Real-life Romance: A Hundred Different Ways

How did you fall in love with your significant other? Better question: how do you keep falling in love? That's what guest author, Jessica Wakefield is chatting about today. I think you're going to agree with a lot of her sentiments. Read on.

​Real life romances are always unique. Recently I had three of my nieces for a sleepover. Add to my own two girls, I had five girls ranging from ages six to twelve in my house. It was noisy to say the least, fun watching the girls laugh and play together, but noisy. In the morning it was just me and the girls. My husband had gone to work when we saw a cockroach (it was one of the biggest I’ve seen in years), and not a single one of us could kill it. There was lots of screaming. I told me eldest to run across the road and ask our neighbour if he’d help. He’s a grandfather and I figured he’d be a good source of assistance. Sure enough, he came over and dispatched the cockroach. I told him he could tease me about this for the rest of my life. He laughed and said it wasn’t a worry. In fact, he said, that’s how his daughter met her husband. She had knocked on the door across the road, needing help with a spider, and he came over and the rest is history.

​I thought it was such a lovely beginning. And it got me thinking about how other couples met their significant others. I put a call out on social media and boy did I get some great stories. From online dating, meeting through work, at college on the rodeo team, high school sweethearts, in elementary school, on the mission field in Thailand, swing dance classes, on holidays, through church, blind dates, set ups, meeting overseas and via chocolate. Continuing on with being friends for years, through Bible study, marital arts instructor and student (all adults, don’t worry people), hiring someone to help renovate a room and finally releasing the guy you’re with, his best friend is actually a better fit for you. Not a single one of these is the same story. And each is just a snippet in a bigger picture that’s still being painted.
As my husband and I approach our fifteenth wedding anniversary later this year, we still laugh at how we met. Almost sixteen years ago I got a phone call from a friend (she even emailed me a photo of him), telling me to go to a particular church and meet this particular guy. I did and after about six weeks, he found out I liked him and he liked me—then he asked me out. We’ve been together ever since. And like all the couples above, our stories started out differently, but we’ve grown and changed as people and as a couple.
And that’s what this post is about. As much fun as meeting your person is, the road forward if often, long, at time stressful and it can feel like life is full of routine and no sleep (especially for couples with young kids). But it’s the moments you make on the journey that make life fun and romantic—yes, even in the middle of all the busyness of life and routine. For us, it’s dancing around the house, it’s helping each other with the endless tasks of house work, it’s going on a spontaneous trip away (even if it’s a drive around the city), walking around our neighbourhood, a great meal out or at home, laughing at a movie together on the sofa, eating horrible food I cooked (we both dutifully ate three mouthfuls of this awful food I made. We still laugh about it to this day).
Several days ago, my hubby had gone to bed earlier than me. I was still on the lounge watching an episode of Rizzoli and Isles. He marched into the room, turned the TV off and grabbed my hand and marched us off to bed (it’s not what you think guys). He simply couldn’t fall asleep without me beside him—that’s how much he loves me. It’s sweet and cute. And it’s us. Real life romance will never look like the movies—in fact, often, real life is always more interesting and original than any movie romance could be.
The key to romance isn’t just having the cutest meet cute, it’s the way you continue to fall in love in a hundred different ways through the years. And sometimes you have to look hard for it and other times it’s an obvious as the sun shining in the sky. 

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As a kid, Jessica Wakefield penned really bad Anne of Green Gables fan fiction. Nowadays, she lives in Newcastle NSW with her husband and two daughters. 

Jessica has a lifelong love of Sweet Valley High books and is a recovering Gilmore Girls addict. When she's not fawning over a fluffy dog you'll find her baking in her kitchen. 

Follow her here for pre-order information about the great-looking story below!

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Releasing in July!

Can Christmas be saved by a mysterious box? Join three couples across three decades as they find love in places they least expect it.
 
1995: Braving Christmas

Amy Franklin is in love with her best friend. Years of family rejection have left her unable to tell Chris Lawrence how she feels for fear of history repeating itself. But as she becomes the key to saving his family’s Christmas tree farm, she realizes teaming up with Chris permanently might just be worth being brave after all.
 
2005: Risking Christmas
 
Holed up in a cabin in Connecticut during a blizzard, chef Josh Keller is looking to finish a proposal for his new restaurant. But he didn’t count on getting snowed in with Nicole Abbot, the very food critic who derailed his career faster than you can say master chef. As the days drift by, Josh and Nicole form a tentative truce that might just turn into more.
 
2015: Faking Christmas
 
Antonia Katsaros needs a fake boyfriend to attend her sister’s Christmas-themed engagement party, or she’ll never hear the hear the end of it from her meddling family. At the mall, she meets Dylan Matthews, a guy more than ready to help the woman who helped his niece. Can their fake relationship turn real just in time for the holidays?

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