Joanna Gaines admits it 'wasn't love at first sight' with Chip Gaines
Fans may have fallen head over heels for Joanna and Chip Gaines on the couple's hit HGTV series "Fixer Upper," but surprisingly it wasn't love at first sight for them.
Joanna delivered the shocking revelation as a basis for the mom of five's note from the latest edition of "Magnolia Journal."
In it, Joanna Gaines explains how she was "typically attracted to guys who were more on the quiet side," and, as she learned on their first date, "Chip was anything but quiet." Gaines said this -- plus what appeared to be a "penchant for risk" as he talked about "buying up little houses and flipping them" -- gave her two reasons why they wouldn't go on a second date.
However, there was also something about him that "intrigued" her. She said his outlook on life that there was nothing but "untapped potential" around every corner changed her opinion of him.
"When Chip did eventually stop talking, if only to take a breath, I found myself wanting to fill the silence with plans and dreams of my own, dreams that I knew required the heart of a risk taker, a quality I'd long considered to be one I simply didn't possess," she wrote.
"Somehow those aspirations felt real, achievable even, in Chip's company. This near-stranger had drawn out a side of me that I didn't yet know existed. My gut told me there was something worth waiting for," her story continued. "Our lives have beat to this same rhythm ever since."
The same was true for the place the home-renovating duo -- who wed in 2003 -- would eventually establish as the base for their family in Waco, Texas. It wasn't love at first sight, but they decided "it was a risk worth taking" together.
"Not all risks will make a big splash. Some will be forged in patience, steady and unhurried," Gaines explained. "Chip and I had already proved in our relationship what can happen when I let something grow on me instead of making a snap judgment or an unwavering conclusion at first glance. Chip calls it my 'slow yes' and I've learned to trust it above all else in matters of both work and home. It means choosing instinct over criticism. Intuition over doubt. The courage to trust what you already feel deep down in your bones."
"And it doesn't always look like following some harebrained idea," the businesswoman concluded. "Sometimes it looks like standing firm, holding to your convictions and ideals, because that can be a risk too. And when I do feel that tug to lean in or learn more, that's my cue to hold steady while it gets worked out. To see where it's leading me. And sometimes, what might have looked like the easiest no in the world becomes a slow yes."
