HOW I MET MY HUSBAND ｜｜ Meeting To Marriage...In UNDER ONE YEAR？？
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Summary
In this episode, we re sharing the story of how we met and how we ended up together. We ve teased it quite a bit on this channel, but not ever actually talked about it, so I thought it would be fun to have my husband Jacob back on the channel to talk about it with me.
Transcript
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hello classic crew and welcome to today's video where we're going to be talking about how we met
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so i'm so excited to have my husband jacob back on my channel he hasn't been on the channel except
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for the live streams we've been doing with yaf so it's really nice to have him back here and today
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we're finally going to be sharing our story about how we got together so hi hello and good to be
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back so i'm really excited to talk about how we how we met because it's a good story and we've teased
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it quite a bit on this channel but not ever actually talked about it there's a we in there
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but i thought it would be fun to have you on here to talk about it with me because
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obviously it's our story not just my story so it would be fun to hear your side of things well it's
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history and her story oh god and now it's ours okay fine we'll call it our story i can handle
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our story better than her story so i can't handle any of it so let's start from the beginning so
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why don't you start so we're in 2017 transport yourself there i know long ago think how the
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fashion was different the music was different the culture was different it's like a 1960s period
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piece movie except it's a 2017 period movie the fashions were not that different and things were
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not altogether dissimilar despite the fact that we had never experienced a pandemic no no world's
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different the world is entirely different okay so it's 2017 transport yourself and i'm in law school
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finishing up my first year we're now in may of 2017 so i'm finishing up my first year of law school
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and abigail was finishing up my masters of music at the manhattan school of music and i'm just going
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to say where i was at where i was i was going to be performing for a concert in maine and it just
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didn't make sense for me to fly all the way back to los angeles which is where my family was at the
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time and i decided to stay in new york for about a month just kind of couch surfing with friends
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so abigail was going to be in new york through the month of may yes 2017 keep emphasizing it and
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i'm finishing up my first year of law school i went to university of virginia so i'm down in
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charlottesville think around central virginia and it's the end of the first year i'm from new york and
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at the time my parents were living in great neck new york so i was going to drive from charlottesville
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up to new york spend a few days with family before going back down to dc to start an internship at
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the heritage foundation so i was going to be dc based throughout that summer yes so so here's the
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connection point the linchpin to the story is our friend michael yes so amiguel knew him i knew him
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from los angeles when we had actually been set up on a date and we talked before meeting and
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he told me he was a philosophy major and i told him i never wanted to date a philosophy major thank
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you very much you have a much better way of saying that story what's the way i usually say you gotta
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set it up you gotta say we were set up on a blind date yes and y'all had texted a little bit in
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advance and said why don't we have a phone call the night before just to see if we get along make sure
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there's a rapport yeah it makes sense sure it's not a fully blind date it's like a one-eyed yes
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so you're gonna have your phone call the night before and leading off in the conversation you say
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where you're both at in your lives what you're up to oh i'm an opera student because that's what
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you sound like exactly and i don't have a michael impersonation such as michael says well i'm a
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philosophy student uh at my university and your response was so nice speaking yeah that's exactly
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right i think you know that is the way you gotta present true okay fine so that is the way that i
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i've usually presented it and that was how michael and i met but we decided to go out as friends the
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two of us ended up becoming very good friends and i moved to new york and he moved to charlottesville to
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go to uva and so michael and abigail are very good friends to the point that michael wants to set up
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abigail with someone yes in this case it's me correct and so he had schemed for the two of us to
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meet now apparently he had wanted us to meet throughout the prior year 2016 into 2017 and it
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just never came to fruition there were yeah well he kept inviting me down to charlottesville and i kept
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saying why would i come to charlottesville it's eight hours away by train there was i didn't have
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a car there was no easy way for me to get to charlottesville why would i come that's so random
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and if you two were to see each other why wouldn't he just go up to new york where he already already
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had family contacts things like that so uh the pitch at that time did not work no but the pitch here did
