Single, Dating, Engaged, Married…In One Year
In one calendar year, I went from being single to married to the man of my dreams 🙂
After a few hours of meeting each other, Erik had messaged me on Groupme, and 5 days later he asked me out. 1 week later we went on our first date, 1 month later we were dating, 5 months after that we were engaged, and 5 months later we were married. Our relationship is coming up on 11 months total after about 1 month of marriage…So yes – we have almost known each other for 12 months.
I know that’s not really a common story for most people. And that’s okay. Not everyone’s story is exactly the same, nor can you model “what’s okay” in your relationship based off of someone else’s timeline or relationship.
Every person, and every couple, is different and unique in their own special way.
So I’m in no way saying what my husband and I did is the only right way to do things, I’m simply relaying our experience in the hope that it will be helpful for others 🙂
I believe every season of life is special and has its own purpose. That doesn’t mean we can’t look forward to future stages or mourn those seasons we’ve left behind, but that doesn’t erase the special nature of every season of life God has us in! Here are some of my observations:
Single
I hear these questions directed a lot towards single women, and I was probably asked these at least a few times…
“Are you interested in anyone?” “why don’t you have a boyfriend?”
I was fortunate enough to be mostly surrounded by people who didn’t ask this to me… but I was part of a few groups that seemed to think something was wrong with me because I was single – like they needed to fix me. And for some reason, being in a relationship with another person was going to fix me? What?
Putting aside the fact that these are incredibly insensitive things to ask a single person (especially a woman, in my opinion), the implied message is just wrong. Single people are people, too. They’re not broken, incomplete, or doomed to misery because they don’t have a significant other.
I lived the first 20ish years of my life being single. I’m not going to lie and say I loved every second of it, but it wasn’t pure misery. In fact, most of it was amazing! I didn’t want to be sitting around just waiting for someone to come along as if my life couldn’t start until I had a boyfriend. Although it was sometimes really hard, I always wanted to live my life to the best of my ability – serving the Lord to the fullest in EVERY stage of life. Including, and especially, singleness.
Again, I want to be cautious talking about the gift of singleness… because I’m not single anymore. And I know full well how it comes across to single people… that was me for years and it annoyed me to no end. I came to appreciate singleness for the gift it was, and I still appreciate that time I had today. There were so many times I wished I had a significant other, but I’m really glad now that God allowed me to be single for the years I was. They helped shape and mold me into who I am today, and I am incredibly grateful for the time I got to grow my relationship with God before meeting my husband.
Dating
Erik and I went into the dating process with the goal of evaluation in mind. We talked about it when Erik asked me to be his girlfriend, and we agreed that we wouldn’t be dating more than a year. By that time, we would either have gotten engaged, or decided not to get married and therefore broken up. We wanted to be intentional and evaluate each other character to see if we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together, so we tried to seek Godly counsel and do our relationship in community (mostly to ensure we weren’t crazy).
I quickly realized Erik was the kind of guy I wanted to marry…Honestly, we had only been dating about 6 weeks when we decided we wanted to probably get married.
This season of life was full of “firsts,” learning to get used to being called a “girlfriend” for the first time, and learning how to play hockey (because my boyfriend liked it and is very good at it 😛 ). I remember whenever Erik said “oh well, my girlfriend….” I would think to myself “oh yeah… I’m a girlfriend now!” It was really hard to get used to for me! Playing hockey wasn’t my favorite thing, but I loved doing it because I got to be with my boyfriend, and I wanted to learn because he wanted to teach me. In return, Erik learned to swing dance and is now quite good at it 🙂
From our season of dating, what I’m most grateful for is how intentional we were… We read books, sought counseling, and talked about everything under the sun. To give credit where its due, Erik did an incredible job leading our relationship and making sure I always felt secure, loved, and pursued (he still does this today!). I always felt like our relationship was progressing forward, which it should always be doing! It’s our goal to keep discovering new things about each other as time goes on, especially now that we’re married.
Engaged
5 months into dating, Erik brought me to the Stillwater High Bridge, got down on one knee, and asked me to marry him 🙂
Honestly, “fiancée” wasn’t as hard to get used to as “girlfriend” had been. Don’t ask me why haha.
Our engagement season was filled with wedding planning, apartment hunting, and moving. And stress…. lots of stress.
But also so many exciting things! I, for one, enjoyed and loved the bridal showers, picking out wedding stuff, dress shopping, etc. I’m pretty sure Erik is grateful it’s all over and the planning has ceased 😛 (yes we both enjoyed it, but we all know weddings are usually a big thing because of the female involved!).
Well, in true “Erik and Hope” fashion, we went fast. On a Friday in April, we got engaged, on Saturday, we signed a lease, on Sunday, we booked a wedding venue, and on Monday, we booked a honeymoon location. It was pretty much go go go from there! We had so many learning moments, and learned to continue appreciating long goodbyes after hanging out each day (at least it wasn’t freezing cold out anymore).
There was way more that goes into a wedding than I thought, which was cool, but also overwhelming. We were incredibly blessed to have lots of family and friend connections for vendors and people to help us out! Shout out to our parents, and our dream team – Shannon Hayes, Jeff Moulton, and Josh & Kimberly Hall <3
And a huge shout out to my amazing husband, who took care of me when I was stressed and took so much of the planning off of my plate, even though planning and wedding prep really isn’t his thing. In the midst of any given wedding planning “crisis,” Erik kept reminding me that the most important thing was that we were going to be married, and offered many hugs when I needed them 🙂
Love you honey <3
Married
The question we keep getting asked is, “what’s it like being married?” or “how’s married life?”
We’re only about a month into marriage, so I don’t have a lot to say about it at the moment except that it’s wonderful 🙂
Our wedding was magical, and learning to live together has been fun so far. For one thing, it’s far more convenient. No more long goodbyes 🙂 For another, calling him my HUSBAND and being called a WIFE has been really hard to get used to! It still doesn’t feel real yet for me at least.
Truthfully, it hasn’t been long enough to answer that question haha. We’ve only really had a few weeks together, and only one week so far living in our apartment together, which is hardly anything to go off of 🙂
However, I do know that we’re determined to keep pursuing each other, and I think that’s going to be one of the most important things we do. Just like in dating, when we actively pursued each other to win the other over, we need to keep “dating” each other in marriage to develop a stronger and stronger relationship.
Hopefully some of that was at least entertaining. I write about my experiences to hopefully give some perspective on someone else’s story, and it’s my hope and prayer that it can be of some help to others.
We went really fast…I don’t necessarily recommend that for all people. However, if you are doing your relationship in community and you’ve sought counsel and prayed, and your relationship is moving along quickly….that’s okay too.
God has a story for every one of us, and the cool part is, every one of our stories is unique.
Go out and embrace your story to the fullest 🙂
Until next time,
Hope Frances
(aka -Mrs. Anderson)
