Confessions of Jersey Girl

This is the love story of Steph Anne & Tyler.

Hubby and I are high school sweethearts. Soon it’ll be 8 years since we started dating when we both were 16 years old.

Tyler and I first met on my first day at the deaf school. I was outside of the dorms (we lived there during the week and went home on the weekends) talking with my friends when Tyler came up to me and awkwardly asked me what my name was. He didn’t really know that much sign language at the time so he was clumsy and he didn’t even understand what I said when I fingerspelled my name. He smiled then walked off. (Many years later I found out that he didn’t know what I said and had to ask the other boys what my name was).

Tyler in green and me next to him in blue.

Tyler never gave up trying to talk to me and sat with me on the bus when we went home on the weekends. He’d even say “Hi, Mom!” to MY mom. Of course my mom thought he was cute and sweet! I shrugged it off because at the time I was dating someone else. I was at the age where I was interested in boys that were so cool and not so nice like Tyler. I enjoyed Tyler’s company as a friend and nothing more than that. After school he would always go to his dorm and finish his homework and call his Mom for their daily chat then come over to my dorm to hang out. My dorm counselor always came to my room to say, “Tyler’s here to see you!”

A few months after I broke up with the boy I was seeing, Tyler started flirting with me. He would let me borrow his sweatshirt and CD’s to listen to every night. One night I kissed him on the cheek before he went back to his dorm. Immediately that night I felt confused and guilty for leading him on so I wrote him a letter explaining I didn’t want to hurt him and thought it would be best if we were just friends. Tyler ignored everything I said and would not give up.

The day came where everyone was discussing who was taking who to Prom. Tyler asked me to go to Prom with him and I told him I would as friends only. One day after school we all were hanging outside with our friends. One of my friends said she thought Tyler was cute and jokingly said that she should ask him out. I quickly reacted by saying, “No!” and then realized I did like him but was afraid of getting into a relationship mainly because my family was moving to Arizona that Summer.

A few weeks went by. Tyler and I were chatting online and he had told me he needed to ask me something on the Bus when we go back to school. Right then I kind of knew he was going to ask me out again. I was so nervous! We sat together on the bus and he asked me if I would be his girlfriend. I said Yes! I think at the time he was more excited than I was. He’s definitely a Mama’s Boy and called his Mom to let her know we were going steady. We went to Prom together and had so much fun together!

Prom 2001

School was coming to an end. We had to figure out where our relationship was going since my family was moving to Arizona. Tyler suggested we stay together and attempt the long distance thing. Being long distance was the most difficult thing we went through for 2 years before we finally went to college together. It was a whole new relationship for us in college since we were on our own and seeing each other everyday compared to 1 week every 2 months or so.

Visiting each other during the Summer

The year before I graduated from college, we got engaged & married! The engagement story is another story for another time.

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