by Barb Taliaferro

Created on: February 16, 2009   Last Updated: February 20, 2009

It seems that some things are simply meant to be. My husband and I have been married for almost 16 years but we have known each other much longer than that. We met for the first time in 25 years ago in high school but this is not the typical story of high school sweethearts.

I was first introduced to my future husband by his best friend, whom I was dating at the time. I wouldn't necessarily refer to it as love at first sight, but my physical attraction to this boy who would become my husband was immediate and intense. I am somewhat ashamed to say that we began an illicit romance behind his buddy's back It was short lived due to the guilt we were both feeling. My relationship with his friend was also ill-fated and we broke up a short time later although oddly enough we became better friends after the fact. My husband and I continued to see each other at parties or in halls at school, but whether it was residual guilt or loyalty to his friend, he made no further advances and I followed his lead.

Fast forward a few years. I am now a sophomore in college and my life has changed so completely that my past relationship with my husband is just a footnote. I won't say I forgot him, the attraction I felt for him was like nothing else I had experienced and no one I had met since him came close to matching it, but his memory had been pushed to the recesses of my mind. Our mutual friend, whom I had stayed in touch with, came to visit me at college and guess who he brought with him! I was blindsided by the reemergence of my feelings for this man and discovered that time had not diminished their intensity. He left that evening with a promise to come back soon. True to his word he showed up the next night. This is not a fairy tale however. The realities of our lives, I was in college in Pennsylvania, his was in Maryland, and the distractions of college life in general meant that we rarely saw each other and in short order the relationship faded out.

Another jump in time and now I am a college graduate living in northern Pennsylvania and he is still in Maryland. Again our mutual friend brought us back together. While visiting home for the holidays they showed up at my parent's house and it was as if nothing had changed. This time around we began dating in earnest and he told me that he loved me. Things got serious quickly after that and just a little over a year later we were married.

Leap to today, 16 years later. We now have four children and have been through the ups and downs of life. Our marriage is not perfect by a long shot but it works more or less. I won't claim continuous marital bliss, I don't think that really exists, but it is steady and strong. And you know what, even with the kids, and the jobs, and the money issues there are times when the physical attraction is still just as powerful.

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