she’s the one

She’s the One

Tom Matlack talks to married men to find out when they knew their wife

was ‘the one.’Guys get a bad rap when it comes to romance. The guys I know who are happily married have a story about how they met their wives. Most of these stories involve a moment when they knew that they needed to spend the rest of their lives with this particular woman in order to be happy.

No, it’s not the pinup we’re after—but a rock collection, a kind smile, home-made furniture, enthusiasm for malls, crow’s feet, an affinity for dogs, eat-ing tuna out of a can, love for Weird Al, and truth-telling. These are just a

few things that guys told me led them to know they’d found the right woman. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to love, but the one thing this project proved is that guys are far more nuanced and complex when it comes to love than we get credit for. And we are really looking to marry for the right reasons—whatever that means to the individual guy.

For me, it involved two children from a prior marriage. After six years as a divorced dad, I had never introduced my kids to anyone I dated. My kids were, and still are, the most important thing in my life. I wasn’t sure I could trust anyone to love them the way I do.

When I met my wife, Elena, she had been through her own set of struggles, losing a young and vibrant husband to cancer (he’d been diagnosed on her honeymoon). She comported herself with such grace, beauty, and warmth. (OK, showing up in black leather pants for our first real date didn’t hurt, either.)

Just a few weeks after meeting Elena, my kids and I baked brownies for my new friend and played a huge game of tag on the green at Brown University. Within a month we were engaged, and six months later we were married. She was the one. We’ve been married eight years.

Here’s when other guys knew they had met their soul mate.

♦◊♦

When I left for college, she was still in high school. I was so miserable with-out her, despite all that college life had to offer. Looking back, I realize the moment I knew she’d be my wife was when she sent me a box of cookies and a love note, which came in the mail when I was alone, and although there were plenty of other things to eat, I was starving for home. I realized “home” meant her. Twenty-five years later, it still does.

—Todd Mauldin, blues philosopher

♦◊♦

Our first walking date. We traced the entire property line of a 65-acre farm, through weeds, brambles, dense forest, swamp. We came to my favorite place, a gigantic ancient maple along an old logging trail. She looked delighted, approached and started climbing. I knew then.

—Boysen Hodgson, founder, OpenMen.org

♦◊♦

Pregnancy test was positive. After 13 years, it’s still the best mistake we ever made.

—Dan Perez, award-winning filmmaker, video producer, and blogger

♦◊♦

I was living in Chicago and she was in Massachusetts and we were taking turns flying back and forth to see each other. At that time I was in a position to fly more often than she was. Well, when she noticed that I had come three times to see her and she had only flown once to see me, she said, “It’s not right that you should deplete your bank account by coming to see me so often. I am going to pay for the last flight you took and split the one before.” I told her it was unnecessary, and she replied, “Look, I want to see you as badly as you want to see me. And besides, I am a feminist and that means I must be fair. It’s the right thing to do.” My mouth dropped through two floors, a basement, and then a sub-basement. Why? This was a person who was willing to stick by an ethic. In that instant I saw a person of integrity and principle and knew she was right for me.

—Regie Gibson, poet

♦◊♦

Her eyes. The moment I met her 17 years ago, I knew. And she was married.

—Jim Mitchem, writer, communications tactician

♦◊♦

She appeared suddenly in the produce section of my grocery store in Cam-bridge, Massachusetts, several weeks after I had spied her from afar wearing an impossibly fashionable fuzzy green sweater at a party while I was in my second year in business school. I wasn’t able to meet her then and was despondent for the intervening weeks. But then, there she was, in my gro-cery store, my land of steaks and tater tots. Shocking myself and I am sure most other patrons, I approached her in the vegetable aisle and struck up a

conversation. When she didn’t turn the lettuce sprayer on me after a few fumbling moments of conversation, I knew she was the one.

—Heb Ryan, partner, Boston Post Partners

♦◊♦

I was in love with my wife at first sight. At the time, she was a model and was absolutely gorgeous—and, 35 years later, still is. However, what sealed the deal was going to her apartment and her showing me her collection of rocks and arrowheads. I loved the outdoors and collecting things, so I knew we had a lot in common. We now live on a beautiful ranch in the Texas Hill Country and still enjoy hiking and looking for rocks, fossils, and arrowheads.

