Getting Acquainted Part VI: Who I Wasn't Going to Marry

By a show of hands, who reading this (besides me) has ever said, "I will never marry a psychologist."- and yes, I specified the degree/profession just that narrowly. The reason why is this. My Dad was a psychologist and my Mom was a therapist. They practiced the profession back in the 70's, during the trying adolescent years of their 3 offspring, when the field was young, knew unlimited insurance reimbursement and little in the way of ethical standards or policing. There were standards, but the field was less defined, shifting and changing. Adages like, "don't bring your clients (including strung out promiscuous teenagers, catatonic schizophrenics and beaten wives) home," were looked on with more tolerance than they might be now.

All of that to say, I had an up close and personal look at the field. In fact, when I was interviewing for my M.F.T. program I mentioned to the head of the Department that I had grown up surrounded by the profession. He naively thought I meant I was surrounded by books related to the field. Um, no. Well, yes. But much, much more.

Anyway, I found myself at a Christian college just months after I became a sold out, starry eyed follower of the Messiah. I was happy, young, and free of a lot of carp. (Iow, I knew what I'd gotten saved from. Thank-you, Jesus!) The next year, I was sailing along in my little bubble, surrounded by awesome girl friends, at a school I loved, throwing as much pottery as I had time for.  One morning I returned from my job to find a message from this guy in my very small Senior Seminar: Rabbis, Teachers and Old Testament Leaders. I called him back. He asked if I wanted to go with him to the Art Museum in Indy. Sold.

He was 1 hour late picking me up. And though  he did call to lmk, this should have alerted me to the fact that characterologically he will always believe that he can fit more things in to life than humanly possible. We had a great time at the museum and then went out for pizza. We got a large. I ate one slice. He ate the rest, even though he was a bean pole. Again, if life was fair there should have been red warning lights going off that indicated whomever married this man would spend a great deal of their time creating food for him and his beanpole offspring, and while they (the man and his kids) remained skinny-ish the person collecting, crafting, and cleaning up all of that food probably wouldn't. At least that's what happened to me.

We saw each other every night that week. We went jogging (back in the days when my knees did what they were supposed to do), met in the student lounge, (back in the days when guys weren't allowed on the girls dorm floor), and talked (back in days before texting); we talked a lot. Within weeks we were negotiating who was going where, when. (this was the 2nd semester of our Sr. year). We changed plans so that we could be together instead of apart. And we got married. That was almost 3 decades ago. And while one of my major life goals was thwarted (i.e. NOT marrying a psychologist) it was still one of the best mistakes I've ever made.

Who weren't you going to marry?