Author: Jessica Dumas

One of the worst streams of thoughts are that when things are going great…”something is about to go wrong” NO NO NO! Stop thinking that! When things are going great! Celebrate it! Enjoy it! Get excited. Don’t prematurely end your excitement because of old ways of thinking.
It’s Ok to get excited!!

Here is the story of the FIFTH of 5 Lovebirds that I set out to interview as part of my life coaching business, working with couples. I figured the best way to get people involved was to get them involved! And I did that by asking if I can interview them. I am passionate about romance. Read more to find out what they had to say! Happy Valentines Day!

Couple Five: Doug and Tracy

Met: at church when they were both 13

These two literally finish each other’s – sentences. Both of them have attended church since childhood. He had a BMX and a skateboard. She was a pastor’s daughter. He likes lots of attention and makes lots of noise, and she cheers him on from the sidelines. She keeps the home where he comes to recoup. They are truly united and have lots of laughs in the meantime.

The first Meeting:

Doug: Isabel Church was our home church and Peguis youth would come in for the service. It was a always a bunch of close friends and a big group.

Tracy: We were both 16 years old. We’re the same age.

Doug: I lived on Alexander, I was drummer. My house was always the gathering place for family and friends. Everyone would say “Let’s going to Doug’s”. We had a big circle of friends so we were together a lot of the time.

Tracy: One night some of the friends went out to go and watch the planes take off. We were entertaining some friends that were visiting from the states and that’s what we decided to do.

Doug: Tracy had already graduated by 16.

Tracy: And Doug was still finishing school. We knew each other pretty well from the Camp meetings.

Doug: The meetings would travel to different places, and our families would follow. We would always meet up together in our group of friends.

Tracy: I remember the Doug was so fussy, I would try to set him up with friends many times, but he always had a reason why he didn’t want to. But while we were watching the planes he put his head on my lap so you could watch the sky.

Doug: Yeah and she kissed me. I was lying on her lap and she just started getting closer and closer to me.

Tracy: I figured he must want me to kiss him, so I did. And then we were scared to see each other. We were so nervous to see each other. We were disappointed because we thought we ruined it. We were such good friends, now that we kissed we ruined it. It scared us.

Doug: Tracy lived in Peguis.

Tracy: And Doug lived in Winnipeg.

Doug: We got married at 21.

Tracy: Although after we felt disappointed that we ruined our relationship, it felt so natural to kiss.

Doug: I got locked out of my house that night. I had to climb into my bedroom window. But yeah, the kisses did feel right. And when we continued hanging out, we just kissing all the time. After her parents found out, I would phone and ask for Tracy. Her mom would answer and just say, “No, she’s not home” and hang up.

Tracy: My dad was a pastor and he told me that I shouldn’t like Doug that way. My sister is the one that told on me. My dad told me, “Doug is like a son to me. You shouldn’t have kissed him”. When I was 17 I moved to Winnipeg and we would just hang out and date. I lived with my sister and he was still in high school.

Doug: I went to my dad and I told him that I wanted to get married, he told me, “Wait another year.” So I waited two years, and I decided to call my dad again. I said, “Dad, I am getting married January 19.” He said, “Why don’t you wait another year and see if you still want to?” I told him, “Dad, I waited two years. I waited a year longer that what you told me to wait. That’s already two years. I’m getting married.”

Tracy: He would ask me every day if I would marry him. I kept saying no and then I finally said, “Yes, okay pick a date.”

Doug: I didn’t want to waste any time. She said she needed three months to plan the wedding so I said, “Okay January 21.” It was the coldest day of the year, 1991.

Tracy: So we got married and we got a place together. I had all of the furniture.

Doug: I brought all the plates! I used to work delivering pizza, and I would always go to Domo to fill up for gas. And every day I would get one or two pieces of the dinner sets they used to give you. So when we moved in, all I had was plates. Tracy didn’t even like them. We never even use them.

