#couplegoals IRL

I spent nearly 20 years in a passionless marriage. I won’t say a loveless marriage because there was definitely love once, but it was in a friendship, familial, almost platonic kind of way.

When my former husband (I call him Jackpot) and I were out somewhere together, we didn’t look like a “couple”. We looked like parents. We looked like friends. We looked like colleagues. But we didn’t hold hands, we didn’t kiss in public, and depending on how many others we were out with we didn’t even always sit together.

It wasn’t always like this between us, but it wasn’t ever really passionate, either. In the very early stages of dating things were more heated but by the time we married, it felt like the honeymoon phase had already passed us by. My memories of Jackpot on our wedding day are of him hardly looking at me and not smiling. I remember thinking that he might just be nervous but in hindsight, I’ve often wondered if he was truly happy on that day. It was not how I pictured that special day would look for me at all. This was disappointing and heartbreaking because my previous long term relationships had been very physically and emotionally passionate. I thought of myself as a passionate person in general, so I always assumed my most serious (and permanent) relationship would be.

When looking back at family portraits of my husband and I with our kids, I always feel they look staged. I feel I look like a shell of who I really was, as my true personality was never fully able to shine in a passionless environment. I’ve rarely seen a photo of myself during those years of my marriage when I looked genuinely happy and in the ones where I did, it was all directed at my children.

I remember feeling some jealousy when we were surrounded by other couples who showed any kind of romantic affection. Interestingly, most of the other couples in Jackpot’s family fell into this category. I never understood how his parents, grandparents, and other extended family members all appeared to be so touchy-feely but he was not. I never thought of myself as a big fan of PDA (public displays of affection) but it would have been nice to feel like I was a part of a “couple” with my spouse.

Eventually, I found myself getting slightly grossed out by the lovey-dovey nonsense of couples in love. Perhaps it was a protection mechanism because it was something I didn’t have. But seeing couples holding hands, looking at each other longingly in public, became an uncomfortable thing to watch. I’d giggle to myself that they should probably “get a room.” I might even joke about feeling sick to my stomach.

The worst scenario was when I saw couples sitting on the same side of a booth at a restaurant with no one sitting on the other side. I’d have to bite my tongue to keep from laughing and the eye rolling was pretty difficult to hide. For some reason that I’ve never figured out, it just looked and felt a bit phony to me.

My marriage ended after 18 years of feeling like roommates and believing in my heart that there just had to be more for me. I wanted my children to see that this wasn’t what a healthy relationship looked like. I wanted them to see their mother in her true personality and be able to model something beautiful for them. My marriage didn’t teach them what to look for in their own relationships, but perhaps only what to avoid. My ability to love and nurture wasn’t welcomed, encouraged or appreciated in my marriage and even if I would never find “the one”, I still knew this wasn’t happiness. I knew I’d rather be alone than to be with someone and feel alone.

So many women become let down by the realities of unhappy relationships because their expectations are established at a young age from reading fairy tales, watching princess movies, and even succumbing to the national obsession with celebrities and their love lives. Once we wake up to the reality of life, we often become cynical, pessimistic and broken to the idea that healthy, passionate love and soulmates even exist.

Life is not a fairy tale. To expect another person to fulfill our need to feel loved is unrealistic and unfair.

So what would be next for me? I had to reevaluate exactly what I envisioned in my future as my new “couple goals”? I certainly didn’t want to repeat my passionless choice of my past. But I didn’t want the overly mushy, lovey-dovey frou-frou stuff either.

…Or did I?

Then one day, unexpectedly and completely out of the blue, a little bit of cheesecake changed my life.

Let me explain…

A person from my past came back into my life by complete chance. So here’s the backstory (and pay attention because it’s a really good backstory)…

A man I’ll call Mr. Cool, who I had known since I was 16 years old when I dated one of his friends, was just a friend the first time I met him. I never had any trouble admitting that I had an instant crush on him from the first moment I saw him. I was instantly drawn to his eyes and his smile. He was “off limits” at the time because (A) he had a girlfriend, (B) I was dating his friend, and (C) I was underaged and quite a bit younger than him. But I couldn’t deny that initial physical attraction.

