Met on irc a hundred years ago. Moved to a different state to be together. Got married, had kids, still together livin’ the dream. No regerts. Ragerts. Whatever.

She was dating my ex girlfriend. They split. My ex recommended she ask me out because she thought we might be a good fit. It’s been 14 years.

Having a previous significant partner that I split with on good terms has always been a great strategy for getting a new partner.

Met last year through online dating, met once when we were able to and sparks flew when I saw he eyes light up at me mentioning that the intersection outside my front door really should be a roundabout.

Never knew how sexy a politically active dryad could be until I was seeing one whenever we had the chance to meet up. She’s legit like a forest spirit that shows up from congress with the fey courts and immediately wants to jump me and it’s fucking amazing. 10/10, date the witchy ones if you know how to appreciate them, they will have you under a spell you’ll never want to be freed from.

Maybe it’s second honeymoon phase since we’re getting to see each other for the first time in a few months after I caught a nasty bug, but the needed time apart has just reinforced to me that my life’s better with her in it than it is when she’s not, and if that’s not a healthy foundation for something bigger to be built on, I haven’t found what is yet.

At risk of repeating an answer to a similar question some weeks or months ago:

My wife and I met on a porn site. We caught feelings and met IRL and it was actually pretty great.

Well, it was not exactly porn but more a popular “adult fanfiction” (almost the same thing) site where we went from cooperative creative writing to something much more intimate. I flew out to meet her and now we’ve been married for about a decade.

I still say we met because of porn. My first message to her contained a detailed, descriptive, as unceremonious as it was unambiguous list of preferences but it seems to be working out so far.

Man…

Ok, so I was 12 years old and had only just moved from England to Australia. First few days of high school I noticed this girl. Normal looking girl - beautiful eyes, but one of those beautiful people that tends to be quiet and go by unnoticed… But I noticed her.

I was always very outgoing and loud, and she was more quiet and reserved. I loved to do card tricks. I also became incredibly shy when I wanted to talk to her, so I devised a plan

I laid some playing cards on the corner of my desk and waited for her to walk past. When she did, I knocked them off and we started a conversation…

Eventually I did a card trick and knew she’d picked the 3 of Diamonds. That card has held significance for us this whole time…

Through high school we both had feelings for eachother - me, being confident, silly and outgoing declaring my love for her to everyone and asking her out on a few occasions, never looking at the other girls who wanted to spend more time with the English boy who now lives in Australia. I only had eyes for her. I just knew she was the one.

But for 4 and a half years of high school it never happened. She was too shy to say yes, and I was too shy to ask properly. Sure, I’d slipped her notes and I’d asked on a few occasions, but it never happened. She did say yes once and we “dated” for 2 weeks but nothing happened, not a kiss, nothing. We were both young and inexperienced in relationships and after 2 weeks she said “you’re dumped”… It hurt.

But for that whole high school time everyone in school knew we wanted eachother.

Then came secondary school (High school in Aus is year 7-10 when you’re like, 12-16ish in age, secondary is Year 11 and 12 when you’re about 16-18ish)

In secondary school I met my then best friend… He was a great bloke and we got along like a house on fire. A couple of months into Year 11 he asked if he could ask the girl I loved out… I told him “Why not, she doesn’t want me anyway” so he did.

They got together and we stayed friends. I was heartbroken but I wanted the best for her and he seemed like a good bloke, and I didn’t want to ruin what they had by being upset or jealous, and I didn’t want to lose my friendship with either of them, so I kept my feelings hidden and eventually went on to date other girls. By this time she and I were about 16…

The following few years we all hung out with our friends group and they stayed together… I was the best man at their wedding and one of the first to meet their newborn son when he arrived…

But then slowly we drifted… Id message him and get no replies, or short and careless ones. I’d long since stopped messaging her as usually messaging him was realistically intended for the both of them anyway…

And so 4 years went by without any contact from either of them…

Then I had a son. I wasn’t in a good place or a good relationship at the time. Don’t get me wrong, my then partner was fine. She is a good person but we just didn’t fit and I feel I was with her out of lonliness more than love.

Anyhow, I got a message from the girl I loved through high school congratulating me on my son. I replied and asked how she was, told her I missed them and proposed a catch up with us all. I got no reply.

Another year passed and I left my then partner. 4 months-ish later, my high school crush had her then husband removed from the house for domestic violence. I found out through a chance encounter with her sister.

We made arrangements for me to go visit, and so I did.

I stepped into her house where her family was helping tidy the place and saw her down the long hall at a distance and so many of those feelings came flooding back.

I walked up and gave her the biggest hug. It felt like I held her forever… Then I got to work on helping tidy the house… Then I met her daughter for the first time. At this point she’d had 2 kids with her then husband. One was 3, the other, 5.

Through the next couple of weeks I spent a lot of time catching up with her and trying to offer my help where I could. I learned a lot more about my old “friend” and just how controlling, coercive, manipulative and abusive he was for the 17 years they were together. 17 long years that feel as if they were robbed from “us”… But we were so young…

At one point we kissed. And that was it. Finally, after knowing her for 21-22 years and loving her for so long, we finally kissed.