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because as i was driving up from charlottesville to go back to new york for a few days before going back
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down to dc michael had let me know hey i'm in new york i'm with my friend abigail she's ben shapiro's
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sister that's a curiosity wouldn't you like to meet ben's sister i mean sure i guess if i'm aware
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of a famous person and their sibling is a person that i could meet i mean sure why not i mean it's
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a curiosity but the way that he had pitched it was with no intent romantically to set the two of us up
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he had pitched it slowly as i have this good friend i'd like you to meet i think you two will
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enjoy meeting each other and that is it completely downplayed the entire thing absolutely so i'm
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driving up to uh new york it's eight hour drive things like that i'm not going to get into town
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in time before she's going to take a train i was supposed to leave exactly so while i was couch surfing
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in new york i was also planning on going to boston for a few days to visit my sister who was living in
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boston at the time right and so i was hanging out with michael this day i kind of knew that his friend
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was planning on driving into the city but i didn't really know what was going on and again absolutely
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down totally down the significant intent of getting the two of us to meet just you know curiosity from
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michael's into abigail i have this friend from law school who i hang out with all the time you two
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should meet just you know why not exactly yeah and so on that day michael i was supposed to take
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a train to boston right and so michael and i had been spending time together hanging out and at 2 30
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my bus uh my train was supposed to leave i think four i said why don't i get a an ear piercing because
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it was national it was national piercing day abigail used to make decisions uh the different set of
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priorities yeah i wasn't as thoughtful at the time and so the two of us back in the dark days of 2017
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exactly 2017 it's scary time i mean you're looking at the result of a glow up clearly hey i did a whole
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video on my glow up i will link it in the description box and i went with him to get my ear pierced and
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luckily or unluckily i fainted i mean so my drive up to new york was going to take eight hours i left at
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noon whatever it was i was going to get in late and so your transport out of the city was going to
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be mid-afternoon later yeah we were not going to see each other we were absolutely going to miss each
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other you could describe it as luckily or unluckily you fainting depending on your opinion of our marriage
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so if we were not going to meet very luckily very luckily oh thank you i guess at the time it felt
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unlucky because i was fainting um and so i fainted and i missed the train but amtrak at that time i
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think it might be the same now you can generally reschedule for the same day and it's not an issue
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so we went back and were michael and i were spending more time together and i was resting because i had
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passed out and which is um so your channel is classically abby well that's the most classic abby
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thing that could have happened to pass out yeah fainting from it's very i mean it's a very like
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feminine idea you're pierced on a chaise lounge i was not um and so i was resting and my next train
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was supposed to leave at around 8 30 and i told i trusted michael he said that it would be fine for
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us to leave at like eight o'clock for an 8 30 train and i trusted him even though i'd lived in new york
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for two years i trusted him and so we left at eight o'clock of course we missed the train and two times
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in one day and the next train that was getting to boston was leaving at either like two in the morning
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which i wasn't going to do or at 11 the next day or something like that and only later did we find
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out that michael had actually made me miss my train twice on purpose that the passing out was a a lucky
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thing for him he just meant for it to take up time yeah he just thought that my ear piercing would end up
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taking more time than it did but me passing out was just a thing of good fortune yes and he made me
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miss that second train so that jacob and i would cross paths so i get in after the end of a long
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drive and throughout the drive up to new york i talked to michael on the phone two or three times
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and each time he's mentioned so will you be in new york i really want you to meet and again
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even though we're speaking on the phone multiple times only in a few hours span about the urgency for
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me to get into new york to meet you before you leave nothing came across about his intention here
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he's really good at this i mean he's a better actor than i i would say that he's an eccentric
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enough person and interesting enough with the things that he chooses to do that having that much
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emphasis on just having two friends meet solely for the sake of the social connection is eminently
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plausible so much so that the far more likely normal thing of having male and female meet being set up
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that that was not primary in our imagination it was the oh this is simply a social curiosity