About 5 years later, after running into each other again by chance when I was in my early 20s, I wound up dating Mr. Cool for a short time. It started to get serious pretty quickly and the chemistry between us was insane. We had so much fun together, always laughing and talking, and I felt like I was really the best version of myself when I was around him. He made me feel fun and beautiful and wanted and adored. Despite the fact that he was an amazing man who treated me with so much respect, and it seemed we were really compatible in every way, the relationship ended due to poor timing. I had recently come out of a 4 year relationship which had ended very painfully for me and I just wasn’t ready to go into a new committed relationship. Some time later when I was ready for that kind of relationship again, I reached out to Mr. Cool. We were really good together and I knew he was a good man who was pretty perfect for me, but I had let him slip away because of timing. Unfortunately, when I contacted him again, I found that Mr. Cool had since moved on to a new relationship and wasn’t available by the time I’d realized what I’d lost.

I eventually went on my path toward marrying Jackpot and having my three children. I never forgot about Mr. Cool but I just accepted his role as an important lesson from my past about how I should be and deserved to be treated.

I did not, however, stay in touch. In fact, until a couple of years ago, I had never seen or heard from Mr. Cool again. I always wondered what happened to him and if his life turned out well. I hoped he was happy. Over the years, I even looked him up a few times on social media but found nothing. I had no idea if he was even still in the state or had picked up and moved away.

Fast forward to the present day, long after my marriage ended.

One evening, I got an unexpected message from an old friend that I’d grown up with and considered one of my closest friends. I call him Honey Badger. Out of the blue, he sent me a text saying, “you’re never going to guess who I’m with right now…”. When I saw the next message that followed with Mr. Cool’s name, my jaw dropped. I instantly felt butterflies in my stomach and couldn’t believe my eyes. It had been close to 25 years since I’d heard his name or anything about him.

I had no idea how he knew Honey Badger or how they realized they both knew me until later when Honey Badger and I spoke on the phone and I found out they were neighbors. Apparently, they were having a guys’ night, drinking some shots, reminiscing about old times and talking about people from their past. When the topic became talking about the one girl they never forgot, the “one who got away”, each of them began sharing stories. Mr. Cool’s story was about me.

As the stories progressed and more details were given, Honey Badger recognized the mention of my first name and the neighborhood I grew up in. He instantly suspected he knew who this mystery woman might be and pulled up my Facebook profile with my picture on his phone. Right about the moment that Mr. Cool was explaining that after it ended between us, he’d always thought it if were meant to be, then somehow, someday, we would find our way back to one another, Honey Badger shows him my picture from his phone and says, “IS THIS HER???”

Later while relaying this story back to me, Honey Badger shared with me how crazy and surreal that moment was for both of them. He said they both stared at each other in shock, speechless for a few seconds, goosebumps on both of their arms.

It was a pretty cool moment for me to hear, too. I was also in shock that a man who is one of my best friends is neighbors with a man I’d cared for deeply from my past and they both realized how they were connected to me over some random guy-talk and tequila.

It was several months after that night before I actually had any direct contact with Mr. Cool. He was going through the early stages of a separation and with teenage children of his own, it would not be in the cards for us to reconnect just yet. But just knowing he was still out there, thinking fondly of me, was giving me some strange feelings of hope.

When the timing was right, we were able to reconnect by phone. We were catching up on old times, on what life had looked like for us over the past two decades, and even revealing some slight feelings of regret that we both held onto over the years but had been previously left unsaid.

But it was a few months later, when we were eventually able to meet in person again, that the fireworks began. When I looked at him, I was taken back to my 16 year old self and reminded of those same feelings he gave me the very first time we met. It was as if I was transported back in time and we had not spent any time apart at all. I felt like we instantly knew each other, even though we were both very different people than we had been all those years ago. But I could instantly read him, and he could read me.

