“I was fourteen years old, just moved into a new housing estate and on both sides I met a new girl next door, but Ingrid, the blonde, did it for me. A few years later I made my first seduction attempt, but it didn’t lead to anything. Moreover, I was of the rough type, with long hair, and not at all what my neighbor had in mind for her daughter. There was some contact back and forth, but it wasn’t until a few years later that we found each other and it became serious dating.”
“When I was 18 I had to go into service and I was sent to Lebanon. We couldn’t call, so we wrote each other letters. When I waited three weeks, because that was how long it took in those days, she also read from me I was glad it was still on. After half a year I came back home and hoped to get back to my old life. But I couldn’t. The transition from weeks on end with comrades in the middle of nowhere, from constant alertness and deprivation, to the world here was too big.
There was no room to process. I wasn’t the same man I was before I left. We wanted to build a life together, but Ingrid also saw that I was more concerned with other things than with her. We didn’t find each other anymore. While I was gone, she found her father, who lived in Canada, and after a few months she moved there.”
“Stay away from her”
“Years passed, I got married and became a father, but I never forgot Ingrid. Years after my divorce, I ran into my other girl next door from before and asked her if she knew anything about Ingrid. ‘Stay away from her, because she is now religious,” she laughed. After some more research, I found her through Schoolbank in 2007 and we agreed to walk together.”
“The pilot light has apparently continued to burn all these years, because from that moment on we have not let go of each other. A year later we got married. Together we have four children, and we formed a composite family.
It immediately felt familiar to us after all these years, but I only realized later that it took some getting used to for our children with such a complete stranger in the house. Fortunately it all went well. We agreed not to play mom and dad about each other’s children and that worked.”
Dejected and aggressive
“Not only did the love come back, but also all the memories of my broadcast at the time. I became depressed and had reliving experiences. I became aggressive and was on the verge of burnout, right when we were going to move. It was very unpleasant I really didn’t get anything out of my hands, while that’s not how I am at all.
Ingrid has always been a feisty aunt, but now she became a pit bull. “You are mainly busy with other things than our lives now, you have to seek help,” she said and she helped me very well with that.
“In 2017 I was still diagnosed with PTSD. All my traumas came to the surface again and now that we were adults, we could get through it together. We could handle it, we could understand it and put it in perspective more easily. We knew that the difficulties were not due to me or her, but to something else. That helps.”
Two hands on one belly
“Now we are still together and I still adore her. For two years now we have had it all alone and we enjoy all the fun things we do. Coincidence or not, in 2005 we both actively opted for a Christian life , two years before we found each other again.
Now I sometimes think: what war has spoiled, God has restored. Faith is still an important part of our lives. We are not extreme churchgoers, but we experience things together a lot. Ingrid and I are two hands on one stomach and at the same time we give each other freedom in our developments. We are both still working and we are doing well. Both turning 120, that seems like a good goal to me.”
Wanted: Love Lessons
For the Love Lesson section on RTL News Lifestyle we are looking for beautiful, vulnerable, funny, inspiring and honest love lessons. An insight, a moment of reflection. Preferably with a hand in your own bosom. Did you eventually turn out to be the one with a fear of commitment? Should you never have emigrated for love or did a composite family turn out to be an illusion after all? Journalist Hanneke Mijnster would like to ask you all about it. Telling is allowed anonymously. Mail to: [email protected].