—Pablo Solomon, artist and designer

♦◊♦

The first time I ever laid eyes on Maureen was July 4, 1987, when her sister brought her to a cookout I was hosting. She was wearing a dress with water-melon shapes and colors, and the mere sight of her took my breath away. From that day on she remains the most beautiful creature I have seen on this earth.

—Tim Dibble, managing general partner, Alta Communications

♦◊♦

It was the crow’s feet on the sides of her eyes that attracted me to her. They gave her a look of kindness I had never seen before. And when she smiled, it only accentuated them further. She did turn out to be a kind and gentle per-son, and we have been blissfully married now for 22 wonderful years.

—Lee E. Shilo, author and poet

♦◊♦

When I picked her up for our first date, she showed me the furniture she had made by hand for her dorm room. A chair, a loveseat, and her loft bed. Right

away, I knew that she paved her own path in life. She was handy, curious, and willing to get dirty to make life happen. That’s my kind of tomboy!

—Joel Swanson, marketing executive

♦◊♦

The situation was complicated. Others were involved. The woman who became my third wife was simply the kindest, most empathetic person I’d ever met. Life self-selects.

—Jesse Kornbluth, writer, editor

♦◊♦

I first set eyes and quickly developed a crush on my future wife in 11th grade (she was in 12th) when we shared a class. It was the only class I always rushed to in an effort to position myself next to her or next to an empty seat, hoping she would take it. A friendship developed but life took us in different directions.

Fast-forward six years. As I was friends with her brother, I saw cars in the driveway of their family home, and a year after having graduated from col-lege decided to stop and say a quick hello. Lucky for me, her brother Bill was not in, but Diane was, and it was the first time that I was able to get up the nerve to ask her out to the movies, followed by a drink at the local water-ing hole.

That night, I told my buddies that I was madly in love and that Diane with-out a doubt was the one for me. Within a few months I was truly blessed when she accepted my marriage proposal.

Now, 21 years later, I continue to thank my lucky stars.

—Adam Sulimirski, general manager, Eco Trans Alliance Inc. and Cruise Car, Inc.

♦◊♦

Two bachelors sorting through photos in L.A., me and my best pal. He came upon a 3x5 of a beautiful blonde who I never seen before. I said, “Who is

that”? He said, “This is going to be your wife.” Fifteen months later she was; 16 years later she still is.

—Patrick Lyons, restaurant and nightclub owner

♦◊♦

When I met my wife, she didn’t need me. She had a good job and came from a loving family, so she was happy and well-adjusted to life. She saw in me things that were apparently hidden to the casual observer (like myself), and didn’t need to change me into someone else or squeeze me into a predeter-mined mold. But, what made me realize, quite calmly, that she was the one for me, was the fact that I found myself wanting to be a better man for her. I wanted to be not what I thought she wanted, but what I thought she deserved in a partner. That was a first for me, after a handful of selfish, denial-filled relationships. I still hope every day to be the man she deserves after 12 years of marriage.

—Jeff Davis, 46, videographer

♦◊♦

The very first night we met started as nothing more than a chance meeting in a bar, which turned into a discussion of sports, our love of the Yankees (we met during the Yankees-Mets World Series in 2000), music, and so many other things that we had in common. Then, she suddenly admitted that she ate plain tuna fish right out of the can. That may seem insignificant or even silly to others, but I have always eaten tuna plain right out of the can and had never in my life met anyone else who did. Now, after more than 10 years together and eight years happily married, we still look back at that exact moment as our dealmaker.

—Geoff Lester

♦◊♦

The first time I met my wife, I entered her kitchen and said loudly, “Where is the love of my life?” She turned around and said, “Here I am!” Little did I know how true that moment would be, because I was actually talking about a girlfriend (friend) of mine, who was her best friend, whom I’d actually come over to visit.

