The ExH's 2nd Wife: One of my Chick Issue Stories

Boundaries around here seem to be shifting, or at least loosening up a little. When The Mr. and I first got together, and more so when we first broached the topic of ethical non-monogamy I had a firm “NO CHICKS” rule. Not only does that mean we won’t play with females, but that there were to be no new female friends for him. I felt so strongly about not allowing females into our life that the idea of getting involved with a guy that had another girlfriend or consenting wife was off the table, even if we never met her.

My personal history of betrayal by other women runs very deep and very long. Two examples of this were the women that were my closest friends in my 20’s. One of whom ended up with The ExH living in her home in a shared situation with her husband. The other is legally married to The ExH to this day, but they’ve been separated for awhile. Either one of them could have had him and I would have simply said, “Good luck and be sure you get regular STI testing.” 

They both saw how things were in my marriage. They both knew about all the lying, cheating and the one time in my life that someone else’s business ended in a prescription. They were both women that I bonded with deeply and shared daily living space with for extended periods of time. They were family to me in ways that meant more than the blood relatives I haven’t seen in a decade. And they both went about things in such a deceitful, hurtful manner that I don’t speak to either one as of this day.

The ExH’s current wife, N, was our neighbor in Germany. She was pregnant with her only child and married to a man that did the same job as The ExH. She was a couple years younger than me and expressed once that she was jealous because I was a better cook and housekeeper than she was. We used to have uniform ironing parties in our kitchen together where I taught her how to use liquid starch and she taught me the easiest way to line the creases up. We would cook meals in both apartments with the doors propped open as we moved between the two kitchens as though they were part of one home.

Fast forward a few years and we are in Texas just a few blocks away from each other. Her marriage was ending and The ExH was getting ready to deploy. She needed a place to stay and I needed help while I recovered from a surgery I’d scheduled. She moved into the spare bedroom and rather than pay rent she took on the cooking and cleaning I was unable to do. We had the kind of non-sexual cuddling that I’d seen between sisters and best friends. Until N it had felt awkward to be near another woman like that. It was not uncommon for us to run around the house in our underwear, change clothes in the same room and even cuddle up on the couch while watching movies. She was my person.

Once I was recovered enough to start playing again, she and I partnered up in another manner a few times with a guy that ended up being a long-term friend with benefits of mine. Later we had another threesome with another long-term FWB of mine. I shared two of them more than willingly. The third one is a story unto itself. I was single by then and had feelings for him. She knew how I felt, but went after him anyway. I chalked it up to her personal issues and didn’t take it to heart. Much. I said even then that she wanted so much to be like me that she followed in my every foot step.

 Over the years we drifted in and out of daily contact and she moved an hour away to her parents’ place. Her psychiatric issues were getting worse, and when I would go see her it was apparent that she was abusing the medications she’d been prescribed. I had driven up to take her to Dr.’s appointments a few times and met a boyfriend or two along the way. At one point she was sharing an apartment with her younger brother, but he was kicking her and her son out. She was not able to work, and her parents had 'disowned her' yet again. My daughter looked at her son as a little brother, and N as another Mommy figure after the way we had all lived together. I had just ended a relationship and had a spare bedroom in my house again. It was My Kiddo that persuaded me to invite them to come down and stay with us to get on her feet.

The ExH and I were friendly at this point, and N had been like family to us both so it wasn’t weird to ask him to assist with the move. He had a truck and no full-time job. I was working a lot of hours and very much in the throes of realigning myself emotionally and financially after a year and a half with a guy and a baby in my home. That Tuesday, the ExH made his first trip to help with the packing. Wednesday they started filling my garage with her belongings and Thursday they completed the unpacking process and brought me sushi for when I got home from work. Having The ExH in my home like that was briefly healing in a way. We were able to be friends without the weirdness or the baggage some couples might have. He had begun flirting with me again not a week earlier, but he seemed to have accepted my flat-out ‘No’ and was okay to be my friend at last. 

Friday saw all of ‘the good’ and the familiar comfort end abruptly.  It was one of the hardest work days of my entire adult life. I had to assist in the firing of over 300 people, and then tell another 150 that they were furloughed for up to eight weeks. During the entire process I was waiting to be called into my managers’ office to be told that I was being demoted with a big pay cut. All of this, knowing that I had just agreed to help support a friend and her son on top of my own high school aged daughter. 

