Stephanie McMahon Levesque Irvine I know whom ever thought that my last name would ever be Irvine? I sure never thought so and I would have laughed at anyone who even suggested it. This is my point POV I never imagined my life without my first husband Paul we were married for over 10 years and had 3 beautiful daughters together. Aurora who is now 8, Murphy who is 6 and Bailey who is 4. We were a family and I had everything that I ever wanted. Paul had retired from being an active wrestler and was the Executive Vice President of Development and was the Producer in charge of the NXT Tapings. I was still over Creative but worked in the Stamford Offices mostly. The girls were in school and Paul and I didn't want to disrupt their lives by taking them on the road if the pay per views were close then we would take the girls. Paul was home most of the time he did travel to RAW and to Florida once a week for the NXT tapings. He loved being a full time dad by taking the girls to school and tucking them into bed at night was one of his favorite things. We would head down to our gym in the basement and workout together. I miss those rare times when we got to spend alone. Then things all changed in a blink of an eye and my whole world crumbled.
Paul was on the company jet to a taping for NXT when the plan crashed in a thunderstorm. He had a severe head injury and was on life support for a week until there was no hope and I had to make the most difficult decision of my life. I chose to end his and take him off life support when they declared him brain dead. I was lost I had lost my heart and my soul that day. I couldn't sleep not in our bed all I would do was to cuddle his pillow and cry and wonder why he was gone. My heart ached and I would get panic attacks just thinking about how I was going to have to live my live without him. The girls were an emotional mess and could not understand why their daddy was not coming home anymore. They would go into our bedroom and get his tshirts and cling to them and cry until they fell asleep. I tried to explain to them that daddy was in heaven and that he was watching over us and that he still loved us to the moon and back. I took a leave of absence from work and tried to make life as normal as possible for the girls but living in our house was a constant reminder of Paul every day. The girls would not let me get rid of any of his things because they didn't want to face the reality that he was never coming home again. I kept the door to the gym downstairs closed I couldn't even think about going down there alone. That was our special place it was were we could just be ourselves not the 16 time WWE Champion and not the Billion Dollar Princess just Paul and Stephanie. Paul taught me so much about myself and gave me my self-confidence. I couldn't even make myself watch RAW every week because it reminded me of how our lives started and now my reason for loving wrestling was ripped away from me. In my mind wrestling took my husband from me because he was on his way to a wrestling event. I know it wasn't logical or rational way of thinking but that was how I was feeling. The girls always wanted to watch old dvd's of Paul's matches I guess it made them feel close to him again just being able to see him and hear him talk. I tried to go to the office and the first day I walked by Paul's I went inside and sat in his chair and crumbled. I then realized that I had to get the girls and go away for a while we had to make a fresh start.
Paul and I had a condo in Tampa which is where the WWE Performance Center was located. We spend a lot of time there due to Paul being in charge of the Development Program and it was also a nice place to go to rest and relax and recharge. The girls loved the beach and the ocean they were like little ducks in the water.
I told my dad that I needed to break away from WWE and from our house in Connecticut and that I was going to take the girls to Florida for a while. He didn't agree with me at first and said that the WWE needed me and that I was going to have to run it one day when he was gone. I told him that I just couldn't be around it right now and that maybe in the future I could come back and run the company but I was to emotionally drained at this time in my life. I had to think about my daughters and their well being along with mine. We just needed some time to relax and not have to worry about anything and let our hearts begin to heal. I explained all of this to Paul's parents Paul and Patricia who were also devastated with Paul's death. He was super close to his family and the girls loved their Mimi and Papa. They had stayed with us for a couple of weeks after the funeral to help me adjust and I will never be able to repay them for that and for giving me the love of my life and the father of my children. They understood that we needed a break and although they would miss us they thought it was a good idea to get away for a while.