—Adam Nisenson

♦◊♦

When I met my wife, Fely, in October 1999, she had been working as a nurse’s aide in Victory Memorial Hospital in Brooklyn. It was just before Christmas, and she told me that the people in the hospital had put up letters of commendation about the employees. We went out to dinner, and she showed me one of the letters, from a woman whose mother had passed away in the hospital. Fely came every day with a smile for her mother and washed her, and cleaned her, and brushed her hair, and always spoke with her. On the day that the mother passed on, Fely was there at her side. After she passed away, Fely was thoughtful enough to put her dentures back into her mouth. When the daughter arrived, Fely sat down and spoke with her about her mother’s last moments. The woman wrote that Fely was so compassion-ate and thoughtful, that she should teach the nurses in the hospital about compassion.

After reading the letter that the daughter wrote about her mother’s passing, I could not help but cry. At that moment, I was sure that Fely was the right woman for me, since I had just gone through a divorce and I was hoping that I would find a woman who would not hurt me again. Now I am sure, after eight years that we have been officially married, that my decision was correct.

—Maurice Schickler

♦◊♦

Through the darkest lows before marriage, she always had faith in me.

—Edgar Correa

♦◊♦

When we started dating in the early ’90s, I was living in New York and she lived in Tennessee. That was a time in my life when I was too concerned with what other people thought about me. Kristi was so comfortable in her own skin. She was willing to be uncool, which made her so authentic and so much fun to be around. I remember little things, like me bemoaning the exis-tence of shopping malls and she looking at me and saying something like, “I

love the mall. How can you not love the mall? It’s got everything under one roof and you don’t get wet or cold.” This may sound so trivial, but she still gets so excited about everyday things. The world is so much more interest-ing when I see it through her eyes.

Her other spectacular quality is that she fights fair. She rarely says things like “You always” or “You never,” and she accepts responsibility when she’s been wrong. Since it’s usually me who’s wrong, you’d think she’d get out of practice, but she hasn’t yet.

—Rink Murray, physician

♦◊♦

When she said, “I love Weird Al and D&D, too!” Nerd love is the purest love.

—Daniel Coffman, stay-at-home dad, homeschool coach, amateur author

♦◊♦

I had been single for over 10 years when I met my wife. The moment I saw her, I told a friend standing beside me, “She is going to be trouble for me.” Later, Elizabeth told me we were meant for each other and I was supposed to be with her—she is intuitive and psychic—I believed her. We have been married for nine years.

—Lt. Col. Win Harper, United States Marine Corps (retired)

♦◊♦

We were friends and coworkers at the local library when we met, both divorced, custodial parents. At the time, neither of us had any intention of ever marrying again. Every relationship I’d been in before started out with sex, and eventually wore itself out. When sex is all you have in common, you’re doomed from the start, because you have no real connection to the other person—just to their body. With my wife, there was a definite sexual attraction (she’s lovely), but we didn’t start out in bed. We just had a really good time together, wherever we were, whatever we were doing.

We’ve been together now for 21 years.

—James Eritano, building superintendent

♦◊♦

I was a charmer and intellectual snob. She saw through me and my BS like mosquito netting!

—Tshaka Armstrong, writer, film/tv editor, nonprofit CEO

♦◊♦

My dog was with me when I met her. Only half-kidding here, but one of the first things that distinguished her from other women was that my dog (who was both a flawless “divining rod” for good people and always my advocate) accepted her, whereas other women had been merely tolerated. This obvi-ously did not seal the deal, but it did get my attention at some level.

Gradually, I came to appreciate that since being with her, I was becoming a better, wiser, and happier person. It occurred to me one day that she just nat-urally had an increasingly positive effect on me. I knew then that she was “the one.” I proposed to her that same day. I can’t remember, before or since, feeling more confident about any decision.

—Dennis O’Neill, Ed.D., executive director for management and orga-nization development

♦◊♦

I knew my wife was the woman for me when on our second date I caught her watching baseball on TV!

—Ken Schaefer

♦◊♦

We had both seated ourselves in my convertible to go home when I said, “Do you mind if I smoke a cigar?” Alli replied, “I sure do—unless you’ve got one for me!” Sealed the deal.

