by Kellea Croft

Created on: September 06, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

I spent years stumbling through terrible relationships trying not to make the mistakes that my parents made, but ended up doing just as badly. When worse came to being I decided to give up on dating all together. I spend 16 years avoiding any male contact that was further than hello.

My father is on wife number four and my mother on husband number five. I watched through the years as their emotions waved over the sea of people. They are both very happy now and seem to have found their right mate, such a long process of pain to get where they are now.

On one of my mother's visits we had a long talk about the past mistakes and putting them behind you so that the future can be brighter. She never trusted anyone, but something was different in this relationship. Trust was their number one objective with the words being engraved on their cars, jewellery and love. She was genuinely happy for the first time I had ever seen.

The best advice she gave me that day I never forgot, "When you meet up with the right man you will feel it all over your body. There will be shivers on your soul that you can't stop and a smile on your face that won't go away. His touch will send you flying through the clouds, and you can feel it in your toes. Your conversations with him will feel more natural than any other you have had. There will be a touch on your spirit and soul like that you have never experienced. That dreamy state you have had all your life in fantasy will seem nothing compared to the reality of time with him."

I thought she had lost her mind, but keep the words to heart encase they just happened to be true. A few more years went by and I got a slap in the face. My girlfriend lived in Australia and the phone conversations were taking a toll on the money trail. We started talking more on the internet and she took me into chat rooms to meet other people. One day an ID came in that took my breath, it was an ordinary ID but the man that was behind it was not.

I didn't understand what that moment was until much later. We began talking about his home north of my girlfriend and his family, things he got into, etc. I found myself yearning for him to come into the room when talking to Jessie. When his ID would pop up I would almost fall out of my chair with excitement. A year later I was scheduling my life around when he could talk and he was doing the same for me. Two years later and he was asking me to move to Australia and marry him.

He always said the right words, things I had dreamed about someone saying to me all my life. His voice brought shivers through my soul and his smile made my spirit putty. I did something and hide it from all my family. I bought a plane ticket to be with him. I went against everything in my nature to find out if what Mom had said was true. They were.

When I got off that plane and felt his arms around me I was at home. They were so secure, he was sincere and realty did become better and even erase all fantasy. We have been married for almost two years now and every day is a paradise. All those years of feeling out of place, invisible, beaten down and unworthy are gone. Each day he tells me how much he loves me, how lucky he is that I am in his life and his touch still sends shivers all over. To look into his eyes I can feel our souls touching and moving as one.

Strike another point on the blackboard for Mom, she was right again. Her other words were "to remember that whoever you are with is also a person too, they were able to function before you came into their life so respect that they can think, the ability to communicate is the number one priority and trust should never be undervalued." My mother is a genius.

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