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sure michael yeah so um i'm getting in i get into new york around nine and i remember sitting at the
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table with my grandmother i just arrived you know when you get home if grandma's visiting you always sit
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and you spend three minutes talking to grandma you get the conversation and you talk to her and i
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mentioned her this friend's trying to get me to meet this girl in the city just because uh i she's
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apparently still there so there's that i mean i could go in but it's also late and we're here and
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she said i don't care go uh so thank you for that grandma and so um i take a train i get into manhattan
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around 10 30 yeah it was 10 30 p.m an uber subway whatever i take it up to the apartment where
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the two of you were staying uh uncle's apartment or something and i had to meet you and i remember
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the door opening i think michael got me from the lobby we go you open the door you're standing in
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the hallway and you're in like a swooshy green skirt yeah and uh some kind of uh floral print top
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from my imagination and she had reddish dye i had dyed my red my hair red earrings i remember hoop earrings
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i mean if you remember it i'm gonna say hoop earrings and heels so abigail and i are just about
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the same height um there's maybe a quarter inch of height difference between the two of us i am
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perceptibly taller if you're gonna pay absolute attention to have a stand like head to head
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if you are not paying strict attention we're not standing next to each other we're the same height
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yeah and so for us to be the same height means if she's wearing heels she is taller than i am so
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there's this tall woman standing in the hall with her red hair and hoop earrings or swooshy skirt
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and floral print and abigail's a big fan of bizet's carmen yes and here she is standing the hallway
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dressed dressed like some kind of i'm gonna say sultry cigarette girl sure i've played the role
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before right literally on stage and then figuratively i guess in this instance and so i remember being
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struck by oh this is not physically what i was expecting to see i was not expecting a woman who's
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now standing at about 5 10 wearing a swooshy skirt standing in the hallway because ben is the
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reputation of orthodox and abigail as she's discussed on the channel before was not as observant during
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her time in manhattan i mean we're both still not as observant as abigail's childhood yeah working our
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way back on that one and i'm the impediment there but uh we're bringing we're working together so it's
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all good uh the intention's all there but all this is to say that the mental model right is okay ben's
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orthodox i'm here's the curiosity of being oh this famous person's sister and she's this five foot
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ten sushi skirt spanish cigarette girl looking woman standing in the hallway the lighting was
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also kind of dark so it made it all like i didn't see your face everything clearly so like the vibe of
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the silhouette and everything came much more across which was more striking so um well i remember i had
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my first impression was that you came in and you were wearing first of all you were very fuzzy oh
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oh your beard you need to make clear what my appearance because i guess just describing it
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aloud it doesn't sound that different from how i look no no no no no jacob this is groomed jacob was
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not groomed he had a very fluffy head of hair and his beard was very grown out so it was like this
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but don't mess it up it looks so good it's like all out like feathered yes not intentionally i did not
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take the step of feathering no it was just one of those things up and then my beard at the time i was
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not brushing it or combing it right oil in it i just let it grow because i was an idiot and so it's
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just this fuzzy wiry irish mess i mean but here's the thing to the point that that summer actually like
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later the next week when i got a haircut the barber asked me so are you irish yeah i got some lineage oh
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yeah i can tell in your beard yes the uh follicle fiber is apparently super irish right that's the
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red flex but that aside this is this uh you described as a game that you were saying red flex like that
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red flex like you were flexing like a soviet power lifter a red i wasn't necessarily referring to that
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i was thinking like an irish making a bicep you're saying that in the sense that they have red hair so
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you're like flexing on your irish heritage and the muscle and you had this big bushy beard and a
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gray sweatshirt that i won't let you give away because that was the first time that i that was
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the first time i saw you a gift from my sister and brother-in-law and i thought to myself michael
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didn't tell me he was cute that was my first thought that was my first thought was michael didn't tell
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me he was attractive that was my and i like distinctly remember that so you showed up at around 11 o'clock
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we talked till four in the morning no no we talked 3 30 in the morning 2 45 because michael we're
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talking about trains and transit and scheduling here michael had his own train out of the city
