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That's what nosotros said to each other. And we meant it.

Don was 52 when we met. I was 44. We met at a three-day hypnotherapy-training workshop. Don was working as a neuropsychologist but had a secret life as a shaman doing soul retrieval. I had a do equally a past-life and early babyhood regression therapist. We were both in relationships at the time.

After the 3-day training we decided to meet to do the new techniques we'd learned. For about a year we'd get together every two weeks or so and practice a therapy session for each other. It was so bizarre. In the session each of u.s.a. would exist deeply self-revealing. Later on all what's the point of doing therapy if you're not willing to go deep into the places that need to be healed. As soon as the sessions were over Don would revert to being mister professional person Doctor Read, and I would be flakey new-age therapist Alison totally intimidated by him. It's amazing the enormous help we were able to be for each other in these therapy sessions given the dynamic betwixt united states.

During this time we became friends of a sort. We were both part of Vancouver'due south "spiritual" community and would run into each other at parties. We met each other's partners. The post-obit year I moved from Vancouver to live in the far due north for a couple of years. Don came for a vacation and stayed with us for ten days. He became friends with my young man.

Don had previously been married for more than ten years. My "childhood" marriage lasted all of eighteen months. I thought I was so mature waiting until I was 21 to go married. Past 22 I was separated, and past 23 divorced. Finally complimentary! What followed our marriages, for both of the states, were a series of more and more than dysfunctional relationships. Each of us was adept for about 3 years. We were both also single on and off for many years. We were the King and Queen of how non to do intimate relationship. The relationship Don was in when we showtime met was an off-once more on-over again and finally off-again affair. The aforementioned for me and my boyfriend at the time. The only style I could become out of that relationship was to merely up and leave for Commonwealth of australia. I stayed for six months during which fourth dimension Don had still another disastrous matter. I licked my wounds at domicile with my mother and big sisters.

On my return to Canada we reconnected. I was emotionally shredded from a lifetime of cocky-sabotage, and from years of hurting myself through getting involved, one after some other, with the wrong men. I was non able to communicate clearly – with myself, let alone with my partner. I was intimidated in every relationship, and always afraid of existence rejected. Don, bless him, felt a calling to take care of me. It was a pretty low betoken in my life, just at least I had a job, a roof over my head thanks to my sister, and a friend in Don. Don had just emerged from some other truly disastrous affair that had left him feeling done. We were both so done. Done, cooked, finished with relationships. It was time to stick a fork in us both!

At this betoken nosotros'd known each other for a fiddling over four years. For the next eight months we'd get together about twice a week. We'd get to movies, get for walks, go out for dinner, and talk our heads off. When we went for walks sometimes we'd sit with our arms around each other – a sign of the closeness of our friendship. And we were actually articulate that that'southward all it was. It was during this time that nosotros told each other, more than once, that we never ever ever wanted to be in another human relationship once again. Ever! And we both meant it. We were not remotely attracted to each other beyond our sweetness friendship. Nosotros felt very rubber with each other considering neither of the states had a hidden calendar, or was feeling unrequited dearest.

And and then it happened. We'd been to a pic and so went to a eating house for dessert. I went to the bathroom. It was situated such that when I came back Don, sitting at the table, had his dorsum to me. Without thinking I spontaneously hugged him around his shoulders from behind. Information technology was electric. We both look back at that fourth dimension and know that that was when everything inverse. Don doesn't remember me putting my artillery around him. He just remembers that when I sat downward he knew that he was in love with me. There is no explaining it. It'southward as though somebody flipped a switch. Suddenly we were in love with each other and there was no turning back. Of course nothing was best-selling at the fourth dimension, just it only took us a few more days. That commencement kiss was pretty terrifying.

About a week later I had a dream that I was riding a horse in an intricate pattern all around and up and down and dorsum and along over green rolling hills that reminded me of the English countryside. When I awoke I knew immediately that I had been making a blueprint. In the side by side instant I knew that it was the blueprint for how non to do relationships. And in the next instant later that I knew that if I had the blueprint for how not to do a human relationship then by holding information technology up to a mirror I automatically had the blueprint for how to do information technology.

Within nine months we were living together and were married three years later in 2002. I was 51 and Don was 59. To this mean solar day we are shocked by the way it suddenly turned effectually. And greatly grateful. We remember God played a pull a fast one on on united states; a very practiced pull a fast one on.

Of form all this begs the question: how'due south information technology working out for you guys? I've pretty much covered that in this post about being together twenty-four seven.

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Photos: Meridian – Playa del Carmen, Mexico. Bottom – a selfie on the ferry – returning to Playa after a mean solar day snorkelling off Cozumel.

Next post: Snorkelling Cozumel, parasailing, and pond with turtles.

All words and images by Alison Louise Armstrong unless otherwise noted
© Alison Louise Armstrong and Adventures in Wonderland – a pilgrimage of the heart, 2010-2016.