What you admire about the other:

Doug: We are such opposites. We believe that opposites attract because we are totally opposite. She’s very clean and organized and I don’t want to make the bed. But together we balance. She’s so different than I am and if you look for someone who is the same as you, you might not get what you want. We never get tired of each other.

Tracy: That was how I knew he was for me; I didn’t get sick of him. I couldn’t get enough of him and then one day I just thought, “I think I love him.”

Doug: We started out as really good friends before any intimacy. If you base relationships on what is physical, it’ll only take you so far. If you can put up with them for a friend, that’s the good foundation.

Tracy: We have the same consensus; beliefs and values and morals and principles are the same. We established a relationship and we are good friends.

Doug: We were friends since we were 13 to 21. We knew each other and established our relationship.
I had to think about who will be a good friend. It has to be someone who is a really good friend. We traveled a lot and there were a lot of girls who would call me on the phone and write letters. We didn’t have Facebook back then. When we got engaged there were women calling me and telling me how much they loved me…so I had options, lots of friends that were girls. I would get trails of letters and we would record cassette tapes and send messages back-and-forth.

Tracy: We never let family interfere with our relationship. We never allowed any one to influence our control or let their input impact our decisions in our marriage. We had to cut some ties with family. I was brought up to believe my husband is the head of my home. And so I’ve always been strong to not allowing outside influences to interfere in our relationship.

On spending time together:

Doug: We live our own separate lives. We have individuality, but at the same time we do everything together. We eat together, we shop together – all of our main events are together.

Tracy: I don’t hang out with a bunch of people. Doug is my best friend.

Doug: I like to be around a bunch of my friends and be around a bunch of people, but it’s always good to come home. Tracy experienced some stress at work years ago and she likes to be away from crowds. She doesn’t like functions and crowds as much as I do.

Tracy: I like to be in the background. I know my husband is the head of the home. He is strong and I feel safe and secure. It’s been good for the way that we raise our son, with good morals. I live vicariously through Doug. I like to take care of our home and take pride in caring for our home.

Doug: We recently went on a cruise. It was such a special time for us. We spent 14 days on the European cruise and it was lots of fun and lots of free time to be with each other. We got to do our own thing – it was really a highlight for us.

Advice to others on healthy relationships:

Doug: I tell my son Isaiah, that you have to work at it. It takes work for a good relationship and there’s good things and there’s bad things before you mold into one. You have to make some compromise. There some things that I don’t like to do that I will do for her and she does the same for me. Sometimes you have to learn when to shut your mouth, and just nod and agree. Like me, I make the bed now. Lots of laughter. In the end you become one. We balance and I need her for that. When she is not there, I do things I shouldn’t – like spending money on rockets and lanterns.

Tracy: We still like to do our own thing. It’s fun. It’s the security of being together.

Doug: Especially after being on the road. We come together to recuperate and reconnect, and having that safe connection at home. We like being home together.

Tracy: We always eat our meals together and spend time together. We like to eat out a lot. That’s a treat to ourselves now that our son is older.

Doug: We value our time together and eating is a sociable time. And I’m very sociable.

Three words to describe each other:

Doug: My other half

Tracy: My better half.

Doug: That’s acceptable.

Secrets to a happy marriage:

Doug: We have to have a sense of humor, we understand each other.

Tracy: We never argue or fight

Doug: That’s what courting is for. We worked out our emotions; our arguments. And we just grew together, and over time we just and understand each other better and we have become one.

Tracy: We also agreed a long time ago that we wouldn’t have any alcohol in our family. We stay away from alcohol and we don’t let anything interfere with our life and our relationship.

Doug: You have to become friends and learn to compromise. You need to love and respect each other and learn to forgive and forget.

Tracy: You have to go back to what you have been taught, back to your teachings.

Here is the story of the fourth of 5 Lovebirds that I set out to interview as part of my life coaching business, working with couples. I figured the best way to get people involved was to get them involved! And I did that by asking if I can interview them. I am passionate about romance. Read more to find out what they had to say! Happy Valentines Day!

