The New Wifestyle Profile | Michelle

happy thanksgiving eve, everyone (yes, we should be celebrating)! i am super excited to share today’s wifestyle profile with you because as you can tell by the picture…this is a fun couple and her husband basically “recruited” her! michelle is still heavily focused on growing as a strong woman both personally and professionally through various organizations and getting her MBA! part of her requirement in a husband was finding someone who could tame her ‘set her cranky puerto rican self straight’ so check out what she has to say and leave her some love in the comments!

Hola Wifestylers! My name is Michelle and I live in Washington, DC but I am originally from Puerto Rico. I am a full time consultant working for Booz Allen Hamilton. I studied Chemical Engineering and I am currently pursuing an MBA. I enjoy reading, writing and randomly moving furniture around my house—which really annoys my husband. I love to cook and hope that someday I can have my very own restaurant. I would also love to write a book someday, not sure what about yet. I don’t have kids yet—unless a four legged furry creature counts—then I am the proud mother of Bella, a rescue Jack Rusell mix. It’s an honor to be featured in the new wifestyle as a guest, so I hope you enjoy this entry.

Although my parents are now divorced, while they were married, they set a pretty good example for me and my brother. Their marriage wasn’t perfect and many times not the fairytale kind, but they worked really hard to maintain a secure and healthy household. I viewed marriage as a partnership where both parties worked equally hard to provide for the family. Looking at my parents’ marriage helped me determine what I wanted, and what I didn’t want in my own marriage.

I knew I wanted someone who shared my values, would make my dreams their dreams, would stick by my side when things got messy and someone who could set me straight when my cranky Puerto Rican personality kicked in. I am lucky to have found that partner.

If I ever write a book about our marriage and our story, the title would be “My husband recruited me!” because he did, literally! It was 2009 and I had just graduated college so of course I was going form job fair to job fair. At this particular one, I kind of recognized one of the guys standing behind a booth, so I walked over. I gave him the infamous, “Have we met before? You look very familiar,” and as we started talking. It turned out we had exchanged one or two sentences back in college.

Yes, we did go to the same college, and we graduated in the same year. He was there recruiting for the Department of Defense and I told him I was looking for a job or internship. He took my resume and said, “I’ll see what I can do.” I thought to myself “Great, I’ll probably never hear from this guy again..” But I was wrong…

Two days later I got a call from the recruiter! He told me that I might be getting a call from the Program Manager of this internship in Washington, DC and that I had to be willing to get on a flight in the next few days. I did get the call from the program manager and immediately was on a flight to DC the next day! It was all really crazy and fast, but I had absolutely nothing lined up on the job front, so I had nothing to lose.

On my second day as an intern in Washington, DC, I got together with some of the interns and Mr. Recruiter was there as well. I gave him a big hug (we are huggers) and thanked him for the opportunity. Now let me stop here to tell you that at this point, we were not interested in pursuing each other, I swear!

So as time passed, the internship came to an end but I stayed since I was able to find a full time job there. Mr. Recruiter and I started to spend time together, hanging out, going to happy hours and then we realized that we really enjoyed each other’s company. So after a few “dates”—I put quotes because I don’t think we really realized we were actually dating–Mr. Recruiter said, “I think there is something more going on here, do you feel it too?” I tried to evade the question and said “What? What do you mean?” even though I knew exactly what he meant! After that very awkward conversation, we dated for 7 more months before he proposed! We have been married for almost four years now and Mr. Recruiter is now my wonderful husband, Miguel.

As a couple, we are very supportive of each other’s careers and dreams. Miguel is a Program Manager for the Department of Defense and I am a consultant for the Navy. We are both heavily involved in volunteer organizations and we have a speaking business together. It is very important for us to stay strong as couple and find a healthy harmony between work and life.

Although we have a lot going on, we have been very good about spending quality time with each other. We commute together every morning and afternoon, which gives us a chance to catch up, talk about our day and discuss our plans. We also listen to audio books together, which helps us grow as professionals and as a couple. We encourage each other to take risks and we challenge ourselves to do things out of our comfort zones. We dream together and we set goals and objectives as a couple, which keeps us focused on what’s important for the both of us.

Although we do a lot of things together as a couple, I still keep a strong sense of self as a woman through my leadership position in a Hispanic Association, through my blog Confessions of a Puerto Rican Couple and through my career. I have polished myself as a leader within my firm, specifically in matters related to developing and growing women. I love to write, so through my blog I am able to express my views on marriage and life. To me, it is very important to keep my identity as a women leader and I am blessed to be married to a guy who respects and values that side of me. In fact, he has awaken my best qualities, specifically, my leadership skills.

One belief about marriage that is unwavering for me can be summed up in the following quote:

“It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship that makes unhappy marriages.” -Fiedrich Nietzsche.

I truly believe that marriage is a partnership, a team, but more importantly, it is friendship on fire. To me, your soul mate should also be your best friend.

Questions:
1) If you only had 2 hours a day to spend with your spouse/partner, what would you do in that hour? Let’s keep it PG-13 please 🙂
2) What is best quality of your marriage?