And then came the butterflies…

Every time we’d see each other, it would be the same thing all over again. Instant butterflies, excitement, happiness, laughter…

OMG… so… much… laughter.

One day we met for lunch and as we got seated at a table and I sat down across from him, he jokingly asked me, “What’s the matter, you don’t want to sit next to me?”

“What do you mean,” I asked, “you mean sit on the same side?”

I just looked at him and laughed. He had no idea how I groaned every time I saw couples doing that.

How ridiculous I thought it looked.

How cheesy it was.

So I told him all those things over lunch that day so he’d know my true feelings on the topic. And I said it all while sitting beside him, right next to each other, on the same side of the table.

In a single lunch, I had just become the cheesy people I’d normally scoff at. And I didn’t even mind it at all. I loved it.

After that first meal it was never questioned again. When we went out to eat anywhere, we automatically sat on the same side of the table. We’d specifically request a booth whenever possible. I realized how much I loved sitting close to him. I loved that he made me want to do the cheesy things that those formerly gross couples do. I loved that I didn’t even care if anyone else looked at us and thought we looked ridiculous as I had previously done to others. I just knew it felt right.

There were many cheesy things I’d do with him that I’d never done with anyone else; PDA, holding hands, kissing, making googly-eyes at each other. I did them all without a second thought. I began to wonder why it was so different with Mr. Cool, why the cheese didn’t bother me anymore with him. Perhaps it was that I’d really wanted that cheesiness all along but laughed it off because I didn’t have it in my marriage?

I realized it was because of Mr. Cool. I realized it was because I was falling in love with him… again. It felt right. It was cheesy but it was sweet. It was “sweet cheese.”

…And suddenly cheese became cheesecake.

We’d laugh about the “cheesecake” between us. We’d jokingly apologize to our servers in advance for how embarrassing we were planning to be. But we could always tell… they were happy, if not even a little envious, of what was so clear to others was happening between us. It was in our eyes, it was in our body language, it was all over our faces. We had fallen madly in love with each other.

“Couple goals” (aka #couplegoals) had become a trending thing on social media several years earlier. It started as a celebrity couple hashtag, probably on Instagram, where people would comment the phrase on a photo of a couple who just look perfect together. This is the ultimate compliment to give another couple. It’s a way of saying that you think the couple belongs together, looks great together, and has the type of relationship that other people want for themselves. It’s a way of saying, “I want what you two seem to have.”

I had never experienced #couplegoals, but I knew I wanted to feel that way about someone. I dreamed of finding a love that just clicked so easily and beautifully that it made others think, “that is my goal.” I don’t know how rare that feeling is in life, but I know before cheesecake with Mr. Cool, that all just felt like the fairytales and princess dreams that I’d given up on years ago.

I was watching a video blogger I follow online one day and she began talking about #couplegoals and how unrealistic they can actually be for others, even when you’re part of the couple on the receiving end. I listened to her describe a photo she posted on Instagram of her and her husband. The photo was of the two of them smiling and they looked so great in the picture. She shared how she got more likes and comments on that picture than any other she’d shared before. Comment after comment, her followers were gushing about how they were such a perfect couple, how they were #couplegoals. Then she shared why it bothered her so much… What no one else knew, or could possibly know by just looking a picture of them, was that the picture was taken in the middle of one of their worst moments as a couple. They were literally on the verge of contemplating divorce. But the only thing people in the outside world could see from a photo was a beautiful couple who were “goals”. She was upset that she had inadvertently participated in something that felt so fake and disingenuous.

Marriage is tough and relationships are hard, so while some relationships are great to model yourself from, give us hope that there’s something strong to strive for, the truth is that couple goals should be something for you and your mate only. It’s not about how you appear to the rest of the world… especially if it’s fake. It has to be authentic in each moment to be considered an achievement in a relationship.

