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Bill and I loved to watch movies together. He adored going to the theater and had a bigger appetite for movies than I did, so he took Justin to movies that he knew I would not be interested in. He loved to get buckets of popcorn. I never bought popcorn at the movies until Bill (frugality again). I got a list of the top 100 movies produced in the first 100 years, and we started watching them together in the evenings. I think we watched about 80 of them. He loved to have friends over. Raising five children and running an office, I would forget to make time for friends and relaxing, and he reminded me. We would be at church and talking to friends, and he would tell me, “Why
don’t you invite that family over for dinner?” So I did, and it was wonderful. He loved to barbecue or cook for a crowd. Nothing made him happier than to have our house filled with friends.
“We are such different personalities that only God would have put us together.”
He loved me. And I always knew that he loved me. We had been dating six weeks when he told me in the parking lot at Denny’s. We had been to a Gladys Knight concert, and afterward, we wanted to go out to eat. We got to the restaurant and we sat in the parking lot for a moment talking, and I was telling him something embarrassing. I don’t remember what it was, but I was having trouble getting the words out, and he thought that I wanted to say that I loved him, and he told me, “Don’t worry, I don’t mind going first: I love you.” That wasn’t what I had been saying. I hadn’t even thought it, but I looked back at him, steady and reassuring and dependable at a time when nothing in my life was, and I realized I did love him, and I said the words out loud back to him before I even formed the thoughts. We went in to eat, and he started talking about going to a jewelry store. I finally stopped him and asked what, exactly, we needed to go to a jewelry store for. He stared back surprised and said, “An engagement ring for you. If we love each other, don’t you want to get married? I’m sorry, I guess I never asked you. I’ll get down on one knee if you want,” and he started to get out of the booth. “No! Not at Denny’s!” And I was laughing because it was such an unromantic place. I had thought about marrying Bill. I started dating specifically to find a husband because I needed help. I needed help with my children, and I needed a supporting adult in my home and someone to make decisions with and to love me and mourn or rejoice with me. I wanted to get married, but we had only been dating for six weeks. I had not thought we were even close to making this decision. So I was a bit in shock and bemused because suddenly we were talking, very practically, in a way that made clear we had both been looking at each other as potential spouses from our first meeting.
“I need to stay in my house. I don’t want the children to have to change schools, and they need to be able to see their father regularly,” I said. “I thought about that. It will be a long commute for me; a little over an hour each way, but I can do it. If it gets to be too much, I will get a different job,” he said. “And I need to keep the name Bolton, at least professionally. I have been practicing law for nearly 15 years, and this is the name people know me by,” I said.
“I am okay with that, as long as I can introduce you to my family and close friends as Ruby Mansel,” he said.
I went home and turned the idea over and over in my head, and I realized I felt mostly relieved. I did want to marry Bill Mansel. We set a date for July 28, about 3 1/2 months after our first communication on Match.com. It was crazy to move so quickly, but it felt right. I was sure it was the right thing to do, and I have never once, for even a moment, regretted it. Bill did formally propose to me, with music, on the grounds of the Houston temple, but when I think about our getting engaged, it is always the evening at Denny’s that I remember. After that night, there was never a moment when I wondered how Bill felt. I knew that he loved me and the children, that he wanted to marry me, that he would always be there for us, and that he would do anything he could if he thought it would make our lives easier. We had good times and bad ones, but never once, from that moment, did I wonder if things were going to work out or how he or I felt about each other.
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