Love Byte # 18 - Love Is A Maroon Tux - Guest Post by Brenda Susan at Walking Butterfly

I am Walking Butterfly and I'm so happy to be invited to do one of the Love Bytes for Priya's wonderful February series! I have been enjoying all the great variety of posts about the huge subject of love! I mean how could we ever get to the end of such an amazing thing as love? Thank you sweet Priya, I love your blog and feel honored to be included in it.

So my story of LOVE?...........

Thirty-three years ago my husband, whom I will call Hubs, was doing some serious bargaining. He even had the scary nerve to give God an ultimatum!

I was twenty-two and engaged to a guy who was determined to remodel me into his idea of the perfect woman. (Clinton Kelly on What Not To Wear is the only one allowed to tell me how to dress these days!)

Hubs had returned to our hometown after graduating from college. On his first Sunday back, we crossed paths in the church we had both grown up in and I welcomed him home. We had each liked one another in high school but our likings had never happened at the same time.

What may have appeared to be a random moment of ordinary small talk between two old school friends, was actually two very different experiences.

For me, it was just a quick catch up with a sweet guy I used to have a crush on in high school.

For Hubs, it was anything but small talk. His heart was racing fast and his mind was struggling to catch up with his heart. He was asking himself if he was being delusional or if his imagination was running away with him. Because as I had walked toward him, he heard an unexpected thought cross his mind……

“You are going to marry her.”

Hubs knew I was engaged. So he did his best to chat with me about moving back to our hometown and finding a job. I told him that the shoe store I worked in had an opening and I would put in a good word for him.

Now it got really interesting! Hubs and I began to spend every day together in a tiny shoe store. Our friendship grew, but to me that is all it was, a great friendship. For him, it became more and more difficult to watch my unhealthy relationship with my fiancé day after day. He kept remembering those words he had heard and could not understand what in the world he was supposed to do about it!

In the meantime my mother was heartbroken over my destructive relationship also. She prayed for me constantly and had no idea how to help me.

Finally, there came a night when it all changed! Three separate events occurred to three separate people in three separate towns.

Hubs was in his little apartment thinking about what he had heard and he prayed a desperate prayer……

“God, I believe those words came from you, but I

can’t stand this anymore. If I don’t see a change tomorrow

I am never talking to you about her again!”

My mom was also praying about me that night. She begged God to help me get out of my unhealthy relationship and as she prayed she suddenly felt a peace about it and knew she could go to bed without worrying anymore.

I told you there were three events didn’t I? The third happening was mine. I was in a busload of young people I was chaperoning to a concert. As I rode along I opened a new letter from my fiancé. In the letter he was berating me and putting me down and for the very first time it really hit me wrong. I distinctly remember thinking…..

“I don’t deserve this treatment!”

Now, I had never thought that thought before because I believed that I did deserve his bad treatment. But my eyes were just suddenly and unexplainably opened! I broke off the engagement that night.

The next morning I went to work with one less piece of jewelry on my fingers. Can you imagine the racing heart and stuttering small talk Hubs had to endure that morning?

Hubs is not an idiot, he did not tell me any of this until long after we were engaged many months later. After my break-up he was a kind and gentle friend to me and taught me how I should be treated. I had no idea how wonderful it felt to be treasured and respected. He took his time, letting me heal and come to love him in a way that has lasted and grown for thirty-three years today. I am loved………..how else could you explain why a man would stand up in front of 400 people in a maroon tux with a pink shirt?

Brenda Susan