That night I went out for a beer with R, rather than go straight home. R was the woman that The ExH lived with for a year after we separated. When karma hit her by way of The ExH getting involved with and eventually living with her teenage babysitter I had allowed a degree of mending between us. Better to forgive and not hold onto the pain of betrayal, right? That was my take on it at the time. 

It was around 10pm when I pulled up to my house and saw The ExH’s truck parked in front. I was worn out mentally, physically and emotionally and then got hit with a wave of that old sensation I would get when The ExH and I were together and he was somehow ‘misbehaving.’ I walked in to find them sitting on my couch watching a movie. I remember going to my room and finding evidence of N's son’s hamster on my bed and being really angry, way angrier than was rational. I remember lying in bed with that same feeling of hurt, betrayal, abandonment, and anger I had lived with for all those years with ExH. Around 2am I got up to get a glass of water and before I made it down the hall, The ExH was on his feet in the doorway between the living room and kitchen hastily asking if I was okay and what was wrong. It was that same sign of guilt he always exhibited when he was lying to me about something and trying to cover up what he was doing. And what was wrong was that he was in my house on my couch with my friend at 2am when he had a home of his own only blocks away. His teenage girlfriend was still living there, but she was out of town that weekend so if they had wanted to spend time together they had somewhere to go. Instead, they were in my home doing, or not doing anything at 2am on a Friday night after one of the worst days of my professional life. 

Early the next morning I work up and sent him a text message: “Are you home?”

When he said yes, I replied, “Good. I’m coming over.” 

I know he was blindsided by the way I spoke to him. I rationalize and minimized his role in things due to the PTSD, the TBI and all the other acronyms he lives with after his time in Iraq. I tell myself that he is dumb and always had a crush on N and that he was looking for an excuse to get rid of his girlfriend. But N was none of these things. She was my friend and of all the ways she could have gone about things she did so in my home and on my couch. She was looking for someone to take care of her and she knew that she could use all of the things about The ExH she knew to achieve her goal.

That Saturday morning I stood on the porch of the home I had purchased with The ExH just as I had once before after I moved out and he moved R’s teenage babysitter in. I stood there shaking and crying with anger and he looked at me confused and unprepared for the venom that flowed. The end of it was simple, “Get her out of my house.”

I left for the day and told him to text me when they were done. That was the last time I spoke to N. 

A few months later my daughter sent me a message while I was at work. It said that they were getting married and wanted her to be in the wedding. She had formed her own opinion of N by this time. The ExH would invite her along for “family outings” with N and her son, who my Kiddo truly loved as a sibling. N would be high on her meds, smoking and drinking and yelling at her son. The ExH kept inviting My Kiddo to do things with them, but she refused to go anywhere with him unless he assured her that N would not be there. Not only did N’s behavior hurt me, an adult woman, but it added another chip to my daughter’s foundation as she saw what “friends” and “family” can do to each other. She saw how awful women can be to each other and all I can do is hope that she finds herself surrounded by better women than I have had in my life

.

The saddest part of it all is that sitting here now these things still sting. I can rationalize it all and use my ‘grown up brain’ to see why the people in my life did what they did. Realistically, hurting me wasn’t part of their agenda. They were each working on their own shit and didn’t bother to check for collateral damage. But N is only the most recent in a life-long story of women betraying each other. I have been determined to make it the last one and in doing so am closing myself off from ever being close to another woman like I was with N and with R. 

Just typing that made my grown up brain applaud and my girl-brain wince in pain.

I have been on both sides of this kind of story. I have been the mistress as often as I’ve been the scorned wife. I’ve seen both sides of this coin and know all too well what it looks like inside and out. I’m not sure how I’ll work through this one. I hate the idea of being so jaded, but at the same time women betraying each other has been so much a part of my reality that I cannot fathom a world where it is safe to trust someone like that again.

The Mr. recently became Facebook friends with the female Sub of a mutual friend of ours. For the first time in ages, my claws didn't come out knowing she had sent him a friend request and not me. I did not feel defensive, catty or weird at all about him making friends with another woman. This is a new place for me, and I know it's due to the amazing level of honesty, respect, trust and communication The Mr. and I have.

