Betsy's Love, Marriage, and Other Mushy Stuff Page

Derek and I have been happily unmarried since April 1991. We met at the Billiards Room in 1989, when I was a student employee and he taught Pool classes for the Michigan Union. We were friends for two years before we started dating. I love Derek dearly and I believe he feels the same about me (here's where the mushy stuff ends). We are totally happy to be single and monogamous, and currently have no plans to ruin a good thing by getting married. Derek says, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Here are some pictures of us, past to present (click to enlarge):


Washington DC, 1994	My cousin's wedding in Illinois, 1994	My other cousin's wedding, 2004	On a Florida beach in 2005	After salmon fishing on Lake Michigan, 2007

I have no desire to conceive/bear/raise children. I know it's difficult for a lot of people, particularly women, to grasp why anyone would feel that way. But it's true, and I'm not even a little bit uncertain about it. Let's just say I'm really happy I made it through that two-year period in my early 20s when I felt maternal. If I'd had kids then, I'd be miserable now. Since coming to this realization, I aspired to one day be the "cool & crazy aunt." After several years of trying to get pregnant (it was hard work), Sean and Celina had a baby in January 2006 and another in July 2007. When it rains, it pours! My dream to be the cool and crazy aunt has come true. Well....the "aunt" part has come true. "Cool and crazy" remains to be seen. Click here to visit My Nieces' page.

Derek and I cherish our home in Ypsilanti's farm country. Believe it or not, there is such a thing! It's not as secluded as it was when we moved here, but we still love our home.

We get along very well 95% of the time. And when we don't get along, I assure you, it is always Derek's fault. :-) We mesh because we have similar interests like pool, movies, and sports, but we also do plenty of things separately. He goes golfing, loves to drink a couple of glasses of wine at night ("I'm a cab(ernet) guy" he quips), and spends a lot of time organizing his roofing equipment and trucks; I bowl with my girlfriends from work, garden, work on my website, and scrapbook.

Another reason we get along well is that, despite his allergies, Derek shares my love of animals and tolerates three privileged cats in the household. We are also amateur psychoanalysts, and we love to talk about why people do what they do. Nearly everyone we know, we have decided, is insane. We are the only normal people in our entire circle of friends.

We also love to travel. Yeah, except for that little "hysterical fear of flying" thing that we share. After a few years of flying to California and Las Vegas for tournaments, Derek seems to have conquered his fear, but I do it only when necessary for work, and with the very necessary help of some wonderful little blue pills that do their best to make me forget about plummeting to the earth in a giant metal tube, engulfed in flames. (You can cite all the statistics you want; it doesn't help. I need narcotics).