—Bill Achtmeyer, chairman and managing partner, The Parthenon Group

♦◊♦

The moment I knew Liz was the one I wanted to marry was when her father passed away and I experienced her (and her family’s) capacity for love and selflessness at a time of deep emotional strain. Liz and her family showed their true colors, and they were beautiful.

—Todd Dagres, founder, Spark Capital

♦◊♦

My wife sees the world differently from everyone else. She pushes me to understand life more fully.

—Matt Hastie, disability-rights advocate

♦◊♦

More From Our Special Marriage Section:

Even stellar relationships lose their spark over time; here are the ingredients of a lasting, fruitful partnership, and techniques for weathering the the stormy times: What Your Mar riage Needs to Survive

When Tom Forrister transitioned from female to male, his same-sex mar-riage became a federally-recognized, “traditional” marriage. The one con-stant was the bond he shared with his wife: My Exem plary, Every day Marriage

Guys may think leaving is the right thing to do for the sake of the family, but according to family lawyer David Pisarra, there are a few things they should know before—and after—they walk out that door: A Guy’s Divorce Sur - vival Guide

Encouraging princess culture—however innocently—contributes to the sex-ualization of girls. Men can be part of the solution to the “princess prob-lem”: Men and the Sex u al iza tion of Young Girls

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For all the stories written by and for women on this issue—and there are few—men are more likely to be absent from the public dialogue about inten-tional childlessness. Why aren’t men’s stories also being heard? Two Is Enough

If you’re married and using Internet porn regularly, your sex life—the one with your wife—is probably a lot less satisfying than it could be: How Porn Can Ruin Your Sex Life—and Your Marriage

Men are more promiscuous than women, but that doesn’t mean we should buy the cultural fallacy that men are programmed to cheat; the vast majority of men are happily, naturally monogamous: Are Men Natural-Born Cheaters?

Monogamy sounds like “monotony,” but it doesn’t have to be monotonous. Hugo Schwyzer explores how we can have the security—and the novelty—we desire in our relationships: Red-Hot Monogamy

—Photo by KellyB/Flickr

About Tom Matlack

Tom Matlack is just foolish enough to believe he is a decent man. He has a 16-year-old daughter and 14- and 5-year-old sons. His wife, Elena, is the love of his life.

Comments

1. Derrick Hayes says:

February 8, 2011 at 7:04 am

A few years ago, my life hit rock bottom. My ex-wife and the mother of my children said she no longer wanted to be with me. I wanted to start over, so I moved from Alabama to Georgia. I had limited money,

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no job, and no place to stay. A childhood friend said I could sleep on his floor until I could get back on my feet.

It was my first Friday night in a new city and my friend asked me to go out and dance. I refused at first, but I later realized I needed to get out for some air. I asked an attractive young lady named Kim to dance and we grooved until the lights came on for us to go. We exchanged numbers. I never expected to meet someone so nice so quickly. Even crazier thing is that she lived 90 miles away.

I was thinking about how my life had changed, and I said “Woe.” I looked into the Bible and I saw the word “woe.” I also wanted to see how the dictionary defined “woe.” Woe means trials or tribulations. In life, a woe to you might be a job loss, and to another it might be a bro-ken relationship.

One day, I was thinking how I could reinvent my life, so I wrote down the word “woe” on a piece of paper. As the document spoke to me, it revealed that “woe” now meant WOE, as in Word of Encouragement. From there, I received this slogan: “Before you leave work or go to sleep tonight, give someone a WOE, a Word of Encouragement.” I shared my concept of WOE with Kim and we decided that before we ended our conversation each night, someone had to give a WOE. Since we first danced, we have been together for six years. She has been the light of my life. Kim helped me go from woe to WOE.

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2. Bill Ott says:


She was someone I felt I could wake up next to for the rest of my life.Bill OttEureka Springs, Arkansas

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3. Paul Gilbertson says:


She was a great driver… like many other things in life… she is com-fortable in any kind of environment!

