18 Stories From People Who Thought, "I'm Never Gonna Marry This Person" — And Were Completely Wrong
Love isn't always at first sight; sometimes, it happens with someone totally unexpected. So, I recently asked the BuzzFeed Community: if they've ever thought "I'm never gonna marry this person," but then actually ended up marrying that person, what on earth turned it around?! Here are some of their best stories:
1."I literally told my now-spouse on our first date that if he was dating to get married he had the wrong girl. Joke’s on me I guess, because we got married seven years later."
2."I met the girl of my dreams on New Year’s Eve this year. Two weeks later, we were in a serious car accident and my new girlfriend had over 10 broken bones."
"During our hospital stay and the healing process, we became extremely close. We call it '20 years in 20 days.' On May 18th, five and a half months after we met, we got married, and we both have never been happier."
—Anonymous
3."After leaving my daughter's father after 10 years I went a bit wild for a couple of years. One night while partying at a friend's house her neighbour came by and said he'd take me home as I couldn't get a taxi."
"In all honesty, I couldn't remember him the next day as I was so drunk, but I had an Instagram message from him saying he would like to take me up on my 'offer.' I had no idea what he was on about.
Anyway, we spoke [first] on Insta, then by text for three days straight, and then he came over and pretty much never left. He is the total opposite of me and looks nothing like anyone I've ever fancied before, but he makes me laugh every single day.
He's honestly my best friend and I fall in love with him a bit more every day. We've been together seven years, have a 5-year-old, and celebrated our three-year wedding anniversary two days ago. Pretty much everyone who knows us says we shouldn't work as we're so different but we do. Apparently, opposites do attract and I wouldn't change him for the world."
4."He was my high school best friend's boyfriend. I found him obnoxious and couldn't stand him."
"My friend and I had a falling out and she broke up with him. We hung out as friends. 23 years later we have been married for 17 years with two beautiful kids. I love him more every day!"
5."I began dating my now-wife after dropping off my then 7-year-old son at his mom's house. His teenage half-sister had her 19-year-old best friend over and we started talking. We started dating and got married six months later."
"We're still going strong: our 14-year wedding anniversary is next month, [we have] two daughters of our own, and also got full custody of my son shortly after we married. My wife is also no longer friends with [my son's] half-sister for a few different reasons."
"So curious to know your age at the time you met her."
"I was 29. Don't start. We're best friends."
6."I went through middle school and high school with an unfortunate pattern of having guy friends [who developed] one-sided puppy love. At the end of sophomore year, I was introduced to my mom’s new secretary and her secretary’s son."
"He was the most hyperactive, scatter-brained guy I’d ever met. We were passive acquaintances, and became closer friends after having a class together. Senior year, we spent most of Homecoming together flirting and chasing each other around. And now…. I'm planning to marry the guy I honestly only hung out with because my mom was his mom’s boss. 😂"
7."We met as kids and grew up in the same community choir program. [We were] always friends, but nothing more."
"20 years later, I moved back home and started going to the same church. We had drinks one night [and] he spent the whole night telling me he was never getting married. Eight months later, he asked me to marry him 😁.
"Seven years on, I like to tell people it took him 20 years to ask me out."
—Anonymous
8."I [have been] an established emergency room physician for the past 15 years. [Previously,] I was employed by a private company that was contracted by the hospital, so when I started dating the ER secretary, technically it wasn’t dating a coworker…"
"No one expected it to last, with him being a secretary/blacksmith, and me as a white-collar professional. Today is our nine-year anniversary. I love him more with each passing year. He is my star stuff, even if no one else (including my family) really gets us."
9."I was very happily single, and it honestly didn't occur to me I might not remain so. I would date when I felt like it, but I had freedom [and] my own home and lived exactly how I wanted to. It was lovely. And then one day, after dating primarily men for years, I fell for a hot girl's thirst trap on TikTok."
