How long did you date your SO before deciding to become exclusive? Who initiated the exclusivity? About 20 minutes. After we had spent the rest of that first evening together, she went home and designed a wedding dress and I called everyone I knew and told them I had accidentally met the woman I was going to marry. The next date was amidst a group of folks at a ball game in Atlanta two days later. She then went out of town for two days and when we got together on the day she returned, neither of us even bothered to ask the other...We both assumed we were going to marry. To make it official, I proposed over an English Muffin at about 2 in the morning. Karen was 27, I was 36, neither had ever been married.

How long did you go without communicating between dates before becoming exclusive? Answered that above but basically we knew from the gitgo. I have no idea what it was or why, but sometimes you just attribute things to fate.

What is the age gap between you and your SO? Nine years

What traits did you not like about your SO but felt were worth overlooking? At that point I was overlooking everything and so was she. Almost 20 years later, we still are. Marriage is a threesome....there's you, your spouse, and the marriage. If you're happy with yourself and your spouse is happy with themselves too, then what you both do is for the marriage. I try to do things wich make her happy and she does the same for me. We are very different people and I suppose we fill some holes for each other, but that's not the why of it. Basically, if I were to get critical and she were too, the thing would never work. We are more in love today than 5 years ago, 10 years ago, etc....I imagine we'll be more in love than we are now in 5 years. Basically, this question has no meaning to me at all except to say that somehow Karen tolerates me....no mean feat!!!!

Do you think you'd be happier single? Are you nuts? Karen was and is the greatest thing that ever happened in my life and allowed me to enjoy the next two most important things, our sons.

Spaw