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and i don't even remember where it was going to i don't know either but he had his own amtrak train
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at about 3 30. so we departed actually with enough time for someone to get somewhere on time because uh
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unlike previously he actually had to catch right right and so i take him down to penn station
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we hang out we're chatting about this we're discussing oh well did you like her oh you got
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her phone number we'll get to that uh yeah i guess you could go for it jacob so again thank you michael
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you're very subtle um actually though yeah very subtle yeah and so he takes his amtrak train off i
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take like a 4 25 a.m long island railroad train home yeah and that was the first evening but back
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to the actual course of events in our first interactions yeah no and we just but we just
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talked i remember thinking that one of the first topics was russian literature we talked about russian
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literature which we neither one of us had met another person outside of like who we'd studied with
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that liked russian literature as much as we both did i had studied it in high school he had studied
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it in his as his major in undergrad as i like to point out uh because sometimes we conceal my eye bags
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sometimes like now we don't but i have the eye bags of a russian author so it's only suitable
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that i would be drawn to their work it must be narcissism it can't be the actual quality of the
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writing it has to be that i resemble such kind of depressive uh russian i like but so we talked
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about that and i remember jacob is verbose which i love i don't think they've noticed you're so smart
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and you have so much to say but at the time i was singing professionally and there were times that i
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would have to go on vocal rest and vocal rest means not talking for a week literally not saying a word
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for a week or a day or depending you'd have your whiteboard yeah i would have a whiteboard and walk
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around with the whiteboard to ask people for things because i couldn't say anything and i know i could
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have learned sign language but the rest of the world doesn't always speak sign language so it's not that
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useful sign language sign sign sign language yeah so i when jacob was talking as much as he was when we
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first met i thought to myself i will never have to worry if i can't participate in a conversation
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because he can just he can hold it on his own and that was actually a very comforting thought to me
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i loved that so so before we like get to the middle of the summer still we're on our first interaction i
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will say that this did bear itself out because that summer while you were in aspen doing your music
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festival or was it main that no it was no i was in aspen yeah while you were in aspen and i was at
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heritage long distance the entire time there were times where we would have a phone call in the evening
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and i would speak for 45 minutes and you would say nothing and that was our phone call and we both felt
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fantastic afterwards and so this is actually it's only a dangerous example for people because if someone
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is extremely verbose as i am and was and they are looking for a partner you might say to that person
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well if they can't handle the amount that you speak don't take for granted that this is an essential
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part of yourself maybe you could do to ratchet it back a little bit so it's a dangerous example that
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i was fortunate enough to be with a woman who actively found value in the verbosity yes yeah don't
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take that one for granted so that was our first interaction and it was very positive i got your
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number that evening you did and i was clear from that interaction that i was interested in you yes
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and i may have literally said okay i'm interested in you may have your phone number it was an uncommon
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boldness in my end my dating history had very much been of that it's a liberal arts major artistic kind
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of uh not that i'm artistic at all but this had the course of an artistic kind of dating life of
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be friends ish with someone uh worry way too much about whether or not they like you back and then
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that you might be rejected and then don't ask the person out and then eventually do right when things
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are inevitably going to be over complicated and childishly pursued on my end it was not a very
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professional or mature method and so with abigail it was the first time that there was a woman that i
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was interested in just from the start visually again that stunning uh profile in the hallway when
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you first walked out but then also the wonderful four four and a half hours of conversation russian
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literature other topics things like that so uh and also the interpersonal dynamic was fun and laughing
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and everything along those lines so okay this is a person i could and would be interested in so i
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just got your phone number stating i am interested i would like your phone number and then there was
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an uncommon confidence on my end just like a very confident yeah which again uh uncharacteristic for
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my approach so you could say it was uh some kind of ascendant inspiration here uh to get me to act in
