The Story of How Chris and I Met

So you went on a first date. Were you just, like, his friends? He said it was friends. I was like, great, let's hang out. Yeah. We're just friends for now. Like, I didn't have any friends there, so I was like, great. This guy's great. He rubs my feet, we drink wine. So fun.

Okay, hold on.

And we're back with another episode of he said, she said.

All right, babe, what's your glossy tip?

My glossy tip is to gift this to your friends. Yes.

Or your mom or your aunt.

Yes. I mean, or your husband.

Yeah, I love glossy. I take it three times a day.

Loves glossy. We literally have, like, a husband's club who loves for the debloating and the gut health. And, you guys, seriously, it is the best gift. It's not only super esthetically pleasing, but it's saying that you care about somebody when you care about their gut health. And it's freaking delicious. So it's the perfect gift. Instead of guessing what people want, give them something that you know they're gonna love.

Yeah. And it's a beautiful gift, like you said, so you can feel good giving it. Cause it's got the beautiful starter kit. It's got the. What do you call that thing? The water bottle. Yeah, the water bottle. What do you call that thing? It's all so pretty, so it actually makes a really good impression. And you can get 25% off this gift by going to getgloce.com and using coupon code happy. Again, go to getglocee. That's G L o c I getgloci.com and use coupon code happ happy at checking out. All right, now, this he said, she said episode is a fun one because we're pulling a clip from an interview where Lori and I were interviewed on the Date your wife podcast by Garrett and Danielle White. And not only are they awesome, but their show is huge. And it was such an awesome honor to be on. And it's such a fun clip about how we met. And people always ask us, like, how do we find our perfect soulmate? Well, you don't. You find someone you're compatible with. You grow together. And I think this clip does a great job of explaining that.

Yeah, I love this one, you guys. I hope that you enjoy it as much as we enjoyed doing this podcast. And let's get started.

Who saw who first?

Oh, I got this. Okay. So Green Bay, Wisconsin, smaller town. How do I say this politely? Let's just say there's not a ton of people that like, stand out and turn heads, right?

Yeah.

And there was this new girl, first day at the gym, that walked in, that turned everybody's head, and of course, it was Laura. And so, you know, being a young, single guy, I'm like, I have to have that woman right there.

Jim Crush.

So, you know, did I go up right away? No, I wasn't that confident. I kind of watched her from across the gym, and what I didn't realize was there is a series of people hitting on her that I can let her share from her perspective. That kind of put her on the defense during her workout. So at the end of her workout, we're both walking out to the parking lot at the same time.

How long into seeing her is this? How many months?

Oh, this is first day.

Yeah.

No, he's very.

He aggressively goes after what he wants.

Yes.

Okay.

So we're walking out to the cars, and I look over at her. We're walking the same direction, and I say, hey, you new here? And she looks at me and she goes, yep. And gets in the car and closes the door, and. Yes, you did. And I thought to myself, in that moment, I'm like, oh, this chick sucks. And I thought that was going to kind of be the end of it.

Right.

But then I kept seeing her around the gym. And here's how I know that you did do it that way, because about a month later, I was seeing each other at the gym. I was at the water fountain, and you came up to me, and you're like, hey, I didn't get your name that day. And you had started the.

I just knew I was short. I knew I was short with him, but I didn't think I was bitchy. But I didn't use that word.

I didn't use that word.

