David and Yas – My Story

How We Met

Meeting David was an unexpected event, I guess like anything in life it kind of just popped up on me with no warning and little understanding of why at the time. We were already friends through mutual church friends and one day I was posting photos on Facebook of my famous artist father ‘Mauro Perucchetti’s’ artwork, and he was asking me about the art work as his mother is an amazing artist. Getting to know David was definitely interesting as he sparked some excitement in me, but also caught my attention in some ‘different’ ways than what I was used to. He introduced himself to me as the guy who has little patience for girls with his relationships lasting on average just 2 months, who never wants to get married and is a very happy single guy, which all his friends later validated had been his thoughts for many years. So you can imagine with this mentality that the relationship went through some bumpy first few months. The single guy was happy to have met me, and I was waiting for the ‘single guy’ to learn that the single mentality and relationships don’t gel too well together.

Will You Be My Girlfriend?

Then came the ‘will you be my girlfriend’ moment. ..

This awkward moment where the ambitious, amazingly smart guy, clumsily asks a girl to be his girlfriend. After a bit of mumbling, and far too many sentences in some made up language where all the words were back to front and were quite difficult to make out, I was officially his girlfriend! This was a really great moment for me as I was finally done guessing how serious he took ‘us’ and it was also the moment when making the relationship official meant he would work on the few things a relationship cannot do without, such as communication. And boy did he work on it! He exhausted the internet, he bought books on communication and even set alarms on his phone throughout the day with ‘communicate with Yasmin’ reminding him to send me a text. As you might imagine I was somewhat surprised that he needed an alarm to remind him to text me, but it’s also what I realised I love about David. When he wants something, he makes sure he does everything in his power to get it, and that exact same mentality is what makes him an awesome entrepreneur and simply an awesome person who doesn’t miss out on many of the things life has to offer.

1 John 3:16
By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

A Work In Progress

So fast forward from then to now, and he’s already giving me some communication lessons! And I’m the one that needs a lot of work, such as not interrupting him when he is speaking, not trying to always ‘fix’ things and pray to God more trusting He will fix them, and being more encouraging, to name a few. David sure left me behind! But being motivated with the blessing of a lifetime together, we are both actively working on our short comings, and now we are married!

Who would have thought the disciplined, ambitious entrepreneur would end up with the ‘slightly’ less disciplined, nature loving, British, Italian girl? Two completely different people ending up together! When he’s talking about a certain subject and determined to stick to one subject at a time, I might interupt him for a few seconds to not miss the clouds or the sun setting as we drive by. When I’m feeling emotional, he’s thinking up the facts of the situation. When he’s setting specific schedules of how to spend the weekend, I’m asking to be a little spontaneous and enjoy the minutes as they come. All these differences took some adjusting to, but they are also what makes our relationship whole. Where he falls short, I’m there to remind him and throw in a different perspective, and where I fall short, he’s there to show me another perspective and teach me new ways. We definitely went through a LOT of arguments when we hadn’t yet learned that a different perspective wasn’t in fact something bad, but simply two completely different people sharing a lot of their time together. But when we learned that there was another way (still a work in progress), we now have more harmony together where we once didn’t, and actually learn a lot more interesting things from each other. Relationships can be an awesome thing when expectations are dropped and you are playing on the same team, open to loving correction and learning from each other while focusing more on what you can give rather than what you want to receive. It has been for us!

1 Corinthians 13:7
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Obstacles In Life Make Happy Memories

We still have our funny memories together of the happy bachelor, for example, the third time he asked me out and I said I can’t for the third time, the frustrated bachelor used to getting what he wanted said “I’ve never been turned down! Forget it!”

Another funny memory was a night time stroll early on in the relationship where we were walking around BGC, the weather was perfect, we were holding hands and he stopped me for a moment and put both his hands on my shoulders, he looked into my eyes and said.. “you know? You are really lucky to have me.” I was so shocked that I had no words to respond to him. Yes I was thinking, I am blessed to have met him, but I hadn’t expected him to tell me quite that way, especially when I was expecting he would give me a compliment. David can’t remember these moments anymore, and it’s now just one of the funny stories we share to our friends.

Then we have our memories of me, for example David might have had a clear conversation in mind, but I might change subject 5 times before we even get to discuss it properly, as a lot of connecting thoughts remind me of something else which I allow my mind to drift onto.

David: So I was thinking we should start writing down our finances and what we can and cannot spend, such as travel and food and bills and personal use.

Me: Yes let’s do that. By the way I really like the restaurant we ate in yesterday.

David: Yes it was nice but let’s stick to the topic. So let’s draw this chart.

Me: Wow that’s a great chart. Oh and when I was driving yesterday I put some gas in the car, but didn’t have the car washed, and the parking was so expensive yesterday!

David: Yasmin can we PLEASE stay on topic!

Me: Oh yes, okay sorry.

(For example.)

This is still a work in progress for me and taking a little longer to master than I’d like but at least there are improvements!

1 Corinthians 13:4-6
Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

Why I Love Him

What I love about David is how he always says nice things to me. He reminds me how beautiful he finds me, he reminds me how loving I can be, he tells me how happy he is to be with me and how in love he is with me. More than loving me, he loves God first, which is what makes him love me more, as true love is only possible when we understand how God loves. I love how ambitious he is to change the world piece by piece, helping people become successful and finding ways to help the poor. I love how he loves his family, looks up to his father, and admires his mother. I love how he will sit down with anyone and find opportunities to help them become more successful in life by giving some great advice and even randomly drawing it out in charts on paper place mats. I love how our humour is the same, and neither of us get offended with the sarcasm that actually ‘to us’ makes our jokes funny. I also love how he thinks he is funnier than me when he’s not! Haha! ‘Joke’

1 John 4:18
There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

A Long Way To Go With The Right Understanding

After two and a half years of a relationship and only two and a half weeks in marriage, we definitely have a long way to go, but it’s an exciting thought that when two people make a commitment to each other to love, respect, be faithful, encouraging etc, just the way God loves us, how many things we can learn from each other with this close bond. It’s such a selfless thing agreeing to put someone else first before all our selfish desires, but love in the true sense which includes passion, means exactly that. It means sacrificing our own wants and needs for someone else, it means suffering at times to make things work, it means being kind when we don’t feel like it, or listening to advice when our pride wants to fight it. I finally realise that having a godly and mature relationship is the only way to have a successful one, as without the commitment to give more, rather than waiting to receive, and give the way God gives to us, no relationship can possibly work for the long term. Selfish passion and desires are short lived and do not bring long term happiness, but the passion that gives love it’s true meaning (just like the passion or love God has for us), will last a lifetime!

John 3:16
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

1 John 4:8
Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.