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the manner that would be useful yeah and effective yeah exactly so for two weeks jacob was pursuing me very
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hard and i through texts and phone calls i mean it was uh before the next time we saw each other which
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is the next stage of the story there were two and a half weeks and we spoke three times on the phone
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yeah so well there was you had a very long drive you had another long drive oh yeah back down to dc
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you asked if i wanted to talk on the phone and i was like oh sure whatever i have nothing else to do
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yeah and we talked for like two and a half hours or three hours it was just it was easy but i was
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still not convinced so so can you describe what it was where you were willing to interact with me
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i mean it was taking a lot of time of texting and the phone calls so you were willing to spend all this
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time interacting with me and then ultimately um the next time we saw each other two weeks later she was
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joining michael and me down in charlottesville for a long weekend but all this is just a large amount
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of time invested but you were kind of ambivalent about how you felt about me so what what was the
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mentality there that's a good question i think i like why why though i liked talking to you and i
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think it was more just i i didn't know i think it was more just like i i didn't know how i felt yet
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it wasn't like i felt super super strongly or super anti it was just kind of like let's see where this
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goes because when michael invited me to go to charlottesville with the two of you for a weekend
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i thought to myself and i had spoken to michael about it and i thought to myself okay this is an
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opportunity to see so clearly i was like yeah it's just like yeah it's just funny because the way you
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speak about it was like i wasn't sure i was on board but you still had to have an inkling enough that
00:22:07.120
there was something to work off of because again there was so much time i mean you were definitely fun to
00:22:11.600
talk to i do remember your texting was very funny and i thought that was a lot of fun and i just
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i did enjoy talking to you i just didn't know it was one of those situations where i i mean and this
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bears itself out later in the story where i just it wasn't far enough in with you where i felt like
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i was leading you on because we weren't like doing anything serious we were just talking so i didn't
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feel guilty about that but then as soon as we were like in person and you were being very clear about
00:22:42.080
your intentions i was like i can't let him think that i am leading him on or that i'm more serious
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than i am code of honor i do have a very strong code of honor when it comes or i did have a very strong
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code of honor when it comes to dating and so i was i was not feeling that pressure to be like
00:23:01.920
straightforward with you when we were just talking long distance you didn't feel pressured to have to
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have an opinion yet like an official party line yeah so okay so we're talking we're texting and so
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memorial day weekend is coming up you know our initial interaction was like around i don't know early
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mid-may uh and then memorial day weekend's coming up end of may and so michael makes the pitch to
00:23:25.600
abigail to come and join michael and me down in charlottesville for that long weekend since michael was
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also interning somewhere in dc for that summer as a heritage so we the two of us could just hop over
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to charlottesville we still had our apartments and hang out there versus dc where we had nothing we
00:23:42.640
were doing that weekend invited abigail to join us yeah and so sure so you took the train down to dc
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and then the three of us drove in my car to charlottesville and michael i assume had a late night
00:23:56.800
because michael uh and he was passed out in the back of my car you were in the passenger seat and
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so it's about a two and a half hour drive from dc to charlottesville so we spoke the two of us for
00:24:07.440
two and a half hours and one of your favorite moments happened which was me just very straightforwardly
00:24:14.400
flirting with you uh and aggressive implies it's like it wasn't bad no no no it was like just not
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being indirect or like coquettish on my end right they would describe a man as coquettish but you
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know like that you weren't beating around the bush no i was like yeah i'm interested in you yeah yeah
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you're pretty i like the way you look just it was like very just like this is what i'm thinking and i
00:24:36.640
really like talking to you and this is a lot of fun it was nothing like making me uncomfortable it was
00:24:42.240
just being clear about your intentions we're having a great time yeah exactly well together and so i
00:24:48.400
stopped you and you're gonna probably remember what i said better than what i remember but i
00:24:54.480
remember the paraphrase yeah yeah i i said something to the effect of i don't know if i like you yet
00:25:00.880
we're not dating just so you know yeah it was like just so you know i don't know how i feel about
00:25:06.640
you yet yeah like just have that just be aware based on the way right and what i recall doing is
00:25:14.720
laughing in your face yeah continuing on exactly and then you just kept going yeah and i was like
00:25:19.360
okay well which is fine with me because i was like he knows where i'm at i've clarified my position
00:25:24.800
and that was important to me and i talked to michael about it the day that day saying i wasn't sure
00:25:31.200
how i felt about you i didn't want to proceed because i didn't want to lead you on and he said
00:25:36.000
you're allowed to figure things out you don't have to know immediately oh again being very subtle with
00:25:41.760
his with his kind of direction and not in a in a way that was a lie it was just very it was good