No. Here's what. Okay. So I'm already, like, in a bad situation because I'm coming out of a relationship. I just moved back home with my parents, and that meant, like, I was in a. Had moved out when I was 18 because I was, you know, leaving my family home and my religion growing up, and that was, like, a really big deal. So we. When I was 18, I moved in with a bunch of friends. It didn't go well. Like, they were doing drugs and doing all the things. Like, we had that crazy couple years, and I was kind of coming to. At that point, at about 20, I was like, I don't want to live this way anymore. Like, I just want to get back to working out and saving money. And it was just a really Bad situation. And so I had called my dad and said, can I move home? He was like, yes. But knew I was going to have to like kind of abide by those rules for a little bit again while I dug myself out of this hole. And so I had just gotten to this small town which I didn't want to be at. Cause my parents had moved from my childhood home to Green Bay. So it was like everything was new, everything brand new. So I moved back in. I'm in my 4 year old brother's bedroom with like glow in the dark, stars and dinosaurs on the headboard. And I'm like, I'll just. You know, the one thing that makes me feel normal is joining the gym. So this was my first day at the gym and I got hit on by the front desk guy who proceeded to grab the Shopko flyer, which is like a, like a Walmart or Kmart. And he's like, hey, you have copies? This was the first thing he says to me when I joined. I go, what are copies? He goes, you can see everything bad I've been doing. I go, okay. And so he grabs the shopco flyer and he tells me he's a model. He's like, I'm an underwear model. And proceeds to show me. He certainly is a shopco underwear model.

Like the six pack of tighty whities.

Yeah, like start working out. And this guy comes up and he goes, hey, my name's Jake and shows me his arm tattoo that says Jake very large on it. In case he forgets, I'm guessing. I don't know. So Jake proceeds to ask me while I'm in the middle of curls, like I'm literally curling weights and you know, the old school headphones. Like I had to like take them off, put the weights down, stop the disc. And he was like, do you smoke? I go, no. He goes, no, no. Do you smoke weed? I go, no. He goes, well, do you want to go smoke weed with me and my girlfriend after this? I go, no. So insert poor Chris.

Yeah, see, I didn't know this stuff went down.

You came, you came as triple threat.

After now my shot, thinking maybe I was the first one.

I literally was like, close my car door. And I was like, I am in the like Twilight zone right now. So yes, I knew. Afterward I was like, oh, because I'm not that per. Like I'm usually very friendly, but by number three, I was like, I. This was going to be my saving grace away from my family home. And now it doesn't feel safe. So I literally. The poor guy got the brunt of it. So.

So did Jake ever come back and ask to smoke weed again?

No, he didn't, but he's, like, very well known for. Chris knew who Jake was. And he's like, that's right, everybody. Yeah, Jake.

And Jake's hitting on everybody. We got front of. We got front desk, underwear model. Trying to find a.

On everyone, by the way, used. In fact, my sister worked across town at a US Cellular, and he used the same lines on her. Not knowing we were sisters, I was like, this is so great. Small town. Small town. Chris, were you from that small town?

Yes, I was born and raised mostly in that town. Kind of up and down the eastern part of Wisconsin, but mostly there.

Okay. How far apart in age are you guys? Four years. Four years.

Okay.

Who's older?

Come on.

Come on.

I don't know. I'm just asking. I didn't say who. Danielle tells me. Okay, so. So you guys meet, and then you meet and you come up to the water f. And now you're feeling like you're back in the game. She asked for the name, and then what happens?

All right, so this is pretty good. I wanted to.

I can't stop thinking about you.

Up. Make sure I stay in front of her. But I. Right, so she's on cardio. Maybe I'd go do a little bit cardio, Which I was not a cardio person at the time.

I never did cardio before this, ever.

You know, if she was over here, maybe I'd be over here. Just like kind of in proximity. That's just kind of hung around enough to be nice, but didn't take any shots after that. And when I could finally tell that we had great chemistry and had chatted up, you know, over what, maybe about four weeks worth of seeing each other.

Or something, he did the Stepper for me, you guys, like, he would stand into the Stepper just to talk to me. And I. I kind of knew it.