Food Euphemisms

The Mr. and I were having lunch with a friend last month and our friend happened to mention a gay friend of his in a story. During the conversation, it never dawned on me that anything was awkward or uncomfortable, but when The Mr. went to the bathroom our friend said that he felt weird bringing up gay guys and felt the need to explain that he did not have any issues with it, but is straight himself. He said that he thought The Mr. had been a little flirty with him and he didn’t want anyone to get the wrong impression. I explained that The Mr. doesn’t identify as ‘bi’ or ‘gay’ or anything like that. He and I have shared experiences with another man, and he did have some encounters with men when he was single but it’s not something he would deem a lifestyle. And yes, we both flirt openly. That's not always a signal of intent.

The thought crossed my mind that a food analogy would be the best way to describe it. “Enjoying a salad from time to time doesn’t make you a vegetarian, right? So why should enjoying sexual contact with someone of the same gender make anyone gay, or even bi-sexual?”

People in general are becoming more and more open to same sex relationships, but there is still a big taboo when it comes to male-male play. We once saw an invitation for a hotel party that specifically mentioned that there would be male-male play. The Mr. was so intrigued by the necessity of that addendum that he replied to the host asking why the notation was added. The response was along the lines that people are sometimes put off by male-male interactions in a group setting and the host felt the need to warn those who might be uncomfortable so they might choose to skip this particular gathering. I thought that the sex-positive, poly/swinger scene would be more open to all kinds of sexual expression, but it seems that male-male play is still taboo even there.

On the other side of the male-male play taboo there seems to be an assumption that females in the poly/swinger lifestyle are universally interested in female-female play. It’s a common thing that couples come into the lifestyle to fulfill her interest in other women sexually, while indulging the male fantasy of having two women at once. I feel like an anomaly in that I have no interest in any contact with another woman sexually. I barely tolerate other females socially at this point in life, so the idea of trusting one enough to get naked with is out of the question. I’ve tried it and it wasn’t for me. As a female in this community saying I don’t like pussy is akin to exclaiming ‘I hate bacon!’ Unless you’re surrounded by vegetarians you’re going to get some weird looks.

Food analogies seem to be the best way for The Mr. and me to describe how this part of our life works. We say that our relationship is the perfect meal. We are fully nourished and satisfied with each other. All of our needs are met, and if we never got naked with anyone else, nothing would be lacking. However, desert is always a nice treat! We agree that sometimes a little something sweet is nice to share. On that same note, I don’t like raspberries but the Mr. does. We both like cheesecake, so the agreement is that we only ‘order cheesecake.’ In that way, it seems a little less unfair and a lot more about sharing a treat we both enjoy, together.

We’ve heard people say that they are poly because one person shouldn’t be expected to meet all of another person’s needs. To me, it sounds like they crave a more varied menu than any one chef can prepare. Good for them if they are open to that sort of culinary adventure. I think that a big part of why The Mr. and I work so well together is that we both want the same deep level of attachment and familiarity with each other. Euphemistically speaking, we prefer our home-cooked meals but enjoy going out for desert together when the craving strikes.

As always, we find ourselves in ‘The Middle Layer‘ of things. The filling is as sweet as ever, but some days it seems that the frosting is all the rest of the world has on the menu.

Buttons and Switches

For the last 3 weeks or so I have been miserable. Everything has sucked and nothing could make me happy. My brain was in over-drive, narrating my every waking moment and continuing on long into the night when I should have been sleeping. The job stress has felt unmanageable, to the point where all I want to do is quit and start replying to any and every craigslist help wanted ad in an effort to just do something else. And then we went away for 4 days on what should have been our vacation. 

Instead of down time, we had nursing home visits with Uncle T and more impending grief in the form of The Other L’s breast cancer diagnosis. We had button-pushing, issue stoking, and emotional-pot stirring. All the big stuff like Uncle T’s downhill slide and The Other L’s scan results coupled with little things like how The Mr.’s cousin M reminds me so much of an ex that it brings back memories better left forgotten, and the fact that the family calls The Mr. by his middle name as he was always known growing up. When I met him, he had started going by his first name, and the first time I heard him called the other name was when I met his ex-wife. Now every time I hear that name, I see her face and all the alimony he’s paying. I spent 4 days deliberately not calling my husband by any name at all.