00:25:47.200
nothing manipulative about it it was it was good for me to hear because i was yeah framing that was
00:25:51.680
useful for you and beneficial to my chances yeah i was just not dishonestly so concerned about like
00:25:57.920
being rude or leading you on that it was actually just preventing us from getting to know each other
00:26:02.960
yeah because you were too in your head about things yeah so we got to charlottesville we get to
00:26:06.240
charlottesville and so we're spending the weekend together we're having a great evening we watched
00:26:11.520
the zach efron day watch movie yeah that movie michael and i lost our minds we fell out of our
00:26:18.960
seats laughing i've not seen it since i don't know if i'd still find it funny uh i thought it was
00:26:24.880
fine it was i really i didn't i didn't think it was funny so put off i thought it was ridiculous how
00:26:32.400
funny like they were falling out of their seats in the movie theater i mean very literally so
00:26:38.160
michael was actually on the floor and i was not far off it and i just thought these this is so silly
00:26:44.640
this is so silly but we were having a good time yeah and and so we continue hanging out that evening
00:26:51.200
and then the next day we uh meet up again we got get breakfast with michael or no no we did meet
00:26:58.800
him later in the day yeah but you and i like went somewhere and and got a drink or something that
00:27:06.080
that was that evening yeah we spent the body of that day together yeah and uh then we got dinner
00:27:12.160
together yeah and uh again from the previous description i gave my dating life this is like
00:27:17.760
one of the first only dates yeah like we went on a sense of there was no prior relationship established
00:27:26.400
absolutely a new person in the getting to know you phase and so just you are joining them for a meal
00:27:31.760
as a genuine act of like information gathering and discovery and rapport building as compared to oh
00:27:38.560
like we know each other let's try hanging out together in a date format that had been my method
00:27:45.680
right this was actually now like one of the first maybe the only date i'd ever been on in that sense
00:27:51.520
but we had spent the day together and you were like saying how much fun we were having and i
00:27:56.320
we're having a great time don't you and i was having a great look how good we are together
00:28:00.640
it's obvious yeah and i was having a great time too but i was i'm sure many of my female subscribers
00:28:06.960
have been they had like have experienced there's this constant narrative in your head as you're
00:28:12.080
like trying to figure out how things are actually going as opposed to what you're just you're not
00:28:16.480
in the moment you're just am i being manipulated is he just saying the right things uh the exact
00:28:21.760
way that i feel in a sales context if i have to go lease a car if i have to do anything where a
00:28:26.960
salesperson comes over and is going to help me make a purchase everything they say i don't believe
00:28:34.560
and anything i think i now question this have been corrupted or co-opted or subverted in some way
00:28:40.240
and uh woe it is to be a woman that you're basically that mentality about uh a wonderful
00:28:47.440
charming male expressing genuine uh good-hearted yeah yeah and so i remember saying to you something
00:28:54.560
to the effect of i wasn't sure why what like are we good together even it was something like what
00:29:02.160
you kept saying we're having a great time why aren't you like and why aren't you trusting it
00:29:07.360
yeah that was basically why can't you just recognize and work off of that our dynamic is
00:29:12.400
working well we've spent the day together and we're having a great time you're laughing and enjoying
00:29:16.880
yourself so why are you like not seeing what i'm seeing yeah what and you also said to me what did
00:29:24.800
i say you said as a part of this i have a date set up with someone next sunday i don't feel like
00:29:30.960
canceling it if this works so well if we're having such a great time why don't i want to yeah that's what i
00:29:37.280
and that was kind of in my mind a way for me to put up put up uh what would you say fence fences to
00:29:44.240
protect well to make you spiky yeah and i remember in my head at the time so i described how i had like
00:29:52.400
an unnatural for me confidence and kind of swagger with like this is great proceed um just about the
00:29:59.920
prospect of our dynamic and i remember thinking at the time normally i would be very put off by that
00:30:07.600
in terms of my chances are kaput like i could still attempt to persuade you but this is like such a
00:30:13.840
position of uh weakness for the negot not negotiation no i know like making the pitch like just uh like
00:30:20.640
you're basically it's all going to go downhill yeah and i remember thinking that's what i would otherwise
00:30:24.880
do and then this time i was like no i'm just gonna keep doing exactly what i'm doing whatever we'll
00:30:30.320
see what happens and so eventually after he kind of said to me you know we're having a great time
00:30:36.960
why aren't you trusting what this experience is i started crying not because of him but because i
00:30:44.960
every nice thing he was doing so fantastic uh she doesn't seem that into you continue uh you're saying
00:30:51.920
i'm having an amazing time aren't you but the thing was that date next sunday and i want to
00:30:56.880
cancel it doesn't matter we're having a great time you start crying keep going but to be clear like all
00:31:04.080
of this was uh an internal thing which it becomes very clear right now in this part of the story
00:31:09.040
because i was having a great time and it was my own issues that was getting in the way and i'm so
00:31:14.560
honestly i thank god that you had the confidence i it see it feels to me like a biblical story where god
00:31:20.160
like intervened and like put strength in your heart sort of thing like that happens it's it's it's an
00:31:25.040
equivalent to when pharaoh's heart is hardened or when not pharaoh or when like put out his scepter
00:31:32.880
when he normally wouldn't to esther um because you didn't normally have that kind of confidence with
00:31:38.240
women and because you did i was able to push past the issues that i had so essentially what was happening
00:31:44.960
for me and the reason i started crying was because i had a little period right now thinking about it
00:31:49.920
am i i well at least it looks that way you might not see the glisten on her eyes through the camera
00:31:55.120
but at least where i'm sitting you can see it a little like glisten um i was feeling like every nice
00:32:02.320
thing he did had must have an underlying bad reason because i had dated two really bad guys i've mentioned
00:32:11.040
them in a few other videos um just kind of vaguely uh back to back like right before jacob and i met
00:32:18.320
and they had left such a horrible impression on me they made me lose faith in god they made me
00:32:25.040
distrust my interactions with men and with the orthodox community and with the orthodox community
00:32:30.800
because these uh god forbid but still happens were men who were self-describably orthodox were
00:32:39.040
participatory in the community and so if your experience of orthodox life had always been
00:32:46.560
positive and things like that and people mean what they say if you say you're orthodox what you're
00:32:50.960
