When I transferred to a new company, my co-worker delivered my final pay stub. We've now been married for over 25 years.

 

When I transferred to a new company, my co-worker delivered my final pay stub. We’ve now been married for over 25 years.

 How can you work with someone for years and not know they are the love of your life?

·        My future husband and I were often alone but there was never a spark of romance

·        In the span of three months, I got a new office and a new fiancé

 

I have read and heard about ‘love at first sight’ many times, but my true love story is somewhere on the other end of the spectrum.

When I worked as an insurance agent for a brokerage, David was the CFO (Chief Financial Officer). We saw one another most days and occasionally were the only ones working in the building when the official workday had ended, but reams of paperwork still covered our desks.

 After a phone call from a client got on my last nerve, it wasn’t unusual for me to grab a cold soft drink and hide in his office for half an hour.

 

I got to sit on David’s lap every year at the staff Christmas party when he played Santa and handed out gag gifts.

 

You don’t ‘need’ your pay stub

I liked my job, but I knew a good deal when I saw it. An offer of a third more than I was making as a base salary? Higher commission and owning part of my book of business? Yes, please! After giving my notice, I took the summer off, excited to dive deeper into the insurance industry.

On the following Friday, around noon, my doorbell rang. David looked a little sheepish when I answered the door. He said, “I thought I would drop off your pay stub.” I invited him in for lunch which turned out to be a couple of subs, quickly thrown together.

When payday came at my former office, David would deliver everyone’s pay stub to their desk. Mine went right into the paper shredder. I let my accountant figure out my income and deductions come tax time.

 After an hour of jovial conversation, David reluctantly said he needed to get back to the office. Insurance agents could keep whatever hours they wanted but the CFO, not so much.

 There may be echoes of it being written for a daytime drama, but it’s all true

 As he reached the door, David turned around, car keys slipping out of his hand. We each bent over to pick them up, our eyes meeting and locking together as we stood upright again.

A few uncomfortable seconds passed before David leaned in for a kiss that lasted for several minutes. When the hottest kiss I had ever had was over, he fumbled over the words, “I should…”

At the same time, I said, “You’ll call?” David told me he would call and as he headed back to his car, I leaned against the door. Whoa, I thought. Where the heck did that come from?

Typically, if two people willingly share a kiss, it won’t make either of them angry

I expected David would call maybe the next week, giving me time to absorb what had happened and what it meant. It turned out that I didn’t have that much time.

David’s number came up on my phone later that evening and I answered tentatively. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t mad at me for, you know, what happened today,” he said.

I surely wasn’t mad – maybe a little confused but definitely not mad.

We talked for over two hours and made plans for dinner the next week. I had no qualms about David picking me up.

 Do people still fuss about what to wear on a first date?

 Having spent five days deciding what to wear as I stood in front of my closet, the clothes yet again staring back at me, I opted to buy a new dress. At the mall, I was able to find a dress and a matching purse – all in under an hour. But, it turned out it was the shoes that caused the most indecisiveness. I wanted to wear flats in order to avoid getting my heel stuck in the cobblestone sidewalk but David was six foot six so we already looked like Mutt and Jeff. I picked out a pair of stilettos and would take my chances.

That evening brought to us a revelation – we were meant to be together. We had both been in a prior long-term relationship that didn’t work out, we each had a child and we genuinely liked one another.

Just over a month later, we were engaged.

 Where was the spark?

Do we really need to know why it took us four years to find one another? After 25+ years together, it doesn’t matter anymore.

Here is the link to the published article on Insider. Please note the typo at the end - we have been together for over 25 years not 50 years.