It just was right. There was so much going on, court dates to maintain an intervention order against her ex husband, him lying about anything and everything. His manipulation of the court system and even his own children continues to this day… But finally we had eachother and we weren’t about to let go.

I’d had a vasectomy after my son was born… But after a year of being with her I got it reversed. We now have a beautiful daughter together. We got married, too. Life together is what we should have always had. We both feel it.

Its tremendously difficult being the stepdad of 2 kids that are being conditioned and coerced into hating you 5 nights a fortnight, but they’re good kids. I’m trying my best for them

I feel I have a lot to unpack and work through but with 4 kids and working in disability support its next to impossible to afford any kind of therapy, let alone the free time to attend…

But I love her. So much. And she loves me. I have a tattoo on my side - a silhouette of the 2 of us on our wedding day, surrounded by the clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades suits to symbolise how we met. There are 3 diamonds.

Through the abuse she endured theres a lot for us both to work through but again, we’re so lucky to finally have eachother. We’re 35 now and spent half our lives apart, despite at one point wanting to be with eachother for 1/3 of our lives to that point… We’re not letting eachother go now. I couldn’t imagine life without her. She is everything to me. I just feel so sorry for our past selves. They deserved so much better.

I have to keep reminding myself that had we gotten together back then it might not have worked out how it has. We may have grown apart, or not had anything to compare to in order to see how good we really have it…

I love her. Always.

I’ve never written that all down before. There’s plenty more to it, but I felt compelled to really delve into it that time. Thank you so much for asking the question.

Despite my best efforts, they found me…

Introduced by a college friend. Buddy of mine was visiting my home country, we plan to meet up and he randomly and last minute tells me he’s inviting an acquaintance to our meet up. I was a bit annoyed at the sudden change in plans but turns out the rando he invited was a pretty cool lady with a lot of shared interests.

We went to a concert together that weekend, a comic convention the next and the fun kept going.

A random account on FB, with only like one or two mutual friends and a name and profile picture both being reference to Tim Burton’s movies has messaged me because of a photo of me on a local old school goth festival. We started talking and hit it off pretty well, and eventually decided to meet. No-one of my friends knew who she was, I never saw any of her real pictures or had any indication whether I’m being scammed, catfished, or who the hell it is, other than her mentioning that she was part of the local goth scene several years ago, before I started participating.

We decided to eventually meet before another party, and I went in half expecting I’ll just get a funny catfish story out of it, but I like collecting funny stories so why not. And she promised to bring alcohol, so all I was risking was one awkward afternoon I’d spend getting drunk with someone.

We both arrived already tipsy, and I was met at the train station with a really nice looking girl carrying three bottles of mead, which we’ve managed to drink on the way to the party. It was amazing experience and we hit it off immediately and it was basically love at first sight. Both of us could hold our drinks well, and we got to the party pretty drunk but nowhere near too drunk - I can drink a lot and be OK (not that I do it too often), and it’s rare when I meet someone who can keep up with me.

When we arrived, it turned out that half of the people already knows her, because she indeed was part of the scene around five years before my time, before she got into a really bad relationship she couldn’t get out of due to mortage for several years, cutting contact, but she changed her nickname so no one realized it was her I was talking about. She just got out of the relationship by moving out within a day because she found out he was cheating on her, and few months after that randomly decided to message me, because she saw me on photos with her highschool classmate - who was also my best friend who got me in the scene several years before that (I’m around 6 years younger than both of them), and her friend convinced her to just give it a try and message me.

We’ve been together for almost 6 years, moved together four years ago, and we’ve eventually started DJing and hosting our own goth parties, among other things, while also helping local promoters with their events. All in all, it’s good, but it was a pretty random luck that we’ve met.

You’ll never believe me, Runescape when I was 12

Long time ago i was an actor and a cook at a medieval market. it was Beltane and my best friend said “I’ll get you a wife tonight”. It didn’t work, and she was very upset about it. I had some sausages on the fire when some girls walked past, and i cried out loud "i’m giving a sausage in a bun for a virgin, anyone interested?. One girl was interested, but very annoying, but her friend was cute. So now i’m married with two children with her.

OKCupid. And given what I hear about the state of dating apps today, it feels like we caught the last chopper out of 'Nam.

Drunk at a karaoke bar. Twice.

OkCupid. I had been using dating apps for like 8 years at that point with no luck. I was her first or second match. W4w

In 2017 I was coming out as transgender and looking for a job. Got an interview as head evening manager at a grocery store. Go in for the interview and am not sure if I’m out yet, but the store manager figured it out and was really open and said they had 2 trans people working there already, so I’m like fuck it, get the job and am out.

One of the other trans people is my right hand person like 2-3 days/week, store manager tries to enthusiastically but awkwardly introduce us.

Over the next couple of weeks everything goes to shit in the store; manager is fired, lot’s of employees leave, severely understaffed, etc. I’m working like 80 hour weeks and every evening is a battle, and through commiseration and tough days a bond forms between me and the other person. Start meeting every time I have a day off and start dating like 6 weeks after we first meet, and 6 weeks after that we move in together.

Been together almost 7 years, now. Worked together for the first 3ish.

She picked me up in a bar. Been married for 23 years now