I wanted to define how #couplegoals would FEEL when I found it. The only way I could describe it was this: It would be that feeling when I’d love someone so much that I’d understand every love song I’d ever heard, believe in the possibility of every love story I’d ever read, and know every screenwriter that’s ever written a romance movie must have felt before. I would go from looking at the man I love and thinking, “no one in the world could possibly have ever felt this way about another human being,” to “I now know how all of those others felt, and now I’m one of the truly lucky ones who can say I know what real, mutual, and unconditional love feels like.” That would be my #couplegoals.

I just had no idea that I was about to find it.

There’s a breakfast place near my house that I’ve gone to for years. I used to take the kids there all the time when they were younger, and my ex and I would typically go for Sunday morning brunch because it was always a favorite tradition of mine, thanks to my Dad. The place would often have the same servers for years and I got to know many of them by name, and they’d get to know me by my food order. They saw my kids grow older, they saw me eventually start coming without my husband and just the kids, and then even just by myself as the kids got older.

One day, I went to Sunday brunch there with Mr. Cool. We ate brunch in a booth on the same side of course, and continued to sit there for a while after our food was done. Our server, one of the regulars I’d known for a long time, kept coming over to check on us but we assured her we were good and just hanging out a little longer than usual. We were watching videos on my phone and laughing and giggling and kissing and holding hands and staring into each other’s eyes, and all the regular cheesy stuff we always do. It’s gotten so normal for me that I don’t even pay much attention to the others around us anymore. While I used to be self-conscious of it, now I just live in this little bubble that we create around ourselves and exist there, oblivious to the rest of the universe around us. The breakfast place closes at 2:30p. It was around 3:00p when we realized we were the last ones there and the staff was cleaning up to go so we finally left.

About a week later, I went to the breakfast place on a weekday by myself. When my familiar server came over to take my order, which she already knew but was just confirming, she stopped for a moment and smiled at me. I smiled and shared the usual, “how’s it going?” She said something to me with a look of slight apologetic embarrassment on her face. She said, “You know… I just have to tell you this and I hope it isn’t weird that I’m saying this to you….” I hesitated, unsure of where this sentence could possibly go next because in the 15 or so years of knowing this server, our conversations never sounded anything like this. She continued, “… but I just had to tell you how absolutely adorable you were with your boyfriend in here the other day.” My jaw dropped. It caught me so off guard to hear that. I don’t even think I’d ever even heard someone call him my “boyfriend” out loud before that moment. “I mean you guys were just totally happy and in love, and in all the time that I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you look so happy before. It was really nice. You were complete couple goals!”

I didn’t know what to say. That rarely happens to me but I sat there for at least 5 seconds, completely speechless at the magnitude of what had just been said to me. I eventually replied, “OMG, Thank you! I think I’m gonna cry now!” which of course she begged me not to do. I was so overcome with emotion that my happiness and love with another human being was so clear, so visible and so obvious, and that a person I’ve never spoken more than basic pleasantries to could see what I was experiencing. I had just made someone else have #couplegoals about me for the first time in my life. Real ones. Authentic ones. What she was seeing, I was actually feeling. Not a fake smile in a family portrait, hiding pain and sadness. But real love.

When she walked away from the table, I still sat there basking in what she’d said. I had a few minutes of flashbacks from my life, all the past relationships that didn’t work, the ones that never were, the mistakes, the heartbreaks, the tears, the wasted time, and I saw them flash before my eyes like a movie, leading me to the moment where I was sitting next to a man that I love and adore, knowing that he loves and adores me just as much in return, and knew that all those moments led me to the exact place that I’m supposed to be. I can now fully appreciate and value the love I’ve found in Mr. Cool because I have the tragedies to compare it to.

I had lived this entire journey for over forty-five years where finally, for the first time, after everything I’ve been through in my life, sitting on the same side of the booth at a Sunday brunch next to the greatest love of my life, I became… #couplegoals in real life.