Actually. I think it's on the stepper where this happened. So I said to her, I said, hey, I've got tickets for the Packer game coming up this Sunday if you want to go. Now I got to give you guys some context. Now, you could go on StubHub. Back then, there was no Stubhub, no tickets. None of that existed. And Green bay had a 66 year waiting list for tickets. And so it's a big deal. You had to know someone to get tickets. And I did not have tickets. I just needed an excuse to ask her Out. So I said to her, I go, hey, I've got tickets to the game this Sunday. If you're not doing anything, you know, if you'd want to go, it might be fun. And she said yes. And I don't know if I didn't expect her to say yes or what, but she said yes. And so then it was like bittersweet because I was panicking inside saying, how am I going to get tickets? And outside I was ecstatic.

Did you not think she's going to say yes?

I don't know. I don't know what my plan was. I don't know what my plan was. So I scramble. I ask all my friends that would have tickets and luckily found a pair. Now here's where it gets interesting. The day of the game, she texts me and says, hey, really sorry. I might not make it for the game because somebody broke into my car in Milwaukee, two hours away where she was staying over, and broke her window.

I still had my apartment even though I moved back in with my parents because my roommates were still there. I was just getting out so I would go back there on the weekends just to get away from my family.

I thought, oh, I knew it, she's standing me up. I should have known this was going to happen. And just kind of stayed home and flipped on the game, pissed off. Sure enough, right before halftime, this silver Ford Taurus with a broken ass driver's window and black garbage garbage bag over it because it's a two hour drive down the highway. Pulls up in front of the house and she's like, do we have time to make it to the game?

Oh.

And so we went to the second half of the game and hit it off and has been awesome ever since.

So did you guys make out the first night?

No. We were friends for like six, six months, four months.

So I tried everything. I would try foot rubs, I would try. We would work.

You didn't get to make out after a foot.

No, listen it down.

First date where you just like his friends. He said it was friends. I was like, great, let's hang out.

There was this very fine line between being able to hang out with somebody and not being friend zoned, right? And. And she, at the time, she just wanted friendship and I wanted the polar opposite of.

I told him. I was clear. I was like, I'm coming out of a broken heart. Like, I'm still in love with this. I was super clear.

She was very clear on it.

Yeah, there's no straight guy on the planet that wants to Be any girls friend.

No. I knew that.

Feel safe?

Yeah. We're just friends for now. Like, I didn't have any friends there, so I was like, great. This guy's great. He rubs my feet, we drink wine. So fun.

Okay. It's interesting because you are committed. We got foot rubs happening. We got wine being drunk. And you're still playing hard to get, but you still think this is friend zone.

I was very open. I kept saying she was very upfront.

About where she thought it was, and I was very upfront, that persistent as hell, and I always end up getting my way.

Were you telling her that you wanted her at this time?

Yeah, absolutely.

So why are you rubbing her feet and she's sipping on wine and she's like, we're just friends. And you're like, make.

And she would kind of.

We start. I can't remember when we started making out, but like, maybe month four. I don't know.

We were like friends that made out. It was the first step, probably.

Yeah, I think so.

So then we were just friends that make out. And that's it.

We're just like, she's going to kill me that bring this up. It's so good. Until I finally get her to come home the first time. And even that's a story.

So back to your house.

Yeah.

So you took her back to your mom's house.

No, no.

Your house. Okay. You're not living with your mom. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Let's be very clear. Did not live with my parents.

Was Jake there?

His mom was there.

Jake was there, and Al was there. Al was modeling in his underwear. Jake was high as balls on the front yard. We're so happy for you guys.

Yes.

Okay.

All right.

So you get her back.

So I finally get her back. It's bar time. And, you know, Wisconsin, we're known for drinking. And we would go. And now, I'm not proud to say this, but we would go out in any given night and have 10 to 15 shots plus drinks.

Yeah.

In a night. Which is insane. It's a lot of drinks and it's a ton. And so I loaded her up with shots, and finally she's like, yeah, I'll come back with you. I know. It sounds so predatory.

It's not working. You're getting no foot runs. 12 shots. We're going to the bar.

So she's.

