Read Part I of this fairy tale for all the waiting, dating, and discord that led me here.
Beauty and the Beast has always been one of my favorite fairy tales. It’s a truly romantic redemption story, and I particularly love the beast’s storyline, cursed for his own selfishness. While it’s true that requited love is what breaks the curse, I like to think that everything he went through under that spell mattered. That learning humility and growing into a better man eventually made him capable of exceptional love.
This is a theme I deeply relate to. I’ve experienced hard-won love myself, but I also know that a long journey makes love all the brighter when it comes. Even when you’re waiting on a dream like I did, the experiences you have along the way often prepare you for an outcome better than you imagined.
At least that’s how it happened for me.
The End of an Era
Confession: the biggest life change no one ever prepared me for was turning 30.
You would think after everything I’d accomplished in my 20s, 30 would’ve sailed by like any other birthday. Nope. I spent six months dreading its arrival and three months picking up the pieces after the tidal wave of crippling inadequacy hit me straight in the face. I really felt like I’d done nothing with my 20s—this coming from a woman with a 10-year career, a house, and five finished books. But despite all that, I got super depressed and sick and totally fell apart. You know, very logical, undramatic stuff.
But once all that passed, I felt reborn. I had finally exited the lonely, chaotic car chase of a decade that was my 20s. And I felt great. I had entered the decade I secretly always felt like I belonged in. When June 2018 rolled around, I was the happiest I’d ever been in my life, no longer wistful for my younger, less jaded self who had no idea she would turn 30 single. Now that it had happened, it felt like I could accomplish anything at all.
And less than a month later, I met him.
The Guy in the Crowd
That summer, I made a pact with myself to start meeting men at actual in-person activities again. Newsflash: once you graduate college, it’s EXTREMELY difficult to meet new guys without the Internet being involved. But I lived between two colleges, and there were lots of singles activities happening every week. If I only went to events with free food and socializing and stayed for at least an hour, something good was bound to happen this summer, right?
This is how I ended up at a Fourth of July party exactly two years after I bought my house. It was a typical patriotic shindig with everyone dressed in red, white, and blue. I quickly started working the room (or pavilion) and met half a dozen guys I found genuinely attractive. Ate apple pie and hot dogs. Visited with female friends and even more boys. I was doing really well but also getting tired. Maybe I’d meet just one more person before I went home.
I stood at the edge of the pavilion, surveying the sea of acquaintances and strangers for the cutest boy I hadn’t met yet. And I saw a guy I liked. He was sitting at a picnic table, but I could tell he was tall. He had a nice face, light brown hair, and a red necktie tied around his head Karate Kid style. And very pretty eyes. Target acquired.
So I walked right over, sat down, and started talking to him. This was something my younger, shy self never would have DREAMED of doing, but I’d officially lost all patience for letting guys come to me. I quickly learned this cute boy was named Andy and seemed to be a natural conversationalist.
Andy was a young professional like me. He’d moved to Utah for a programming job, but he was from Pennsylvania. The same state where I had spent five years of my childhood. We had plenty to talk about between our careers, the East, and several shared interests, but Andy was getting that look on his face I’d seen a million times before. The look when guys can’t tell how old I am and start worrying they’re flirting with an 18-year-old girl-child. Eventually Andy leaned in to have this priceless exchange with me:
Andy: By the way, I’m like 33 years old . . .
Me: Well I’m 30, so . . .
Andy: . . . Oh! Oh okay.
His fears dismissed, we went on to talk for an hour. Some mutual friends joined us, and Andy ended up telling all of us his story of moving to Utah. How he met lots of fantastic people who helped him pick himself up after a really hard divorce, turn his life around in a great way, and convert to our church. To put it lightly, I was very impressed. Not only had I come across a good-looking guy who was fun to talk to, he had also gone through hard things and become a better person.
After that first conversation, I could already tell Andy was the type of person I could marry. Definitely.
Down the Runway to Fly
My biggest stumbling block in dating has always been getting relationships to take off. Crossing the weird little war zone from awkward Relationship Purgatory into the green hills of a committed relationship. I had only ever completed this transition twice, both times with boyfriends who I couldn’t actually see myself marrying. The few times I had met someone I saw a future with, the relationship failed to launch. Because of this, I’d come to believe men I genuinely liked were just out of my reach. That feeling captivated by someone was an automatic signal to move on and forget it.