doing is reflective of that community absolutely rather than just you yourself want to call yourself
00:32:56.320
that label for whatever reason but your actions can absolutely not be orthodox so these bad guys give
00:33:02.480
you a sense of well if you call yourself orthodox and you act that way what does it mean is even what does
00:33:07.040
it even mean it shakes your relationship to god and the community which in judaism really is
00:33:11.360
they're very highly overlapping and so i was misreading every single one of jacob's very kind
00:33:19.040
and good-natured acts over reading oh misreading and over reading as maybe they have a bad intention
00:33:25.440
behind them and that's not how i phrased it at the time i just said i don't trust you i don't know
00:33:31.680
that you're acting in a nice way i dated two really bad guys i don't think that like you are actually
00:33:38.000
being as kind and honest as you are and i don't know if i trust you and what am i putting out there
00:33:45.520
that you would be so interested in me like for who i am versus just being a bad guy who wants to
00:33:52.800
whatever prey upon a woman either emotionally or whatever you know yeah i can go to a very dark
00:33:57.360
place those suspicions because there are people out there who have very dark appetites and ways
00:34:03.440
that they go about it and uh if you've ever interacted with a genuinely sociopathic person
00:34:08.960
i'm not saying this in that like in a way where people say that someone they don't like or who was
00:34:13.280
callous is a sociopath i mean like no like i dated a breed of person who is genuinely that way
00:34:19.760
it is so shaking to meet someone who can fake the genuine emotion and like actually do and act
00:34:28.000
any manner they need to to achieve an objective it throws off your entire sense of people and their
00:34:32.560
genuineness it's uncanny and shattering for a lot of uh your trust in people so you only need one of
00:34:39.360
those experiences well abigail had had it and she had had it recently and she had had it in a romantic
00:34:44.720
context yeah so it was it was it made dating difficult to say the least and so jacob sat there
00:34:53.200
and listened to me talk for i don't know 40 minutes however long it was like about all of this and at
00:35:00.560
the end of that not just it wasn't a history of this stuff it was these behaviors these actions were
00:35:07.600
bad in the past you're doing this right now it looks like that like yeah it was uh it was directed
00:35:12.800
self-defensive and kind of accusatory in the sense of like this is what it feels like you're doing
00:35:17.120
right now this has happened to me in the past don't say this stuff doesn't happen and so um you
00:35:22.560
were saying like you know thank god that i had that unnatural uh confidence compared to how i would have
00:35:28.000
otherwise been also in a way thank god for the fortuitous timing that i had just completed my first
00:35:33.840
year of law school baby i was ready to do what needed to be done which consisted of me for like the
00:35:40.080
next however long the conversation was hour two hours i would take your rule or your self-defense
00:35:47.280
mechanism that you had come up with i would assess the circumstances which it arose in validate that
00:35:54.080
this is a thing that you should have self-defense against this stuff and then describe me and what i
00:35:59.600
was doing what i was about and distinguish it yeah which sounds like a first-year law student to me
00:36:05.120
oh we have a rule it arrived from this at a rock it arose from this case and our present circumstances
00:36:12.720
this looks similar but this is how it's different so this rule doesn't apply but you did it in a very
00:36:18.160
loving and kind yeah no i'm saying this with a bit of self-deprecation right now because it sounds
00:36:23.440
hokey that you could say you lawyered your wife into dating you and yeah i mean that's that's actually
00:36:29.600
kind of the way it proceeded but it was it's just called empathy listening and paying attention and that
00:36:34.720
was really the turning point for me was when at the end of me going on and on about this
00:36:39.520
you listened and responded to every single concern i had and knowing that he was a good listener knowing
00:36:46.240
that he cared enough no you're still such a good listener i talk about that all the time and just
00:36:52.640
knowing that you took the time to respond to my concerns because you cared enough about me and wanting
00:36:58.560
to date me that you wanted to really make me feel more secure in our in whatever what we were going
00:37:06.960
to be was was so comforting and it made it honestly that was the moment that i was like that i i'm gonna
00:37:14.560
date this guy like no there was no there was no question after that so uh which is what makes the next
00:37:21.040
two parts of the story interesting or two moments or beats okay so the next beat is so
00:37:26.000
really that was like the moment radical was okay i'm willing to date you and so then we watched john
00:37:32.240
wick 2. what that's not part i know i'm just mentioning that was the movie in case you're
00:37:36.560
wondering um so then you ask so well what are we then right yes expecting to hear we're dating
00:37:46.000
whatever and we're not exclusive we're figuring things out we're seeing how much we like each other
00:37:51.440
after having been in new york for two years and having not ever spoken to someone who would say
00:37:58.320
boyfriend girlfriend or anything more substance substantive even in the modern orthodox community
00:38:05.280
yeah which is the thing here is it's not just uh any old interest date around with like any old schmo
00:38:12.080
she was dating i was dating in the modern orthodox community and emphasis on modern so well yeah which
00:38:18.240
is no not horatum not people actually have like matchmaking and formal dating practices and things
00:38:23.200
like that the people who are highly co-opted immersed pointed at modernity and the way that everyone in
00:38:33.520
their younger years is just absolutely so confused these days yeah so everyone i was seeing at the time
00:38:38.880
it's like we're seeing each other we're not exclusive whatever so when i asked that i don't
00:38:42.560
like labels exactly and so when i asked that i was honestly asking what are what are we and my
00:38:49.840
reaction was i i don't understand the question boyfriend girlfriend we're dating which again i i'm
00:38:56.560
not giving myself credit i don't deserve here this was uncommon for me i was you know the artistic
00:39:02.080
literature student so i had been prone in the past to be like i don't know what we're freaking
00:39:09.120
idiocy so it was again a moment of uncommon valor for me just to be a normal straightforward man and
00:39:17.280
act like a man and say well i pursued you with intent because i like you i'm gonna talk you uh through
00:39:23.520
things to help show that i am here with a normal intent and i just want to uh date you and get to know
00:39:28.720
you and so if we're gonna date we're going to date yes that's that's what this is and then if it
00:39:33.520
doesn't work it doesn't work but like that's what this program is yes very much so and we were boyfriend
00:39:39.840
and girlfriend immediately and the next weekend we were talking about getting married and uh yeah we
00:39:45.920
were all well i mean so to be clear because yes but also let's be a little bit more humble with
00:39:52.720