20th Century Studios / Via giphy.com
"I don't even like TikTok, but I had it just long enough to fall for this girl. She had the most beautiful eyes I had ever seen. She DM'd me back, and we started talking. Two months to the day later, she had moved across the country and we were getting married in the redwoods. We would have waited, but... we decided to go ahead and jump on in while we still had the legal right. It's now two years later.
There have been some surprises in getting to know each other fully. We have been through some major crap that life has thrown at us — surprise! I have a chronic and potentially life-threatening illness! — [and we've] found out we don't have quite so much in common as we originally thought.
That said, we make each other laugh every day, and most days to the point of tears or hiccups. We respect each other and make each other feel safe, heard, and supported in ways we never had found in our lives. She is a maximalist, I am a minimalist, and we drive each other low-key crazy on occasion, but you know what? She still has the most beautiful eyes I have ever seen. This marriage is the biggest and best surprise of my life."
—Anonymous
10."I had a terrible phase of dating after my ex dumped me, but then I met my now-fiancé quite randomly. [He was] introduced to me by a friend and honestly, even though I wasn't really looking to date again, I gave it a shot."
"Now two years later, we are engaged to be married. I never thought I would find love again but this man shows me every single day that I deserve to be loved and cared for and all the other men were jerks for not knowing what a wonderful person I am."
11."I met my husband when we were in high school, but that’s not when we started dating. I was two grades younger, a theater dork, and head over heels crushing on him."
Big Machine Records, LLC
"He was a cool jock and one of the most popular guys in school. [He] was friendly to me, but ultimately thought I was cringe. He graduated, and we lost contact. Two years later I ran into him at a library where he was working, we got to talking, and he asked me out. I NEVER could have dreamed that I would end up eventually marrying the guy who I was starstruck by, especially since he friend-zoned me hard in school. I’m glad he changed his mind because we have an amazing life together and two incredible little boys to add to the love."
—Anonymous
12."Sometimes in life you find yourself learning life lessons more than once, just to make sure that lesson was really instilled and ingrained in your memory. I have been married twice, and I never intended to marry either of them."
"Unfortunately in both circumstances, I decided to agree to their marriage proposals because I didn't want to hurt their feelings. I was an extremely passive, 'don't want to rock the boat' type of woman who didn't realize that I was allowed to make life choices that were in my best interest.
Needless to say, both marriages were full of abuse, control, and unhappiness. It wasn't until I went into therapy that I was informed that I'm allowed to make life choices for myself even if it makes others unhappy. Worrying about everyone else's happiness ensured I would never be happy myself because no one was looking out for my well-being.
As simple and obvious as this may seem, I had no idea I was responsible. It never even occurred to me that I was allowed to do things for myself regardless of how it made others feel. So ladies, my best advice? If some asshole asks you to marry him and you don't want to, JUST SAY NO! 😅"
—Anonymous
13."So I grew up in the Northeast, went to college in the South, and fell in love with it. I never wanted to leave. Four years later I went to graduate school in North Carolina."
"I really never thought I would leave. I got my Master's, applied to 20+ jobs, and got one in Virginia and one in Massachusetts. The one in Massachusetts paid better, and I could live with family until I got established. That was in 2017.
Meanwhile, my now-husband was living in California. He wanted to live there forever, but his car got totaled and he lived in an apartment illegally; [he] moved home to Rhode Island six months after me.
"I ended up going to visit a church in Providence as they had a young adults group and I had no friends. And ta-da! If he hadn’t moved back and I hadn’t moved back, we would’ve never met!"
—Anonymous
14."I married my best friend, but it's not who you'd think."
"For background: I'm gay. I'm very happy being gay, obviously apart from the usual small-town stuff I grew up with. I'm just not really attracted to the sort of chaps who wear it as their primary identity. I dated a fair bit but never held down a long-term relationship.
I met a great guy fifteen years ago who finally got my jokes and shared my goals. He's straight. After him going through a hard time, he moved in on the sofa. Eventually, we pretty much only hung out with each other and both stopped dating.