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4. Perry Glasser says:


In Sullivan County, New York, the languid turns of Route 17 lay gen-tly on the lush Catskill landscape, but in our headlamps on this moon-less August night, at 135 mph the turns come up so fast that the road appears no more than an unnavigable string of gnarled concrete. It’s 1968, and sanity is in short supply. Newark and Detroit burned a sum-mer ago. Flag-draped black vinyl body bags stack like cordwood on landing docks and in airplane hangars, so many American dead in the Tet offensive that in February no less a figure than Walter Cronkite pronounces the war in Vietnam unwinnable. Martin Luther King is shot dead in April, Parisian students riot in May, Robert Kennedy is shot dead in June, and the Democratic National Convention will in a week fill the streets of Chicago with teargas, homicidal cops and the blood of hippies. We are speeding on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride with no guardrails.I am sure we’ll swerve to avoid a deer or some such lunacy, at 20 end-ing my life in the night. “Fuck deer,” Mike says, “Eloise slides right under any fucking deer.”Eloise, his MGB Coupe, skids casually around the worst of the turns so low to the ground Mike says he can drag his knuckles if he dares to hang an arm out the window. Mike himself, unperturbed, steers with his left wrist and shifts with his right hand. He claims that the joint he smokes helps focus his attention. He also claims that Eloise has a soul and holds the road better if Hendrix is on the 8-track. With two six-




inch speakers cranked to max mounted in the hardtop roof just behind our ears, the top line of “Hey Joe” is an icicle spiked through my ear; the bass line and drums rumble just south of my belly. The voices mixed below the melody are a ghostly choir sweetly singing about jealousy, betrayal, murder, and flight.The sealed windows trap the smoke and the sound. Eloise balks and wobbles at these speeds if we crack a window and break the aerody-namic design, a green artillery shell on spoked wheels. The dope gives me only a light contact high; my nose is more numbed by the aroma emanating from the grease-stained brown paper bag in my grasp that contains two still hot-to-the-touch roast pork and garlic-bread sand-wiches, each twelve inches long and wrapped in twisted aluminum foil. The sandwiches reek like sewage, but when God Himself wants comfort food, He appears at Jerry and Lil’s in Parksville, New York, and orders double meat.No such unkosher delicacy is to be found at the Jewish summer camp where we are counselors, so this desperado food-run to score a late night snack is worth every risk, down to and including the possible discovery of the half-kilo stash in the wheel-well by an ambitious state trooper. It’s enough weight to get Mike twenty years and me at least five. “The fucker will have to catch us first,” His hands leave the wheel to pass the joint from left to right to me, but I turn down his third offer of a hit. The odometer spins like a slot machine. When he down-shifts for the unpaved one-lane rutted road that climbs the mountainside to camp, Eloise’s Michelins spit clods of dirt that clatter in the wheel well like rounds from an AK-47. Mike roars over Hen-drix, “Three miles and five minutes to go! We’re golden!”In the crawlspace behind Eloise’s two leather bucket seats, as if she is in her own warm bed, sleeps my girlfriend, Helena. At less than 100 pounds, all elbows, knees, and long hair, Helena looks like a geometry problem that has been folded up and put away to be solved at some future date. She is not hung over. She’s not drunk. Except for a mild buzz no greater than mine, she’s far from stoned. It has just been a long day, she is tired, and she is not one to squander a chance to cop a few Z’s. She’s fearless. Eloise growls, the car leaps forward, and I fig-ure that if I live I will have to marry her. In a world gone mad, what are the chances I will find another girl for whom garlic, Hendrix, speed, and imminent death pose no obstacle to a quick nap?

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5. Dennis says:


We were less than a year into our relationship when we had our first fight; I have long since forgotten why we were fighting. We were both upset and very angry, and a little afraid about what it might mean that we had been so happy together but now we were fighting. What amazed me so much about her was this: Upon looking up at me through her tears and recognizing how upset and unhappy I was, she instantly dropped her own angry feelings and forgot all about the fight and tenderly and lovingly came over to comfort me so I would feel better. It never occurred to me that someone could love so unselfishly. I was awestruck. I still am.