Something flipped for me while shopping for jeans in Boston. My favorite pair finally wore through in the thighs so I needed a new summer pair. After multiple failures with denim I grabbed a dress and decided to try it on. I walked out with 2 summer dresses and a long skirt. For the first time in 3 weeks I felt happy and relaxed. It wasn’t anything major, but the small victory just unhinged something and I was able to turn down the noise in my head for the first time in weeks. My change in mood was perfectly timed, because shortly after my positive shift, The Mr. got hit with it all. He’s lost his appetite and just can’t seem to feel okay. We went to the movies yesterday and by the time we got home he had taken a Happy Camper and one of my Xanax and couldn’t finish his dinner.  This is where he and I are alike in a bad way- neither of us cope with stress in a healthy manner. 

We are in too deep with each other to help, and we still haven’t really found our people. The Mad Scientist has been the only genuine, established friend we’ve found here, but life is happening and I find myself thinking of him in the past tense more and more.

Today I’m coping by getting my fat ass out of the bed and stuffing it into my swim suit. The scales made me cry, despite not noticing any changes in my clothes, so I’m going to spray on the sunscreen, wet and braid my hair and go to the pool. This weekend we are going to check out a local roller skating rink that has an Artistic Skating Club I’m geeking out about. Next weekend the teenager leaves for two weeks in Texas. I’m clinging to the hope that the job stress will be more manageable while updating my resume in anticipation that it won’t. Uncle T had a little bit of a fund for the kids, so The Mr. was handed an envelope on our last day in Boston with double what we’ll need to get my car worked on. That’s been the number one ‘grown up reason’ to suck it up a little longer. It has to get better, because I said so, DAMMIT!

Opening the Box

What if you were given one year to live and a blank check? What would you do? 

I have been intolerably stressed out over how much I hate my job and struggling with figuring out what to do about it. That thought struck me in the shower today. What if I was only given a year to live and a blank check? What would I do? Like so many people out there my first thought was to quit my stressful job and be with my loved ones. I would start throwing around the L-word like glitter at a fairy convention. I would enjoy all the rich foods and luscious wines of the world. I would surround myself with beautiful things and kind people. And I would try to remember my own life.

Something I’ve struggled with for as long as I can remember is my terrible memory. Funny, right? If I didn’t write it down, it may very well have never happened after a certain length of time. The exception to that rule is anything that hurt, I remember with nightmarish vividness and often at the most inopportune moments. Little things like a smell or a food will transport me back in time to a place where I was in pain and it takes me an extra second to get a grip on myself and come back to present time. I jokingly blame the excessive marijuana smoking I did in my early 20’s for my memory issues. Sadly, I know that it started long before that. And that’s why I have always written. 

Through all my moves a box of notebooks full of my writing has followed me. A few years ago I invested a few bucks at an Army surplus store and bought an old fashioned cammo-green footlocker. It’s just a wooden box with a latch that is designed for a padlock to secure it, minimalist handles and “US” stenciled on the top. Inside I have all of my journals dating back to the late 80’s when I was still in grade school. Some of the notebooks were written in pencil and have faded away. The rest are inked in ball point pen with photos taped inside and names with hearts around them on the inside cover. There is a paint can that my 8^th grade boyfriend used to give me a ring in filled with photos and school ID cards. There are folders of scattered writing from notebooks I’d start then repurpose for less personal things like school work. I would carry these notebooks with me to school, to work, to doctor’s appointments- anywhere that I might have time to wait around and observe things. They are the daily scraps of life that I’ve recorded out of habit from childhood. 

Years ago I dug into the box and tried to re-read them. I organized them by date, labeling the covers numerically so I would be able to read them in order. I remember being really sad when I attempted to go through it all. I wasn’t sad because of the things I was reading, the topics I focused on at such an early age, or even the morbidly depressed suicidal ideations held in those pages. I was sad because I didn’t remember any of it. I would be writing about a crush from math class, a friend I had gone to the park with, or a teacher I hated. I wrote about them by name without any explanation of who they were beyond the daily interactions I was writing about. There were countless names without faces and locations that I simply had no memory of at all. It was like reading a page from the diary of someone I had met once in passing who lived in the same town I did. None of it felt like a part of me. 

Knowing what I’m facing when I open the footlocker, it’s with trepidation that I announce my plans. This is big. This is scary. This is the life’s work people talk about finally undertaking after a terminal diagnosis or near death experience. This is the thing I have talked about doing for as long as I can remember, and longer than that even.