She's, you know, she's full of shots. I'm full of shots. We come home and I'm like, yes, it's finally going to happen. And we crawl into bed, and she passes out and pisses the bed right away. Now, here's what's cool. I liked this chick so much that I was afraid she'd wake up, be embarrassed, never come back again. So I went and cleaned it all up. Remember? Now, I didn't clean up. This is. Shows you how drunk I was. I went and I got a glass of water, and why I filled it up, I don't know, but I filled up the glass of water, and then I came and I poured it over the same area where the floor didn't have to pour it.

It was already wet, right.

Like, I don't know what my thing was. And I put the glass there and I rolled over, like, trying not to lay in it, and fell asleep. So that in the morning when she woke up, oh, don't you remember? You want some water? And you must have spilled it. And I thought that was the only way that I could get her to save face.

And listen, there's nothing.

Did you come clean with this story? Oh, I. I had a track record for bedwetting. I know she was drunk, so I knew. It was so sweet. I was. Was like, oh, she let me bleed.

Yeah.

Y.

Has game. She is game.

We went to. We went to a buffet.

An Indian casino buffet.

An Indian casino buffet. And I'm not even kidding. This is. This is literally the moment for me. I think it was just like that on top of, you know, what he had done on top of just like when you. It's like a Sunday when you were hungover, and you're like, man, on Sundays, you really just want to be with that person that you, like, love. And we had spent so much time together that literally sitting across at an Indian casino buffet. I fell in love with them. Like, it was a moment of just like, I don't ever want to live without this person.

This was seven months, though, from the first time you met.

6. Seven months of hanging in the game.

Good.

Yeah.

Well done. Endurance iron man.

So how long did you date before you guys got married?

So this was interesting. We dated for almost two years, I guess, if you include that time. Almost two years. And we always said, oh, we don't need to get married. Why put a label on it? And I'm sure there's something for us to unpack if we went back and took a deep look at that. But we were aligned that we didn't want to get married. And then one random day running errands on a Saturday together, I looked at Her. And I'm like, but why aren't we getting married? Like, why not? And she's like, I don't know, why not? And so it was the most informal, like, okay, cool. How about we start looking at rings and I'll get an idea of what you like. And it was like we made a decision in a very non decision making kind of way.

I remember it as like we had said those things, but also we had said, if this is what it takes for the world to know how we feel about each other, like this external symbol, then let's do it. Because I think that we had just at that point known that we were like the, the ultimate, ultimate best friends and partners. Like, it was just. Yeah.

So you're what, you.

Would you go to a courthouse or something?

Oh, no, we had a real wedding.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I tried to surprise her with an engagement, even though we knew that we were getting engaged. Now this is funny. I'm not handy. And when I say not handy, it's an understatement. And so instead of flipping, like you can use. So when she came home from, from work, flipping the, the fuse so there'd be no lights, I went, I took all the light bulbs out of the kitchen, like one by one by one. Like that's that level.

Because he had lit candles and wanted just the candle light. So I'm like, I walk in and I look to the left and there's like 12 light bulbs sitting in a pile. And I'm like, babe, why are, why don't the light work? Lights work.

You're like, damn, I should have thought.

I'm the handy one. I was like, you could have just. Okay, never mind. It's okay.

So did you course correct in that night and say you could have done that? Okay, no. So then you asked her to marry you. This is it. And then you do have a. You do have a big wedding.

Full blown wedding. I always tell, you know, we had a big wedding and I'm grateful for it, but I always tell, like young people now don't have the great big expensive wedding because you get pulled apart. To try and see everybody, please everybody. And you're in entertainment mode. Just take your closest people or go elope with them. Just go on a little island somewhere and hang out together.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How long have you guys been married? Because it's about 19 years.

This August. So 21 years together.

Yeah. I saw your 21. That's amazing.

Yeah.

I feel like once you get past like 10, you're like. And then once you get close to 20, you're like, it's me and you. Sorry. Yeah, this is it. We're doing it way too deep at this point. Like, I'm too tired and. Yeah, like, we're too deep, Sam.