We had moved and gotten all settled into the condo and into a routine and things were looking up for the first time in a long time. The girls were not to keen on staying in Florida they missed their friends and their grandparents but I told them that Gramma ( my mom) and Pops ( my dad) would also come down and visit a lot since they also had a condo in Florida. Quite a few of the wrestler's already lived in Florida and were checking on the girls and me quite a bit to make sure we were comfortable. This is how the journey to Chris and I actually started when he would bring his daughters over to play with mine. His twins and Aurora and Murphy were close in age and actually that helped them adjust because they had some familiar friends. Chris had recently gotten a divorce from Jessica and so we both were in new territory at being single again. He had just retired from the WWE right after Paul had retired from the ring and was now touring with Fozzy his band full time. The band had exploded with a new popularity in the US and Canada. We had always been friends but really did not socialize with one another during our marriages. Now we both were at different places in our lives and started out just as friends. We would take the girls and Ash to the movies, to Disney World together and just do fun things together. We loved going to the beach and Chris would take the kids out on Jet Ski's and we would go deep-sea fishing. It was nice just to feel like a family again although there were no strings attached. We would get some strange looks from people when we would go somewhere with 6 kids and we would just smile back. Chris would usually make some kind of comment like just like Lays potato chip you can't have just one.
It was just like when I had started working with Paul we didn't realize the chemistry that we had until other people started commenting on it. My mom noticed it first then I think Shane mentioned something to me like are you sure that you and Chris are just friends?
It actually started at a Fozzy concert Chris knew that I loved Heavy Metal and my parents were in town so the girls were spending the weekend with them. Chris invited me to a concert and gave me the whole backstage VIP Tour and I got to watch the show from the side where no body could recognize me. I loved it he was great on stage it was so different from seeing him in the ring. We went out to dinner with the band afterwards and I actually let loose and had fun for the first time without guilt since Paul had passed away.
I became more and more accustomed to being at home and spending my time with my girls. We would take long walks on the beach, go shopping get our nails done. I was never a big baker but we started to bake together and just have fun being with one another. The first anniversary of Paul's death was coming up and I new it was going to be a tough day for me so I decided to take the girls back to our Connecticut home and spend the week with Paul's Parents and his sister. While we where there I knew I had made the right decision by going to Florida. I could now start to pack away some of Paul's things but not all of them. I kept the pictures of us and the kids out and I kept one t-shirt for me and one for the girls. I also kept his stuff from his office his heavyweight belts, the sledgehammer stuff like that for the girls one day to have. Patricia was a big help to me while doing this and she told me that it was ok to move on that I was still young and that she knew that I loved Paul with all my heart and that he would always have a special place in my heart. She also told me that I would always be her daughter no matter what. I took my wedding ring off for the first time in a year and I kept Paul's on chain around my neck. I kissed them both and put them in my jewelry box for safekeeping. I went to his grave and sat down and cried I told him how much I missed him, how much I would love to have him sleeping beside me in bed every night how I missed his snoring and how he took up most of the bed. I told him how much the girls had grown and what they had been doing. I then told him that I loved him and I would always love him but it was time for me to explore my feelings for Chris. I kissed his tombstone and told him I would forever be Stephanie Levesque first no matter what.
When the girls and I returned to Florida we decided to stay they agreed that they liked living there and enjoyed going to the same private school with Chris' kids. We decided to sale the condo and buy a house in Florida where we could make it our home.
Chris and I had a very long discussion about our children before we even thought about the possibility of getting involved with one another. They all had been through a lot in the past year or two and we didn't want to add any more stress on them than necessary. We sat them down and asked each of them what they thought if Chris and I started to date nothing serious. Surprisingly none of them had a problem with it and my girls actually were happy about it. I think they missed having a man around the house.
My girls started to love having Chris around they had known him their entire lives and always felt comfortable around him. He was so good with them also just listening to them and talking to them about anything that they were interested in talking about. He would tell them that he had no intention on replacing their dad that nobody could ever do that but he wanted a chance to be their friend and hopefully more some day. He wanted to make sure that they were safe and protected and most of all loved. The more that we started to hang around each other we became more comfortable with each other and then it just became natural for us to be together. I remember the first time that we actually spent the night with each other. The girls had spent the weekend at my parent's condo and Chris's kids were with Jessica for the weekend so I spent the weekend with Chris at his condo.