The Mr. moved the box from the bottom of the new stack of boxes he just created in the sunroom. When we get back from Boston next week I will begin the process of digitally documenting it all. I will treat it as a clinical experiment, an impersonal archeological dig, or just an exercise in improving my typing skills. Once it’s all in digital format I will start again from the beginning and write about everything I have written about. I will piece it together like a puzzle and fill in the gaps of time with whatever fragments of memory I can find. I will rediscover my own foundations and take a fresh batch of cement to the holes that even today, cause a slow leak in my soul. These are the cracks that I used to try to fill with sex, with booze, with the ‘Naughty’ and the ‘More, Now, AGAIIN!’ cycle of my 20’s. 

This will be the ultimate navel-gazing experience.

In the end, my goal is to finally figure out what I want to be when I grow up. Or maybe decide that I don’t want to grow up. Or maybe the thing that will prove that the only thing I’ve ever wanted to be when I grow up CAN earn me a paycheck and a living that will finally let me enjoy the amazing LIFE I have finally found.

Either way, this project will be an accomplishment I will be proud of even if nobody ever sees a single sentence. 

But who am I kidding? I’ll be blogging about it all starting time Meow!

Get Out (Poem)

I need to get out
Out of my brain
where the Crazy spins relentlessly like a hamster in a squeaky wheel
Consistent enough to ignore until all at once it has ground so deep into my consciousness that screaming louder is the only way to drown it out

I need to get out
Out of these four walls
where I eat too much,sleep too much
and mope around like a bra-less ghost between whisper tones, name-calling, entitled assholes tossing around their spending habits as though that were reason enough that I should feel less-than

I need to get out
Out of my skin
where I ache all over and pinch my tummy chub
lamenting the back fat that crept up on me years ago, and despite my persistent denial, still clings to my shoulder blades like unwelcome parasites

I need to get out
Out of this rut I've become calling my life
where I hate my job, love my husband
and can't seem to figure out how to push past the fear of change into a better place where once again I will wear eyeliner daily and maybe, just maybe, find a way
to earn a paycheck without being emotionally abused to the point where
all I want is to get OUT

The Sneeze

Something awful happened to me last night. I was sitting at my desk with less than 5 minutes left of work. As usual, I was wearing my yoga pants and a tank top with no undergarments of any kind. The awful thing that happened… I sneezed. 

Despite years of kegel exercises, being a woman who has given birth the old fashioned way, bad things can happen when you sneeze, or cough, or laugh unprepared. I didn’t feel it coming, so the requisite crossing of legs, bracing of muscles, etc didn’t happen. Yes, I peed my pants. This wasn’t a little, embarrassing spot in my panties; I wasn’t wearing any. This was, wet pants and a spot on my chair. I wanted to curl up and die. The only upside was the fact that I had reached a safe time so that I could ensure I wouldn’t have to take any more phone calls for the night.

Being the time of the evening that The Mr. gets my attention, he had just walked into the room. I was holding back tears and had lifted my chair cushion up to air out but still hadn’t logged out of work. He looked at me confused and asked what had happened. The ‘sneezing unprepared causes bad things’ thing is something he had never heard of.”So, every time you sneeze, you have to cross your legs or you pee?”

I knew I was being overly sensitive, as the stress of my schedule change has caused a major increase in ‘Crazies’ this week. That said, his remark that he needed to use the bathroom before I got in the shower and ‘pee IN the toilet’ caused a full-blown meltdown. I became a toddler who had just failed at potty training. 

He stayed in the bathroom while I showered, brushing his teeth and making small talk. I woke up this morning and aside from the laundry I couldn’t let sit one more day, I had tried to forget about it and move on with my day. I poured my coffee, sat down to the usual Facebook and saw that the Mr. had changed his profile picture. Rather than the kilt shot from St. Patty’s Day, he had the picture of himself standing by an official sign looking all serious-faced. I teased him about it in a comment then kept scrolling. He had also changed his cover photo to this:

I lost my shit right then and there. 

No, not literally, the coffee had not taken effect just yet!

We had been chatting about an upcoming concert and dissecting the reality verses idea of taking off work on a Monday night to see 2 of my favorite bands from my angst-ridden teenaged years. I said, “Nice cover photo.” 

He all but ignored my comment, and when I brought it up again he said he’d totally forgotten about the night before and was pretty much clueless as to why I was upset. 

