What No One Tells You About Happily Ever After.

The night we were supposed to go to that concert, I couldn't breathe.
That same damnable internal storm that presses in, the kind I’ve learned to manage over the years. Every sound too loud, every breath not enough.
Not a breakdown, but it definitely wasn't nothing.

I was supposed to meet The Balkan Storm there, and I did make it, albeit barely. I pushed myself through every moment of getting dressed, getting in the car, parking, and walking in.

And I managed it so well that later, he told me he had no idea I was struggling.

Some days, even a simple dinner out feels impossible. I’ve battled anxiety, overstimulation, and the kind of trauma residue that apparently doesn't have an expiration date.

The working theory is that after everything I've survived, my brain is finally in the space to process them.

Because apparently, the reward for finally feeling safe and loved is your brain saying, "Hey, remember all those times I didn't get to fall apart? Cool, here they come, so buckle up."

This isn’t my everyday. It’s not who I am, it’s just the one place life still catches me off guard. My Achilles’ heel, if you will. The kind no one sees, not even him, unless I say otherwise. Most of it happens behind my eyes, invisible but no less real.

And this man- he doesn’t try to fix it. He just quietly and steadily walks with me through it without judgment.

The funny thing is, we each think the other one is the calming influence. The grounded, disciplined one. And at the same time, we both secretly suspect we're the wilder one.

And maybe that's what works, that balance of calm and chaotic, steady and spontaneous, each of us thinking we're the crazy one while grounding the other. Like that line in Deadpool: "Your crazy matches my crazy".

He thinks he's a lot. But I think he fits perfectly.

And on the days when my anxiety flares and I feel more fragile than I am, he doesn't make me feel anything but loved.

And believe me when I say, compared to my past experience with marriage, this kind of support still catches me off guard in the best way.

But this isn’t just a story about him, or me, or even the marriage. It’s about the life we built when no one thought we would, when even we weren’t sure we could.

It’s about what happens when you lean into hope from the kind of practiced faith that comes from weaponized daydreaming. It's about the kind of love you build and believe in before it exists.

I wasn’t looking for a husband. But I also knew I wasn’t going to settle for anything less than someone who could be one, if he proved himself worth the title.

I believed in love, but frankly, I’d stopped believing it was meant for me. I’d spent too many years performing, customizing myself into someone easier to love, and I was done hustling for affection. So I stopped asking what they wanted and started asking what I needed.

And so, late one night after a recent heartbreak, I sat alone in the dark, writing a list by the light of the fireplace (Sounds so dramatic, very Gothic, doesn’t it?).  A real pen-on-paper handwritten list. Pages of it. I wrote down every quality I knew I needed to feel safe, seen, and challenged.

He had to have goals. A sense of humor. Self-respect. Emotional fluency. A full life of his own. The kind of man who values a strong woman because he’s done the work to become a strong man. Someone determined to leave a legacy, even if it was just in the hearts of his kids.

I didn’t believe such a unicorn existed. Hell, I wasn’t even hoping anymore. But I wanted to be the kind of woman who wouldn’t miss him if he did.

And then I met him.

A mutual friend introduced us at a volunteer meeting for ESGR, a military support organization. He was the area chair. I was just there to learn more. There was no ‘meet-cute’ moment. Just a handshake, steady eye contact, and a sense of rightness I couldn’t explain.

I didn’t know about his past. Nothing about the press, the accolades, the legacy. I just saw a man who didn’t need to prove a damn thing to anyone.

What I also didn’t know was that this wasn’t just a turning point for me. It was one for him, too. He’d just come out of a long relationship that had drained him with expectations he never signed up for.

He’d spent years giving everything to everyone until finally, he chose his own peace. And that bothered people. Some couldn’t handle it and refused to accept it. Sadly, that included family.

But he chose me. On purpose. Without hesitation. And once he did, that was it.

I wasn’t there to play games, though. There came a time during our first year of dating when I told him, calmly and plainly, that if he didn’t know after a year or two whether he wanted to marry me, then he actually did know. And we’d part ways, no pressure, no drama.

I wasn't trying to corner him at all; I was simply being honest about where I stood and what I needed.

He didn’t flinch. He just nodded, took it in, and several months later, he proposed out of nowhere. We got married the following spring.

When we told that story at a recent wedding, the men at the table accused me of "giving an ultimatum". It wasn't at all. There's a difference.

Boundaries are created from self-respect.
Ultimatums are thrown down to control someone else.

What I gave him was a decision point, and the only thing it demanded was that I respect myself.

