Sometimes fate is completely unpredictable. All through my youth I thought that the childhood friend my parents were trying to set us up with was the one for me. Eva was always there for me in my moments of weakness and in my successes. In a way, thanks to the fact that we were inseparable, I thought she was the perfect girl and was convinced that I was in love. I myself grew up with only my parents and often felt lonely even with such a good girlfriend, so I wanted a big family. When we got older and started dating, I often said that I would like to have a lot of children, but Eva in general did not seem to be burning with the idea of expanding the family. She never considered herself a childfree, but was ambivalent about having children and raising them.
We got married when we were twenty-three. I loved family life, I just loved saying at work that I needed to go home because my wife was waiting. But even more than that, I wanted to add that I had a baby, too, so I talked Eva into taking a more thorough approach to pregnancy planning. But it wasn’t working out. I made her go to the doctors to make sure that we were both healthy, and all the doctors said that we were fine, just maybe it wasn’t time yet. I, like an idiot, believed that until I found Eve’s birth control pills in her purse. She hadn’t been lazy, spending money on pills and taking them almost every day, so that God forbid she wouldn’t make me happy with what I had dreamed of for so long.
Such a lie was not easy for me to accept. It wasn’t that she didn’t want a baby, it was that she was pretending to support me. That little lie, which Eva called “harmless,” cracked, and four months later we broke up. Our parents are still friends and because of that I also occasionally run into my ex-wife, but it doesn’t hurt me now.
I managed to meet the perfect girl online. A friend of mine got married that way, so I decided to try my luck on the Internet, too. It turned out that we lived with her in the same area and even liked to dine at the same cafe, but for some unknown reason had never run into each other or just did not pay attention to each other. After two dates we were inseparable. I had known Eva for many years before I proposed to her, and with my new love it took me six months to realize that she was my soul mate. I can count on my fingers our petty quarrels (or rather arguments) for the whole year and a half that we have been together, and that, to me, is a significant indicator. Well, we are both going to be parents very soon, just as I had dreamed.
Still, in a couple it’s important to be with the right person, not imposed by someone. Those who say that love is not that important, that understanding in general is unrealistic, and people live so many years in marriage just because they get used to each other, are wrong. You can’t be without common thoughts and goals, and you certainly can’t be without love.