Six years ago, we married for visa reasons. Practicality turned to love and without defining it, these days we only have the one bed. Moved abroad a few years ago together to start fresh in a place where nobody really knows we're not a 'traditionally same-sex couple.' Couldn't be happier. One dog, two cats, and an unbreakable bond. It happens."
15."I married young (not-legal-to-drink young) the first time, to a military cop. The ironic part was that I had five rules or deal-breakers [in regards] to partners I did not want to end up with, and being a cop or in the military were two of them!"
"The other rules were no one with hair longer than mine (mine was near my waist at the time), no musicians, and finally, no athletes.
I broke every rule, further cementing the reason I made them in the first place. I was honestly glad that the marriage blew up in less than a year, although I'm embarrassed to admit it.
My second marriage, still going strong, is vastly different. I knew myself so much better when I met my current partner, and was no longer cow-towing to my family's expectations as to what kind of person I chose. I went for the skateboarding, atheist, tattooed, pierced, tech geek who understood what love really means. Wouldn't change anything, no matter how much I was offered. (I mean, I wouldn't turn down a lottery win, although think I already won!)"
—Anonymous
16."I had this guy I'd 'dated' for about two weeks in high school. He left me a voicemail telling me to check my Facebook messages, where he dumped me."
"Maybe a year later, we tried dating again only for it to last less than a month. I broke up with him [that] time due to miscommunication and what I felt were compatibility issues. He didn't really seem to care, and we parted ways without further ado.
We were very much over and uninterested in each other after that. For the next seven or eight years, we both had serious long-term relationships with other people. He stayed in our hometown and had a child, and I got married, moved states, and then got divorced.
We ended up reconnecting (on Facebook, of all places) when I changed my last name back to my maiden name and moved back to our hometown. I popped up on his suggested friend requests (according to him).
We very slowly developed a friendship that started with us commiserating [over] our mutual heartbreaks from our previous relationships, and eventually realized that we wanted more than just what had turned into an excellent friendship with each other. [We had so] many shared interests and goals.
We eventually got married almost two years ago and now are expecting our first (unexpected but very loved) child together any day now! Neither of us expected to end up with each other or be quite so compatible as we are, now that we've grown up."
—Anonymous
17."I met this guy online and thought it would be a short fling. My best friend met him and then told me, 'You're gonna marry this guy.' I laughed and replied there was no way."
RKO Pictures, Walt Disney Pictures
"He wasn't really my type, and besides, the dude was 'way too nice.' My friend then told me I should try dating someone nice if only for the sheer variety from the string of jerks I'd been meeting.
Then one day I fell face-first into a metal fence while rollerblading, and this dude made the hour-long public transit trek to my place, took me to the hospital to get checked out, and then took a sick day to stay to take care of me. August will be the 20th anniversary of my best friend/Man of Honour's wedding reception speech, which he gleefully ended with the perfect toast: 'See, I told you you'd marry him!'"
—Yzzie, Toronto
18.And finally: "We were in a biology class together and worked as lab partners. We had a lot of fun together and had a really compatible sense of humor. We stayed lab partners in another class we took together the next semester. I was so career-focused that I wasn’t interested in a serious relationship at the time."
Big Machine Records, LLC
"He definitely made it clear he wanted to be more than friends and I just didn’t notice all the signs right away. I didn’t develop the same feelings for him until it was too late. I tried to show that I wanted to be in a relationship at the end of the year, but I think he already felt kind of rejected and it didn’t go anywhere.
I studied abroad the next semester and we didn’t stay in touch. I thought about him a lot but never reached out during my senior year. I never even ran into him on campus. After we graduated, I reached out to see if he wanted to catch up since I was getting my masters in New York City, which is where he’s from. We started spending a lot of time together, and we just got engaged after being together for two years. I never would have guessed that we would have gotten together, but I couldn’t be happier that we did."
—Anonymous
Some verrrry cute stories here — let me know all your thoughts down below! And if you want to share your own unexpected love story, nothing's stopping you; I love love love reading all of these.
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