ourselves about that because i would love if we were talking about planning the way no we weren't
00:39:56.640
planning first but we were like i mean it's what you say on your channel with regard to if you're
00:40:01.680
going to date date for marriage date with a seriousness sorry seriousness of intent about
00:40:06.800
what you're going to be doing and so we were asking from the get-go we're asking each other the
00:40:11.600
big questions of so what do you want from life what do you want from a family what do you see the
00:40:17.280
marriage dynamic as being how are you going to relate to your spouse what do you want for children what do you
00:40:22.240
want for a career how are you going to approach these things religious life because again i had
00:40:27.040
just six months earlier encountered the things that were going to like bring me to believing in the
00:40:32.160
idea of god broadly no less judaism specifically wanting to commit myself to becoming a religious
00:40:38.160
and observant jew six months prior a little bit over atheist atheist libertarian with like conservative
00:40:45.440
sensibilities and sympathies and then very recently come to believing in the idea of god as an abstract
00:40:51.520
intellectual concept and then from there i'd actually attended a church for a portion of time
00:40:56.480
and you know oh christianity very psychologically compelling very interesting but i couldn't
00:41:02.000
not give my jewish heritage a chance because uh you know i'd gone to hebrew high school at a reform
00:41:08.160
synagogue um all the way up until i was 18 but i was an atheist for almost all of it and it was all just
00:41:14.880
well liberal political positions with right jewish spice barely dashed on top um so if i'm going to
00:41:22.080
believe in god and i'm going to give christianity a chance i can't commit to that before i give
00:41:26.720
judaism a chance so i had only recently come to like okay i'm gonna take a look at judaism and see
00:41:31.920
how i feel about that and i was liking what i was seeing and i was like i could really get into this and
00:41:35.920
it's around that time that i met abigail so yeah i was lucky like all this very fortuitous and uncommon for
00:41:41.840
me yeah and it was lucky in a way that i had sort of taken a step back from my observance because
00:41:50.480
if i had met you when i was very observant i probably wouldn't have dated you because you should
00:41:55.680
not have given me the time yeah because where you were at because you were very much at the beginning
00:42:00.880
of your journey you wouldn't have needed a religious fixer-upper but meeting him at the time that i did
00:42:06.960
it meant that the two of us could really go on this journey towards being more observant together
00:42:13.200
and that was an exciting thing and that was something we talked about very early on i said
00:42:16.960
by the time we have children yeah like immediately i was saying to you by the time i have children i
00:42:21.360
want to be you know keeping shabbos keeping kosher home like be keeping certain things that are very
00:42:27.760
very important and integral to being an orthodox jew and you are on board for that so there are a lot of
00:42:33.440
uh as i like to say it is just a tremendous amount still to learn uh but i said well yeah i say that
00:42:40.960
with a wry smile because uh the way i say it is so imagine because i knew a lot of lawyers at the time
00:42:46.240
because i'm in law school imagine strict liability rules right which are if you transgress this
00:42:51.920
you're breaking the rule it doesn't matter it was negligent oh i could have known but it was an
00:42:55.440
accident you could forgive me for not knowing no no strict liability rules if you break it it's a
00:42:59.920
problem imagine a lot of those and then imagine a very argumentative people doing like a commonwealth
00:43:05.120
legal tradition of well we're going to come up with this standard to avoid breaking the rule we're
00:43:10.320
gonna have a fence around a fence around a fence over time but modification it's you give those
00:43:14.080
people 3 500 years to develop that and you're gonna get a lot of overhead to knowing what it means to
00:43:20.880
be a religious and observant jew and so uh still more mountain yet to climb but i am far higher up
00:43:29.760
than where i started yeah and it's something that is very beautiful and i look forward to reaching
00:43:33.440
the summit yeah but that's been something that we've gotten to do together and it's something
00:43:38.160
that it made us more confident in our relationship early on so we could become serious and and get
00:43:44.960
married as quickly as we did and the fun thing is is that we started dating may 28 2017 and we got
00:43:53.120
married one day under a year on may 27th 2018. or the last day possible within the year yes i really
00:44:02.240
don't know how to refer to this i say one day uh under a year because again may 28 2017 and then married
00:44:12.240
may 27 2018. yeah so um and that was jacob's idea it was very cute when we were looking at wedding dates
00:44:20.400
um memorial day weekend was going to work the best because i was going to uh be finishing up my
00:44:26.720
second year of law school right around then and so i would be available it's a long weekend and when
00:44:32.160
you're doing an orthodox wedding you have to be concerned about the fact that you're not doing
00:44:36.000
things friday you're not doing things saturday so that we have sunday but then how are people
00:44:40.480
traveling in and out for a sunday wedding it's uh yeah it's just complicated so the buffer of the
00:44:45.920
monday off was very important and the sunday worked better than the monday so boom we got
00:44:51.600
married within a year by the skin of our teeth we got married in less than a year which is really fun
00:44:56.240
so that is the story of how we started dating how we met and uh now we're coming up in may
00:45:04.080
on three years of being married four years of being together and uh i mean thank god we're really happy
00:45:11.680
i cannot uh there's a difference between the normal memory that you have of like things that
00:45:16.160
have happened and then like your emotional memory of like the state of how i am my mentality how i
00:45:22.560
think about the world like what it feels like to be me i cannot emotionally remember my life before you
00:45:30.160
it's just it's alien to me it's like i i can't even empathize with previous me because i just this is so
00:45:37.440
much my reality and so normal to me so baked into the cake that i i don't know what life was like
00:45:44.640
before you on like a practical i know what you mean yeah no i mean we have it's it's a we it's always a
00:45:51.440
we whenever i think about what what i'm up to it's what we're up to because it's not me we not my story
00:45:59.600
our story and that's where we'll end it so thank you guys so much for watching today's video please
00:46:08.320
subscribe to my channel if you haven't already and make sure to hit that notification bell if you
00:46:12.960
would like to subscribe to my newsletter you'll get a little dose of classic bi-monthly you can hit the
00:46:18.800
link in my description box and if you'd like to follow me on social media it's at classically abby
00:46:23.520
absolutely everywhere if you want to follow jacob on twitter it's at the right angle underscore underscore
00:46:29.280
underscore so thank you guys so much for watching today's video and i'll see you guys in the next one