When I started dating my wife I had no idea I had been groomed for the role of her husband.
See we met for the first time when I was in high school. At an art show that I had a piece shown in, she attended and asked to meet me after seeing my work.
She told me how much she appreciated it and I remembered because she was the only person to ask about it.
She asked how much it was, trying to buy it, I didn't take the hint.
A few years later two women asked me where I got my "I heart toxic waste" t shirt. It was odd because nobody ever got the reference or approached me. But that was my wife and her friend.
We kept meeting but there was no real connection until 2010 when we met again and began dating.
I realize that maybe the reason there was no connection before is that neither one of us had been shaped into the people we needed to be for ourselves and each other.
Bad relationships, bad break ups, poverty, good times and bad shaped us into being very different people than we were when our lives kept circling back on one another.
When I was growing up I didn't have a step dad I had two. I had a good idea of how a step dad needed to parent correctly. Then when I met my wife and got together I became a step dad.
I did well for the most part because I had seen it done during my childhood by two different step dads.
What was once a source of pain and weakness became a strength.
By trying and failing in marriage my wife after her divorce knew what she needed from whoever she decided to be with and she learned as I did from all the relationships we had. We knew what our limits were, what our needs were and our marriage is stronger as a result.
Had we started dating any earlier than we did we may not have made it.
In a sense, working with external forces beyond our control I think of The Lord as grooming us for our future together as a gardener trims bushes to shape them to His liking.
We were shaped until we finally fit together like the pieces of a puzzle. So though I went through so much pain to get to where I am today I do feel better thinking that it all happened for a reason.
Having two step dads is a screwed up childhood but I learned more than how to parent I learned how to be a step parent.
For the sake of my step children I am grateful for my experience.
I am thankful for my past relationships, good and bad, because I learned how to be a better man for my wife.
My wife said it was her first marriage that taught her how to be such a good wife to me. She needed that experience to appreciate me for who I am, she needed to learn how to be comfortable in her own skin before she could be a spouse to anyone.
It was the path of our lives, good and bad, that shaped us into who we are now.
