Gold-Diggers and Cradle-Robbers

In my most recent post I received an anonymous comment regarding my relationship with my husband and I want to address it. Here is the comment, for those who did not see it:

Anonymous said...
what does a 25 yr old single woman and a 42 yr old man have in common??????? It sounds to me and looks like to me that it was all about money! In a yrs time you went from living with your brother and "just making it" to being a "stepmom"! How does that work? Sounds kinda fishy to me.

July 1, 2009 8:49 PM

One thing that I have to say, first and foremost, is that I am not at all offended by this comment (though my step-daughter, Claire, who is sitting next to me says "I am!"). I understand that, if you don't know me and you don't know my husband, if you don't know us together, it certainly can look like something really crazy. The thing is, it IS crazy, but a really good kind of crazy! What 25-year-old do you know who would give up a good job that she loves, very minimal debt, plenty of free time and lots of friends so that she can be married to a 42-year-old, acquire LOTS of debt, leave the job that she loves to stay at home with her FOUR step-children and lose most of her friendships because her time is consumed with her family? Yes, I no longer live with my brother and his family, I now have a house I can call my own. Guess what? I now have a house payment that I can call my own as well, which is larger than any amount of money I have EVER personally borrowed. I now have free-time instead of having a job, I stay home with my step-children. Guess what? That free time is consumed with laundry (remember, there are six people in this house with clothing that needs to be washed), cleaning the house (remember, the one with the massive payment?), mowing the lawn, weeding the flower gardens, sweeping the driveway, picking apples and raspberries, cleaning the house .. oh, and did I mention cleaning the house?!

Yes, I can certainly see how that seems like a trade off that anybody would give their left foot to make. Wait ..... no, no it doesn't!

I will be the first person to say that the timing of when Monte and I fell in love was not at all ideal. I will also tell you that it was not at all in our control. We went for dinner one evening because he was grieving the loss of his beautiful wife, Kelley, and needed someone to talk to. At the time of Kelley's accident I was managing the physical therapy clinic that Monte went to (as he was rehabing his shoulder after having surgery), so we had already been acquaintances for awhile. Monte had known that I was a joyful person, he knew that I had something more (in my relationship with God) that made me have a genuine happiness that didn't go away. Guess what? When you lose a spouse, you want to be around ANYBODY that can make you smile, if even for a moment. So Monte and I went to dinner one evening. I can now say it, though I would have never admitted it at that time, but we fell in love at that one dinner. It scared us both to the extreme and we ran from each other for awhile, but eventually we realized that we were part of God's plan for each other.

Nobody was okay with it. Not my family, not his family, nobody. Eventually, though, they met him/his family met me. They saw us together. They saw me with his kids. They saw the love that was already forming, the love that had already started to bring us together as a family. When you see us together, there's no chance that you can deny that we are truly in love, that I truly love his children, that we were meant to be a family. It's not easy to be a step-mother to four children who are grieving the loss of their mother, but I wouldn't trade it for the world. I love these kids as if they were my own, as if I had carried them and I gave birth to them. They are so completely amazing and, while being a step-mother is not always the easiest thing in the world, these kids make life completely amazing. I love them all so very much. I love my husband more than I have ever loved anybody ... and that's what our relationship is about. Our relationship is about love, about our family, and about centering it all on a relationship with God. I could care less about money. To tell you the truth, I miss my job - I wish I were still working at the physical therapy clinic! That being said, I also know that I want nobody else here to raise my children but me. It was a choice I had to make. A choice that I do not regret. But I won't deny the fact that I miss my job.

I don't take offense to your comment entirely because you do not know me. You assume that you know enough about me to think I'm gold digging, that my husband is cradle robbing. It's just that - an assumption. By all means, if you would like to get to know us, be brave and contact us. Monte (my husband) read your comment and immediately wanted to get to know you, wanted you to have a chance to know who we are and to know that your assumption is the farthest thing from the truth!

To end, I leave you with a quote from my 11-year-old step-daughter, Claire, who has been sitting beside me as I write this entire post:

"If you were the kind of person who would marry dad for his money, I think you'd divorce him in a hurry. You know, he has four kids and ... you know ... we're not the kind of people who would accept someone who was ....... a money freak."