So there, guys. tosses head.

It reads all nice and neat when you write it out like that, but back then, my brain still didn’t trust it. I didn’t know how to relax into something good, especially when I had no frame of reference. I’d become so good at surviving bad love, I wasn’t sure I’d recognize the good kind.

My grandfather used to tell the story of the moment he met my grandmother. He heard a voice say, "She will be your wife." And grandpa was no mystic. He was a Navy man through and through, all logic and reason.  But to his dying day, he swore that voice was real.

When I first locked eyes with my now-husband, I heard it clear as day: “This is the man you’re going to marry". I’d never heard that voice before, not even with my first husband.

And for the record, I’m not woo-woo either, although I do have softer edges than Grandpa did, may he rest in peace.

But I had started living like the woman I wanted to become. Making decisions from that place, saying no faster, and firmly holding my boundaries. It’s what I call weaponized daydreaming, the practice of embodying the life you claim you want until it stops feeling like make-believe.

And it worked.

He saw it before I did.
He told me, flat-out, almost from the jump, not to hold back with him. That I didn’t need to look for the catch. That I could say the weird thing like, “I could get used to this,” while we curled up on his couch. That he wasn’t going anywhere.

“I know what I want,” he said once. “And I will have it.”
He meant me. blush

And sure, he bought flowers and planned surprises, but those weren’t the proof. The proof was in his consistency. How he called me every night from a long-planned motorcycle trip just days after we met.

How he came to see me while I helped care for my sick grandfather. How he unobtrusively stepped in to help, like he was already part of the family. How he naturally integrated into our lives with a reassuring steadiness and gravitas.

Let this be proof that the saying is true: if he wanted to, he would. I never believed it until I saw it for myself.

Before he was the man who now plays backup when life tries to take me down, he had another name in the world: Chef. With a capital C.

In his twenties, he was that chef. National press. Magazine spreads. Zagat. Best-of lists. “Chef of the Year” at 25. He led four-star teams and fed people who showed up with security details and motorcades.

We still have the photos: Denzel, Shirley MacLaine, the Bushes, Larry King…the list goes on. And while he’s proud of it, he never leads with it. That season of life shaped him, but it never defined him.  

He knows what pressure and perfectionism can do to your soul. He knows how to stay calm when everything’s on fire. And he brought that same ethic into the life we’ve built, where the pace is slower but the stakes are just as high.

In our early years together, it was exactly what we imagined: motorcycle getaways with nowhere to be, tasting menus we saved for, late nights in unfamiliar towns where everything felt like a beginning. We lived wide open, intentionally. And even with a daughter to raise, we diligently carved out space for ourselves.

When we ran off to Italy for our private “weddingmoon,” we promised we’d go back there for our tenth anniversary, which is tomorrow. The day after our wedding, someone took our photo on the Terrace of Infinity, the same place I'd once seen in a photo that felt more like a calling than a destination. Once I shared that dream with him, it stopped being mine and became ours.

But life happened and we’ve got schedules, budgets, hearings, kids. We’re not on the Amalfi Coast; we’re in the weeds.

Maybe we’ll make it back for our twentieth.

Even though our scenery looks markedly different right now, we still have the same values and the same stubborn refusal to let anyone but us write our ending.

These days, our intimacy includes an unspoken domestic cold war that started when I refused to wear an "I Voted" sticker after a recent local election. I vote because it’s my civic duty, and those ugly stickers scream ‘participation trophy’ to me. I'm sorry, it just does.  

Naturally, he took this as a challenge in light of a petty squabble we'd just had.

The next morning, he stuck his sticker on my bathroom mirror. I moved it to his. He slapped it on my faucet. I hid it in his underwear drawer. He tucked it in my bath towel. I slipped it into his laptop. He snuck it onto my dashboard.

And so on.

The funniest part of it all is that we’ve never spoken a word about it. It’s just this ongoing, low-grade prank war that cuts the tension. Moreover, it’s a breadcrumb trail back to each other. It’s proof we’re still choosing humor, that during the roughest parts, we still choose us.

This anniversary marks ten years of grit and grace, private jokes, memories, and choosing to stay the course together. So the answer to what no one tells you about living happily ever after is that it’s not where you land, it’s how you keep moving.

It’s weaponized daydreaming in real time, 'cause we’re still saving for that someday beach house in a country with better espresso. We’re still choosing each other like it’s the plan because it always was and always will be.

So no, it’s not a fairy tale. But it is one hell of a love story.