. Love means sacrificing yourself for the good of your beloved. That kind of love is not found in teenage relationships. (Of course, there's always exceptions to the rule.) It's not found in the flirtatious college relationships where you wouldn't dare bring the other half of the relationship home to mom. Love is deep and intimate. You can't be deep and intimate with more than one person in a lifetime. Or at least I can't. God forbid something ever happen to Brian, I'm pretty sure I couldn't remarry simply because I'd always be in love with him. I'm pretty certain I could never love again. (And I get some people do remarry and love again, but for me, emotionally, it just wouldn't work.)

I can only hope and pray that I somehow pass on this idea and sentiment to our children. I'm not sure how to do that, and I'm not really sure how my parents passed on such an idea to me without me knowing they were doing it. I hope one day I get them to understand that words are powerful, especially love. Love means so much more than being giddy and happy and just attracted to another person. It means be willing to sacrifice EVERYTHING to make the other person happy. Love doesn't contain the selfish idea of "I." It is all about someone else. I hope to teach them that love is what they see on the cross. And until they are willing to totally give their life for the other person, those three words have no business in their relationships with the opposite sex. Ultimately, though, I hope they can look at Brian and I and see how very much in love we are still are and think, "I want that." And realize that the only way to get "that" is to play their cards like we did. I pray they love their future spouses enough to save everything for them, including three of the most important and unfortunately, overused words in the English language.

To end, I love you, Brian. I have since six years ago, and I always will. Thank you for loving me like you do. :)