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6. Adam says:


My dad always told me that when I find “the one” I would just know it. I was in relationships constantly, always looking, never realizing I couldn’t find it—that love would find me. The night after my first date with my now-wife I had one of the most vivid dreams where I saw us together with a child and playing in the front yard. I woke up feeling like I was married and I just knew, I knew she was “the one.”

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7. Kevin Williamson says:







After going to her mom’s cabin on the Missouri river and seeing what a great family she comes from.”

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8. Jim says:


I knew she was the one when I noticed how I felt when I realized we could have an impromptu conversation, at any given moment, as if we’d known each other for years. This all started thirteen years ago. I don’t want it to end. Ever.

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9. Gypsi says:


There is no such thing as the one. Though it begs the question…what happens if youre married, and THEN you find “the one”. What hap-pens then?

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o Kiai says:

February 8, 2011 at 5:12 pm

Didn’t you read the fifth story? Thank God for divorce. And for all these guys, there is The One. It’s awesome.

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10. Guy Hinton says:


The old values and morals were the hook that caught me. Seventeen years later and the hook hasn’t become rusty. Like fine wine marriage does get better with age.

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11. Jay Palter says:


When I was young, I believed in the existence of an idealized partner that I could one day discover somewhere out there in the world.

As I get older, I believe that being “the one” is something we evolve into, not a something we start out as in relationships.

Nice piece, Tom.

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12. Wing Girl Kim says:


Tom, I loved this article. Thank you for putting it together!

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o Tom Matlack says:





http://homemadedad.ca/




You are welcome

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13. Jay Diver says:


The first day I met my wife, we were on a company day trip on a hired boat (more like mini-junk).

We took a walk, exploring an island, just enjoying the atmosphere, and the sea creatures. I saw a tattered, but still beautiful feather from a brahminy kite, picked it up and gave it to her. At the end of the trip, she was still holding it in her hand.

Our fates were sealed and we married two and a half years later…

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14. gail says:


Wow what great stories. I am so happy to have stumbled upon them as they are insightful and full of romance and wonder.

As a woman who’s once again out in the dating world I am encour-aged and uplifted by your words.

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15. TJ says:



http://www.gonepausal.com/



http://dadsforlife.sg/




I knew she was the one while I was standing outside the womens bathroom calm, relaxed, and happy. We had just spent 11 hours in the Mall of America. It hit me like a ton of bricks. 10 years later, here we are.

TJ

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o Tom Matlack says:


That is awesome TJ!

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16. Daddy Files says:


We had known each other since the 6th grade and went to college together. Yet we never dated or even hooked up. Mainly because we were friends and she watched me man-whore my way through col-lege. Then, three years after graduation we got drunk at a party and she told me she always liked me. I told her she was full of shit. Then we engaged in drunken kissing behind a woodshed.

Two weeks later I told her I was going to marry her. She told me I was crazy. Eight months later she had a ring on her finger.

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o Tom Matlack says:


6th grade? dude that rocks…

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17. Boysen Hodgson says:


I love this. I feel happy and grateful. Kendra (my wife, the woman that climbed the giant tree!) had a birthday yesterday — the same day this hit the web. Awesome timing from Tom!

I also want to say that I am 100% sure that without the work I have been doing on myself through the ManKind Project and my men’s group — I wouldn’t have been able to live up to this incredible woman. My fear of intimacy, my fear of commitment, my habit of ‘checking out’ instead of listening, my fuzzy sense of my own bound-aries and gifts … I have learned to be the man I want to be in my mar-riage through the support and challenge of other men.

The ManKind Project and the New Warrior Training http://newwarriortraining.org is not religious and not political. It’s the best thing I have ever done for myself as a man. Period. And the best possible thing I can think of to improve quality of life and relation-ships for any man. Even if you have it GREAT — there is always a growing edge to push into.

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o Tom Matlack says:


http://newwarriortraining.org/


http://mankindproject.org/




glad to have shared the journey Boysen.

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she’s the one

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