We had a romantic dinner outside on the deck at Chris' condo then we went for a moonlight walk on the beach afterwards. We held hands and walked down by the water and talked about where we thought this relationship was going and our feelings for one another. We sat down on the beach and we began to kiss with the waves crashing upon our feet. We then got up and went to his condo because it was getting cold and spent the rest of the night making love in his bedroom. We spent the whole weekend at his condo just spending time with one another, watching tv, cooking, laying out by the pool or walking on the beach. After that first weekend we never looked back and only looked forward. We began to introduce us being a couple little by little to the kids. He would spend the night over at my house and then the girls and me would spend the night over at his condo. Little by little we started acting like a real family and before we knew it we were looking for a big house we could all share together. It would be a big adjustment but we wanted a place where all of the kids would have their own space. Chris was still touring with Fozzy but the tours were usually a week at a time sometimes a little longer. She couldn't believe it but she had fallen in love again and it felt good to be needed and to have somebody to love her back. They had found the perfect house bought it and moved in and it was in a gated community and close to the schools with a huge in ground pool. They decided to keep the condo as their little getaway to the beach they could use on weekends or when school was on break. Jessica wasn't to keen on the idea of the kids living with him and Stephanie but she really didn't have a option because she shared custody with Chris and he supported her financially as part of the divorce. Then the bigger decision came for Stephanie to finally sale her house in Connecticut that she had shared with Paul. This was a very hard decision for her because it was the place where she and Paul had brought each of their children home after they had been born. It was the place she had called home for over 10 years a place where she and Paul had shared so many memories but it was time to move on. She was no longer going to need the house in Connecticut since they were living in Florida full time and she was no longer working for the WWE. She didn't need the money she still had her shares of the WWE and she and Paul had made very sound investments. Chris was also financially set with his investments and Fozzy was making a lot of money with their albums and tours. She decided it was time for her to write her autobiography before she had never had the time now she had the time and a story to tell.
Chris and I were getting used to living with pne another and our new family all under one roof. Chris was on a break with touring with Fozzy he was working on writing lyrics for their new album and was opening a new sports bar in Orlando called Jericholics. He was also taping a special about Fozzy for VH1 Behind the music. We were finally getting on with our lives and were looking forward to what the future would bring. Little did we know that several months later we would be welcoming the newest member of the Irvine family Caden Christopher Irvine. We were not planning on having any more children, I was 39 and Chris was 45 but we couldn't be happier with our surprise and wouldn't change anything. We had forgotten how much work a newborn takes it had been almost 5 years since I had a baby in the house and it had been even longer for Chris. It seemed that Caden was a night owl just like his daddy and would take two short naps during the day.
I had never been a full time stay at home mom with a infant for more than a couple of months before before Paul and I would travel with them on the bus. Chris and I decided that we would not hire a nanny this time since I didn't need to travel. I enjoy staying home now and during my downtime I am working on the biography. All of the kids are adjusting to being a blended family and having a new baby in the house. Chris has scaled back his commitments for a while so he can be home more and we are enjoying our time together. Chris' dad and his wife have come down and stayed for a couple of weeks after Caden was born and I really enjoyed the help. My mom has been down also more often to the Florida condo since she is not campaigning or no longer the CEO of WWE. I have realized that although I grew up in the WWE and spend most of my adult life working for the WWE that I no longer need the WWE in order to fulfill my life. I will always be grateful for the time I spent in WWE it is where I met Paul and had my beautiful 3 daughters. I am now entering into a new phase of my live with the man who I love and plan on spending the rest of my life with in Florida. I am enjoying being a semi normal family and I am looking forward to what the future holds.