I wish so much I could send a letter to my younger self to tell her this assumption she had was bogus. That someday she was going to marry the best guy she’d met in her entire adulthood, and he would love her right from the beginning. But time travel has yet to be invented, so 30-year-old me was pretty doubtful this guy named Andy would ever like her back. But she still told five different friends about meeting him. And that she really liked him.
Then a month went by. I went on a family trip and enjoyed some sun on Wrightsville Beach. Then Andy didn’t show up to the next singles activity. I was starting to think I’d never see this guy again when I dragged myself into another activity, thinking about him all the way there—and he walked right up to me to say hi. I was so startled I forgot his name, which Andy claims is the reason it took him weeks to ask me out after this encounter, but whatever.
Once again we had another long, invigorating conversation with each other and a wider group of friends. Andy and I exchanged numbers to go on a group hike, and from that point on, I approached him at every activity I saw him. I used the acquired phone number to invite him to a bonfire party I was going to, a party at which we talked for almost three hours. I could tell he wasn’t uninterested in me, but after all the conversations and encounters and effort and opportunities to ask me out, he still wasn’t picking up.
I finally gave up, telling myself it was okay that he just wasn’t attracted to me. I’d been through rejection before, and there were plenty of other guys out there. No big deal. It never even occurred to me that this man I was trying so hard to attract was plenty attracted. He just happened to have as much rejection baggage as I did, complete with multiple experiences where women who seemed interested turned out not to be. Which had made him extra cautious.
Then one night after another social, I was mingling and eating ice cream and noticed Andy seemed to be . . . following me around? Then he asked if he could walk me to my car. Well he was either going to murder me or ask me out, so I said sure. Thankfully the latter came true, and I said I would LOVE to go. He asked what type of food I liked, and I said Italian, thinking to myself that if I had to go on one more bad date at Olive Garden I’d probably scream. But before I could mention this, Andy said, “I’ll look up a nice Italian place for us to go. And by Italian, I don’t mean Olive Garden cause that’s not real.”
This was already going somewhere wonderful.
A Beautiful Beginning
Dating Andy felt right in a way no one else had ever felt. He was reserved and mature. He was deeply attractive to me both emotionally and physically. He was unbelievably kind to everyone, such an adult and yet so pure in his goodness that it was kind of shocking. AND he took me on classy, beautiful dates.
And weirdly Andy liked all my characteristics that had sent all the other boys packing. He was super impressed with my successful career and my house. Instead of being flabbergasted that I’d written five books, he asked to read them. He loved that I was ridiculously opinionated, intense about EVERYTHING, and could talk five hours straight about the articles I read. The challenge of getting me to open up was an exciting treasure hunt for him rather than a Big Inconvenience. And we never ran out of things to talk about. To put a finer point on it: Andy and I matched.
By Labor Day 2018, Andy asked me to be his girlfriend, and I wholeheartedly said yes, blown away by crossing into the good part of dating this easily. With every passing day I was getting more and more swept up. Going on dates, going on walks, getting to know each other at a breakneck speed, and finding more and more things about this man that I adored.
Just six days after we got official, Andy and I had some real talk. Talk about my life-changing loneliness and going through therapy. Talk about his devastating divorce and how much he wanted to have children, which was the primary reason the divorce had happened. He’d waited a full decade to realize his dream of being a dad, and he fully understood how I felt working my whole life toward a beautiful dream and watching that dream slip away again and again. Andy said he knew how strong I was to have spent my 20s alone.
That one conversation took our relationship to the next level for me. And it was the first moment I realized this could be The One.
Fear of Falling
This was also the same weekend the terror set in. I officially had some skin in this relationship now, and I knew how devastated I’d be if this didn’t work out. I’d never connected with someone this quickly or this deeply ever. I’d been through rough breakups and rougher rejections before, but this? Having this good, calming, singularly wonderful person not want me after all this waiting? That I was pretty sure would break me.
In my mind, the obvious solution was burying these feelings VERY deep and making plans to date this guy for at least a year before I decided how compatible we were. I could just be imagining all this right? And he had to decide he wanted to be with me too.
So I was still waiting. Even when Andy asked to be included in my trip to Scotland six months away. Even six weeks in when I started swallowing the words “I love you.” Even when we went on a miserable hike in the snow that ended with us dragging ourselves wet and exhausted to a Park City restaurant and ordering enough food for five people. That night when Andy looked at me, his eyes were filled with everything his mouth still wasn’t saying . . . Still I kept silent.