We continued the conversation and eventually I was able to dam the flow of crazy, start dinner and clean house for a bit. But I couldn’t let it go. I was turning over and over in my head the possibility that this would be the thing we would have our first real fight over. I wondered if this was the first glimpse of an inner-asshole he was harboring that I had never seen so much of a glimpse of. I fantasized about putting his hand in a bowl of warm water the next time he fell asleep in his recliner as revenge. 

Another hour passed and I brought it up again. I told him, “I have to tell you, I'm still stewing over the cover photo thing. Trying to not take it personally, but... I've gotten past the crazy. Just motivated now.”

He started off with, “Huh? So confused!”

“Your cover photo after what happened to me last night. You SERIOUSLY forgot? Because I was fucking mortified over it… Can you see why it might strike me as slightly dickish?” 

“oh...I forgot what it was that I even put up there.....Had to go look at it again. Grr....foot tastes bad.”

And then my Prince Charming emerged in full force. “Pictures, plural, changed.” 

He had taken down the ‘Mr. Serious Face by a Government building’ photo and replaced it with one of the two of us on the way to The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The picture of himself in full-on Dr. Frank-N-Furter Drag, fishnets and my corset. He also changed the cover photo to the group shot from the night.

I told him, “Smiling LOTS right now... but I totally understand if you don't leave that up long.”

His reply, “Hehe...fuck it. Fuck it all.”

I am so in love with that man! And I am so wearing underwear during working hours from now on.

One Year Ago...

One year ago, I had just come home from my first weekend with The Mr. Our first date had been that Wednesday, May 31, 2012. We saw each other again that Friday, then on Saturday morning we ran off to Austin for a weekend. This is what I wrote when I got home that Sunday evening: 

I met a man. Not a boy or a guy, but a MAN. OkCupid got it right this time, but what a mean trick! He is moving to the East Coast at the end of summer ...To say we are cut of the same cloth is an understatement. 

Right now I’m trying to weed through the Fuck Struck hormones and the sensation that he is the missing other half. Someone in a place to fall hopelessly in love might describe him as my soul mate. SCARY! And it’s not that I’m not ready and willing to get into a relationship, it’s the grown-up in me that knows the reality of things. The grown-up in me that says even if he is the man of my dreams, the ooey-gooey hormones won’t wear off in time to make a rational choice to do something like; I don’t know, pack up my life and move to the East Coast. 

I can’t remember the last time I felt like this. It really is a chemical addiction akin to being high on drugs. When I’m with him I don’t get hungry or tired. His touch makes me more relaxed and content than I have been in ages. He said to me that he can’t stop kissing me when we’re together. This morning, lying in bed in the hotel in Austin he reached for me and said he got a chill that felt like a push towards me that he couldn’t resist. 

... And I won’t get started on the intimacy topic. It’s so intense on all levels. 

This man is masculinity personified in my eyes. 

It’s really hard to not think about the possibility of ‘Happily Ever After’ when the man in my bed looks so much like Prince Charming.    

      

That August I packed up my life and moved here with him. We were married in January, and embarked on another layer of the journey to ourselves in February. 

Despite all the ‘real life’ we have run into, as is inevitable in ‘grown up land’ he is absolutely my Prince Charming. The ooey-gooey stuff has never stopped, and I don’t think it ever will. All the little things he does, reminds me how spoiled I am. He preps my coffee every night, leaving a mug beside the coffee pot for me. He is known to grab the massage pillow unprompted and order me to lie down to be pampered. He takes care of most all of the regular errands between work and home, then plays dishwasher Tetris for sport. He cooks dinner while I work and brings a plate to my desk. The teenager teases us for never being more than 3 feet apart at any given time, and we both love it. He opens the car door for me, kissing me before I sit down, and then reaches for my hand while he’s driving. We regularly stay up into the wee hours of the morning just talking and holding each other, unpacking all of our emotional baggage and arranging a shared closet. I could go on and on about all the ways he takes care of me physically and emotionally… 

A year ago, I was falling and it was scary. When I decided to pack up and move with him I used one of my more common phrases: I am either being really brave, or really stupid!

 

On May 31, the anniversary of our first date, The Mr. bought me roses and a card. He brought me out of our room on a break from work and kissed me and said, “I know that each color of roses signifies something different. I picked the rainbow bunch because you mean everything to me.”