*SERIES* “Love & A Photo”: Heather and Marcel

Marcel and Heather

Name

Marcel & Heather

Age

Marcel: 44

Heather: 43

Lifes’ Work

Marcel: I get a sense of satisfaction when I help people – eg. teaching, offering hospitality, volunteering at school and for my daughters’ soccer teams.

Heather: I see my mission in life as a leader and encourager.  I really love to help people recognize their giftedness and pursue excellence in the way they offer that giftedness to the world.

What city do you live in?

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

How long have you been together?

Marcel: too long…. Hahaha.  Just kidding.

Heather: We met 19 years ago and started dating almost right away. For 16 of those we’ve been married.

How & where did you meet?

Marcel: We met at a bar on sort of a blind date. My cousin introduced us.  A few of us went out together to a bar where they were playing weird Ska music. I was designated driver that night, so I didn’t drink, though Heather had a few drinks. We went out for coffee later and had good conversation and a lot of laughs.

Heather: I was working with his cousin at the time, and I guess he had a sense that we’d get along. He knew we both liked to engage in good conversations – about politics, philosophy, the meaning of life – you know, the deep stuff. We made plans to get together at a bar one night. My roommate at the time came along as my back-up. It was the night before my 24^th birthday.

What was your first impression?

Marcel: I thought she was very intelligent but had a hard time dancing.

Heather: Yeah, I’m a lousy dancer and he’s got natural rhythm. Plus Ska music is pretty hard to dance to. My first impression at the bar was that he was pretty shy, but then when we got to the coffee shop, he started cracking a lot of jokes and I realized how funny he is.  He’s been making me laugh every since.

Describe your first date.

Marcel: We went out for coffee and talked and laughed. I found out my roommate hadn’t given me the message that Heather had called earlier in the week.

Heather: I was a little nervous, because I’d made the bold (for me) move of trying to call him after the night we met, but then he didn’t return my call. A week or so later, he finally asked me out for coffee. It wasn’t a big deal, but I remember it being quite relaxed and comfortable and I felt like I could be myself with him.

Tell me about the most funny thing your partner ever did to “impress” you.

Marcel: She laughed at all my jokes.

Heather: Early in our dating life, he wanted to impress me with his cooking skills.  He made a great meal of steak and potatoes, which I ate and pretended to enjoy, but the truth is, I don’t really like steak. It’s not that funny, but I do remember how nervous he was, especially when he realized the wine he’d put in the freezer to chill had frozen.  The great thing is, he’s been cooking for me ever since, and he still impresses me, but he doesn’t freeze the wine anymore. Or cook me steak.

When did you know it was love?

Marcel: After the second time we broke up.

Heather: I remember the time he told me he loved me and I was kinda freaked out because I wasn’t ready for it yet. For the next few weeks, I knew he really, really wanted me to say I loved him too, but it took me a little longer – maybe a month or so. I do remember how horribly much I missed him after I dumped him though. (He’d dumped me the first time – I just had to balance things out.)

Are you guys more of “perfect twins” or “opposite attracts”?

Marcel: I’d say opposites attract. Yin and yang. We complement each other.

Heather: Yeah, we’re mostly opposites. We have different tastes in almost everything – movies, music, books, etc. He’s a real history buff and I get a little bored with that stuff. But the one way we’re more like twins is that we’ve always been able to have really great conversations. And when it comes to our values, our politics and the way we raise our children, we’re pretty similar.

Retell the coolest travel adventure that you have taken together.

Marcel: We flew to Montreal and then rented a car to drive to Quebec City. It was amazing. We saw a lot of cool stuff, we talked, we laughed, we had great sex. We learned a lot about the history of the region, we laughed some more… and did I mention the great sex?

Heather: I agree – Quebec City was amazing.  We just connected on this really deep spiritual (and yes, sexual) way that was amazing. We’d already been married 10 years by then, and yet we discovered new things about each other and fell in love all over again. It helped that we got some time away from the kids.

How do you share your creativity/gifts with the world?

Marcel: I try to make people laugh.  But I don’t think I’m very creative.

Heather: I dabble in all kinds of creative stuff – writing, photography, painting. I get really restless when I don’t have a project on the go, and Marcel laughs at me when I get that “project focus” and the rest of the world melts away. Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time building a new creative venture at www.whatareyougivingaway.com where I want to engage people in meaningful discussions about what it means to embrace and share their giftedness. I want to do lots of writing, speaking, and workshops on that topic.

What was your first disagreement about?

Marcel: I think it was once at a party when I’d drunk too much and… according to my wife… I was a bit of an idiot.

Heather: It might have been the party – he does tend to get pretty rude when he drinks too much, but thankfully that’s a pretty rare occasion. The thing we seem to fight about the most is my driving skills. He takes great skill in his driving ability (he used to drive professionally) and likes to give me pointers when I drive. Let’s just say I don’t take his advice kindly.

What do you do after a ‘fight’?

Marcel: Make up. Go for coffee. Have make-up sex.

Heather: I usually want to get over fights really quickly, so I push him to get past them.  But he takes more time than I do to resolve things. I’m learning to just give him his space. In the end, we’re pretty good at apologizing and trying to figure out how we can do better in the future.

Have you faced any adversity? If so, and you care to share- what…

Marcel: Yes, but I’d rather not share too much. We went through a few pretty tough periods. I went through a rough period at one point in our marriage. Plus we had a stillborn son.

Heather: We’ve had to cross some pretty major hurdles in our lives together. I was pregnant with our first daughter when he went through a pretty severe depression. Thankfully he worked his way through it.  Then in 2001, we had a stillborn son, which was really, really tough, but actually made our marriage stronger.  The other major hurdle was the sudden death of my dad, when I basically fell apart. Marcel was pretty close to my dad too, so it was hard on us both.  And lately, we’ve been dealing with the failing health of his dad.

Describe your love journey in 3 words.

Marcel: laughter, passion, kids

Heather: laughter, strength, friendship

For the marrieds, how has life changed since you got hitched?

Marcel: For the better.

Heather: We’ve really grown a lot together.  We’ve both changed and matured and learned the give and take of effective relationships. I think I was pretty selfish when we got married (and still have those tendencies sometimes), but I’ve had to learn to put others first – especially Marcel and the girls. I’ve also had to learn to rely on other people instead of being so stubborn and self-sufficient.  Marcel has grown a lot too. One of the things I really admire about the way he’s matured is the way he’s learned to take risks. Because of the way he was raised, he was pretty risk averse when we first met. But then, about 7 years ago, he worked up the courage to quit his job and go to university, even though he was already 40 and a lot of people thought he was nuts.

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