Three Little Words
Dating Andy made me understand why Cinderella ran from the ball. Multiple times. Think about it, why would a girl stricken with poverty who suddenly met the ultimate romantic partner run away night after night? This guy adored her AND he was her chance to escape everything she’d endured for years. But she ran because she was scared of him actually getting to know her. Of finding out how she felt. Honestly, meeting the right person can be pretty scary when he shows up out of nowhere. Especially when you’re unsure if he’ll stay.
There was no denying that my relationship with Andy was incredible by Christmastime, but Andy still hadn’t said he loved me. It felt like both of us were falling deep in this, but I didn’t want to rush him. Granted, he’d met my family at this point, and we were making plans to visit his family in a couple months. We were spending every single day together, falling deeper and deeper in that four-letter word nobody was saying out loud.
Then out of the blue, on Christmas Eve, Andy suggested we should have a talk. On New Year’s Day maybe? About our “future plans.” I knew immediately he was referring to future plans where we decided when we wanted to get married. The idea made me so excited I couldn’t breathe. And also so angry I could’ve killed him. This man thought he had a right to schedule a future planning meeting with me and he still hadn’t said he loved me?!
Two days later, I finally got up the gumption to admit that I was confused why we were planning to have this talk when there were . . . certain things he hadn’t said. And that I got the feeling he wanted to. Andy looked both enraptured and terrified when he finally admitted—out loud—that it was true. That he had been holding back because he didn’t want things to move too fast. But he absolutely did love me.
Like any self-respecting girlfriend, hearing him say those words made me burst into tears. And admit in between snot-dripping gasps that I was in love with him too. So on New Year’s Day 2019, we planned out everything we wanted to happen in the coming year. The talk took less than ten minutes, and it was the simplest and most successful DTR (define the relationship) I’ve ever had.
Swept Up in Love
The next year flew by in a current of happiness, stress, love, learning experiences, and a persistent feeling of rightness. Andy and I went on more swanky dates and started planning our wedding. We shopped for an engagement ring. We flew to Pennsylvania so I could meet his big, loud, wonderful family. We drove each other crazy traveling together and had our first official argument about a month later. That milestone was actually a relief for me since the two of us hadn’t found anything in seven months to fight about. I’m a big believer that couples who never disagree are either doormats or liars.
Come May, the two of us flew to Scotland for Andy’s first ever international trip. We stayed in incredible Airbnbs and hiked the Scottish Highlands. Toured the Isle of Skye and saw many castles and ate at many pubs. Andy even planned a day trip walking the beautiful parks of Pollok House, Glasgow. Right in front of the house there’s a stone bridge where Andy got down on one knee and asked me to be his wife. And I said yes.
Andy and I got married on September 6, 2019. We were sealed in the Salt Lake City Temple, the place where our religion seals the souls of two people together forever, even beyond death. That to me is happily ever after. Two people spiritually joined together and choosing every day to make each other happy. That’s what I found with Andy.
What Ever After Looks Like
It’s been over a year since I married Andy. And in that short, wonderful time I’ve thought a lot about my previous ideas of marriage.
Clearly my ideas about how easy it is to find the right one were dead wrong. But the same people who claimed finding your spouse is easy also told me that marriage is like really, really hard. And mostly built on mutual toleration since marrying an immature 20-something boy should be my expectation. NONE of this turned out to be true for me. Not only had I married a well-adjusted, extremely mature man, I somehow ended up with a person who made every single day absolutely joyful, even the tough days.
Honestly? My biggest shock about marriage was that it was easy, and I hesitate to say that without a huge explanation. See, I had grown up thinking that getting married young and ending up in a tough, irritating marriage was just what people did. But I walked such a different path that it shouldn’t have surprised me to end up with different results too.
I married an incredible person, and he got that way because I waited so long for him. We’d journeyed and slain our own personal dragons before we even met each other. And once we came together, we had some battle scars, but we were also strong, our edges smoothed down. That’s made our rule as king and queen all the more sweet and all the more filled with joy and hard-won love.
Really the biggest thing happily ever after gets wrong is that finding love isn’t an ending. It’s the beginning. The beginning of a life growing together with the person who chose love and life with me. And so far, I wouldn’t change a thing. ❧
