"Can I call you Mommy after you and Daddy get married?"

Tony and I are among the 38% of couples who have met online.  We were both on the tail-end of horribly failed relationships.  His wife had apparently fallen back in love with her high school sweetheart and I had recently been traded in so that my long time boyfriend (who didn't believe in marriage) could propose to a women we'd met together at a football game 4 months prior.  Needless to say neither of us signed up on Match.com with the intention of finding everlasting love.

Tony and I talked online and texted  for weeks before we actually met in person.  The first hour of our first date was incredibly awkward because we'd talked so often that we couldn't think of anything new to say.  We soon found ourselves committing the cardinal sin of first dates...talking about the ex's.  The more similarities we found in our ex's the more we found in each other.  Gradually the ex's left the table but Tony and I remained.  Because we'd both been hurt so thoroughly we were brutally honest about what/who we were looking for in a partner, always expecting the other to fall short.  Much to our disappointment no one ever did.  We quickly realized that we might actually be staring right at our soul mate.

As lovely as that may sound it isn't.  It's actually mind-numbingly  terrifying.  I actually considered not seeing him again because I had pretty good idea of how badly he could potentially hurt me.  But that's the thing about soul mates, isn't it?  They have the potential to hurt you worse than anyone else ever could, but they'd never actually do it.  Why not?  Because as much as life without them is unimaginable to you, life without you is unimaginable to them.

Now it is important to mention that Tony is in the Air Force and the father of two little girls.  It might also be important to mention that I had long ago decided that I would never be in a military relationship, and that I am pretty awful with kids...