Since my husband and I have been together for over 19 years, a rarity in this day, people often like to ask me about our “couplehood.”

It’s hard to miss if you are around us for any length of time at all.  He still opens and holds doors for me and whenever we walk, it is always hand- in-hand.  Oh — and we treat each other nicely and with respect.  Those are all dead give-aways.

One question I get sometimes is when I first knew it was “real love.”  I had always been cautious and protective about giving my heart away. After all, I had finished a year of psychotherapy training where most of my patients were women and nearly all of them were divorced women. I decided I was too sensitive for this divorce stuff.  It sounded like something that would turn me inside out, render me basically non-functional, and leave me screaming for mercy.  The only answer, to maintain a functional life, was to avoid it.

To choose a husband so perfect that the relationship would be “divorce proof” for sure by the time that I was actually involved in it. I used my reasoning skills and wrote the plan that worked.  We were together for a good year before I decided that this was the one, and it is the rightest thing I have ever done. But with all the reasoning skills, I would be the last one to deny that there has to be an element of “chemistry.”  There was and still is.

I do believe, however, that women are constantly duped by men who say or do things for the wrong reason.  I can teach, to a certain extent, the things I did to eliminate such from consideration.  But when I am asked when I first realized this man loved (and desired) me, I always say one of the things I often say that nobody believes. It is when his pupils dilated.

As the Rodgers & Hart song says, “If they ask me I could write a book,” and I suppose I am. Sorry, I couldn’t miss this one.  I love Rosemary Clooney and Rogers and Hart. Read more on There Is An Actual “Love Light” In His Eyes…