Once upon a time there were two middle school girls, Brittany and Glennda, who roomed together at camp. I'll spare you the details of their first meeting (you can ask Glennda if you really want to know). Anyway, their friendship grew throughout middle school and high school. During high School, Brittany met her one and only Love, Scott. The three of them became the best of friends and pretty much inseparable.
During college B and G tried to keep their friendship strong, but they grew apart and eventually had falling out and stopped talking to each other. Scott and Brittany continued their relationship and eventually got married. Meanwhile, Glennda met Ryan, and their friendship grew fairly quickly. Glennda reached out to Brittany and told her all about her "friend" Ryan. She apologized over Starbucks for her part in the falling out. Brittany forgave her, but she wasn't sure she could trust her yet. A few months later, Ryan and Glennda were engaged and shortly after that married.
A couple of years went by and Ryan and Glennda were looking for a new church. Glennda had another friend that invited her to New Hope, where it just so happens that Scott and Brittany attended. They ran into each other and kept in touch through Facebook, but there was still this wall between them. Then, Glennda decided to finish her education at UTA, and her and Ryan moved. Once they moved they realized it wasn't really feasible for them to drive every week to New Hope and took a break.
Several years went by and while they talked every once in a while on facebook, Glennda and Brittany didn't really pursue each other anymore. Then, Glennda graduated and decided to move back to Wylie. Brittany's heart had healed and she was so excited to reconnect with her old friend. The beginning of what would become the Ronsons. Brittany had Glennda and Ryan over for dinner, and Ryan and Scott hit it off (or at least that's how I remember it). They started hanging out more and more. Their friendship grew and grew. They became the best of friends again. Eventually Scott and Brittany made Ryan and Glennda the God Parents of their 3 children. They became a family. They took vacations together. They spent holidays together. They lived life together.
About a year ago they started talking about this crazy idea to live together. They figured they did everything together anyway, so why have two houses. They started dreaming of the perfect house and got so excited. They decided they should wait a few months and think through all the logistics and make sure it was something they were all on board for. While it was something they eventually wanted to do, it just didn't seem like the right time. Ryan and Glennda weren't ready to buy a house and then when they were Scott and Brittany didn't want to sell. So, Ryan and Glennda began their search for the perfect house for their future family and found it. They moved in and on that day, Elle, the oldest of the Johnson children, said "If we lived here we could go swimming whenever we asked". Brittany and Glennda looked at each other with a smirk (we'd never talked to the children about it). Later that night they started dreaming again of what it would be like and by the end of the night decided they wanted to pursue it more.
So, here we are a few weeks later. Scott and Brittany are getting their house ready to sell, and will be moving into the house on Carriage House Way, to live life with their best friends. So many dreams coming true. So many relationships to be grateful for. So many adventures to be had. I'm sure you have so many questions and following are the most frequent ones with our answers.
Q: When is this happening?
A: As soon as the Johnson house is sold. There are still some things we need to do to get it ready to put on the market.
Q: How long will you live together? What is the goal?
A: The goal is to join our two families and live life together in community. We can't really explain why, except that we want to. We don't have a time frame. It may be 6 months, a few years. or forever.
Q: What if you have a falling out? What if you get in a big fight?
A: We have set up a support system and committed to work through any conflict. If there is a time when we decide it would be best for everyone if we lived in two separate homes, it will not be out of anger. We will work through the conflict before making that decision. We have committed to not let this ruin our friendships. Much like we did in both of our marriages. We will choose each other. We won't always like each other, but we won't give up on each other either.
Q: What about when Ryan and Glennda start having kids?
A: We are planning for them to. We want them to. It may affect our long term decision, but right now we are prepared to make it work with their kids being part of the family as much as ours are.
Q: What about your finances? I guess this will be good for both of you?
A: Absolutely! While better finances are not the goal, they are a perk. Scott and Brittany will be able to pay off all of their debt with the sale of their house. Both families will split the bills and sharing a food budget as well. We don't have everything figured out exactly, but we have a plan. And, we will have budget meetings regularly, just like we did before.
Q: What about when you want to have other people over?
A: We will have a master calendar. We will discuss it. But, we will still host other couples, families, and our single friends :-). Sometimes it will be all of us and sometimes it will be just one couple or the other.
I know I'm forgetting some of the questions, so if you have any feel free to ask. We plan to blog regularly about this journey and we will be very open and honest about it. We are doing our best to go about it in a smart, healthy way so that our friendship survives it. We are trying not to be naive. We want this to work. We want it to make our family stronger. We have received an abundance of support and excitement for this adventure and we are so excited to begin.
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