Couple Four: Melissa & Cecil

Met: In 2003 at Sundance, were friends for years prior to a relationship.

They became best friends while getting to know each other through Sundance and Ceremonies. They never considered a potential ‘couples’ relationship as they were both attached and they attended the same ceremonies. It was a scary time, but love conquers everything – even outside interference. They work hard at their relationship. They are great friends and great strength to each other.

The first Meeting:

Melissa: We both found ourselves available for a relationship around the same time. We would use BBM on our BlackBerries and most of it was support to each other. And then we would go out to do small things like going to Walmart, and it just became so much fun. Doing regular everyday things became a lot of fun.

First assumptions:

Cecil: I always thought that she was very quiet. As I got to know her socially, I learned how much she loved humor. And I really love to hear her laugh. She has an infectious laugh.

Melissa: I was intimidated by him. He was so confident and articulate, and he has such a strong presence. It’s still true for him today. He is very intelligent and down to earth. And a great sense of humor.

What is admired of the other:

Melissa: I admire that he puts his heart in everything that he does. He is always thinking about future plans and being inspired by what he wants to do in the community.

Cecil: Her compassion; how much she cares for people. She likes to make life better for all of the people that she works with, other midwife students. She thinks about how she can implement changes not just for her but for the rest of the midwives who will be going after her. And she doesn’t look at others like they are competition; she just asks ‘why wouldn’t we work together?’ And she’s always thinking about their families. When we were still only friends I remember coaching her at ceremonies about getting into midwifery. She was so passionate about it. I knew she had to do it.

Important foundations of a healthy relationship:

Cecil: Faith, spirituality, strength, commonality. Sweats and ceremony are a healthy release.

Melissa: Trust, communication – a safe place to express ourselves. We look out for each other. We know when the other one needs ceremony or strength.

Cecil: Melissa is very intuitive.

Melissa: And we have a little dog too.

Cecil: Yeah, we have a little dog too. We are very open with our ceremony family and that is a real benefit to our
relationship. Learning the way each other deals with stress; its constant work and balance.

On the importance of dating:

Melissa: We enjoy dating and making time together – to go to a movie or something.

Cecil: The times that we travel together are the best. I used to travel alone on my motorcycle and now we drive together and we can discuss what happened on the way back. It’s very healing, just the sharing what we learned on the way home. Taking a regular experience for me, has made it so much more to do it together.

Melissa: Going away together is always so much fun, I love times when we get to go away, like to Minneapolis.

Advice you would give to others:

Melissa: I would say trust the process of the relationship; have faith that everything happens for reason. I would ask myself “is this too good to be true?”

What is fun:

Cecil: A healthy sexual relationship. Not enough people will talk about that, but the way that we connect emotionally and mentally is great. Our community can’t really talk about having healthy sexual relationships. We were brought up in a time where it was a dirty thing because of our history and residential school etc., but adult time is very important. It’s important to take time to be with each other and be together. Favorite memories are also just lying in bed laughing.

Melissa: We like to challenge each other and make each other laugh, I think that we really inspire each other with our passion and excitement in what each of us wants to do. We are always promoting positive things.

Cecil: We connect on all of those levels, our interests and our lifestyle. It’s amazing to be in love with my best friend.

Three words to describe the other:

Melissa: Strong, sensitive, loving.

Cecil: Strong, passionate, loving

Advice to self on the first date and to others:

Melissa: Be gentle with each other.

Cecil: Support each other’s dreams

Future plan:

Melissa: New adventures, changing careers. He will be retiring in a couple of years and I will be a midwifery graduate. It’s exciting to think about all of the possibilities. We like to be spontaneous and enjoy each other every day of the year.

On Valentines:

Cecil: We will probably do something to acknowledge it, but I like to do small things all the time, not just for one day.

Melissa: I like the fact that everyone is thinking about love on the same day every year.