Basically you're saying marriage is just a way of getting out of an embarrassing pause in conversation? - Four Weddings and a Funeral
I was supposed to get married today.
That's what has been on my mind this entire morning. I was getting my morning coffee and kept thinking to myself, 'What would I be doing right now if I was still getting married?' In all honesty, I'd probably be having a panic attack. I can absolutely see my father trying to talk sense into to me through a bathroom door and explaining how he spent a LOT of money on beer, could I come out please and thank you? But from the moment I called off the wedding and the relationship, I've done nothing but breathe a sigh of relief. And contemplate that I may have serious commitment issues, but that's another blog all together. I've also spent a lot of that time wondering what on Earth was I thinking and how can I avoid repeating that mistake. Also? What actually constitutes love and a healthy romantic relationship? There are so many levels of this tale and it's impact on my life, that I think it fries my brain to really ponder it for any length of time.
We had a whirlwind romance. In fact, whirlwind may be downplaying it. I am actually really embarrassed by that fact. I threw ration out the window when I met him and I cannot figure out why. I didn't agree to marry the love of my life - a man I spent over 4 years with and who knew me like the back of his hand- but I accepted a proposal that came after (gulp,cringe) a month of dating? That is nothing but insanity. His name is Chris, but I don't actually call him that. It seems a disservice to LOL, whose name is also Chris. My friends and I now refer to him as Evil Chris or Douche Nozzle. This wasn't someone I was wildly physically attracted to – he was ok looking and shorter than me. My height rule may be a shallow one, but I'm never breaking it again. Was he charming? Oh but yes. Perhaps too charming and that should have sent off warning bells. But is charm and charisma enough to have momentarily turned my brain to mush? Possibly. He purported to be a Buddhist and was someone who seemed to have genuinely overcome much adversity in life. There is nothing that I admire more than a person who kicks back when the chips are down. He was incredibly kind and gentle and reminded me very much of my brother. Considering that my brother is my rock of Gibraltar, a guy like him seemed a good idea. He also took being romantic to a whole new low. I'm fairly certain the environment suffered serious damage from the amount of flowers I received and my friends repeatedly begged that he stop being so mushy on my Facebook page. I'm not actually a girl who swoons over sweet sentiment and romantic gestures. I used to not allow 'I love you' to even be said. I'm not certain why I'm wired that way, but I really need to see a person back their talk up. Talk is cheap and easy. Action isn't so much. And perhaps that is where the first inclination to pull back the curtain and find out who the wizard really was came from. Of course, by the time my brain turned back on and I thought to do such a thing, I was already engaged.
I can't say specifically when a warning bell first sounded in my head. If I'm as honest with the rest of the world as I have been with my mother, I'll tell you that it was in the first week of dating. I thought that he was just too much. Too into me and it scared me. Or something scared me. But then I thought that I must obviously have a fear of nice guys and that was what all the chattering in my head was. So, I didn't call anything off and I turned off my inner cynic and just went with it. My inner cynic is obviously there for a reason and I don't think I will ever doubt that voice again. Within a month I was engaged and within two we moved in together. I knew I had lost my mind the first week we were living together. However, I don't think I would have learned any of things about him that I did had we not moved in together. That's the thing about pathologically lying con artists. You have to get really, really close so that you can find a string to pull and watch everything unravel. One the bits that galls me the most however, is that he knew my father was a grifter and a con artist. Not only did he continue to do the same thing as my father, it really pisses me off that I didn't catch on sooner. Once we moved in together though, he couldn't manage to keep up with his lies. I was straightening out paperwork in our office when I came across items that directly conflicted what he had told me of his military career and college education. Things unraveled quickly from there. I would begin to challenge his stories and ask too many questions. Questions he never answered well. Money… oh, there were issues. I've been sucked dry of the savings I had. I couldn't bear to confront him. I smiled politely and proceeded with wedding planning. I felt so foolish about the relationship and the wedding that I just kept putting up a brave front. I didn't tell anyone what I was finding out about him. My mother noticed that I seemed miserable and that I didn't have any of my previous enthusiasm about the wedding planning. I'm a broad who loves to plan and I intend to leave this world a really pretty and well matched place when I leave it. I was suddenly planning my wedding as though I had resigned myself to a fate in front of a firing squad. Then what I thought was the worst thing that could happen to me, did. I found out I was pregnant. For various reasons, we (my family and those very close to me) have never even been certain that I would be able to conceive or have kids. I was terrified. Here was the one thing I had secretly always wanted and it was happening in the middle of an emotional shit storm. That was not the happy day I had always envisioned. You know the scene in 'Knocked Up' where Katherine Heigl's character pees on about 2,000 pregnancy tests? That was me. I just kept crying and peeing on sticks. I was completely unable to process what would have been completely happy news in any other circumstance. When I told my mother, I broke down crying. She was so incredibly happy and for a moment thought I was crying out of happiness. Oh but no. I still could not tell her my misgivings about my relationship, impending nuptials and the fledgling life inside of me. It did not take long though. After a lot of thought, I came to the conclusion that I simply could not continue to put up with a facet of my life being built totally upon lies. And that I would not -could not- bring a child into this world and raise it anywhere near what I had had to grow up with. It wasn't fair to anyone, but that child deserved it less than anything. I began to let my mother and close friends in on what I had been discovering about Chris, but I still had no idea of what to do. I had tossed aside all wedding plans under the guise that I did not want to have wedding while simultaneously looking as though I could play the role of Moby Dick to perfection. I put him off about having a simple civil ceremony. I spent far less time at home and essentially refused to even let him touch me. My mother has this innate and strange sixth sense about me. It's not even a sense. It's like she is IN my head. IN IT. She doesn't just finish my sentences; she gauges from one look everything that is going on in my brain and then can give you a synopsis. Good mothering or an eerie amount of co-dependency? We've never been able to decide. So at this point in the shitstorm I called a relationship, my mother knows that everything is wrong and says the magical sentence that ended everything –
"Just because you're pregnant, doesn't mean you have to marry him."
I cried from relief and 5 minutes after she said those words, I sent Douche Nozzle a text message telling him to move out of our apartment.
Barely 2 weeks later, I had a miscarriage. I have few words that I can muster for that. Terrible. Soul crushing. Those are the words that come to mind. If I think about it for more than 2 minutes at a time, I do the heaving sobbing girl thing and I'm not good at that. I know that things happen for a reason and that it was not meant to be. On the surface I've been very logical and perhaps too detached when it ever mentioned. I couldn't fathom having any semblance of a connection to that asshat, but I've always wanted to be a Mom. Obviously, after this I let this natural disaster of a man whip through my life, I feel very little inclination to ever have a romantic relationship again. When I say very little, I mean none. Partially it's fear, but a lot of me wonders if all of this happened because some sick co-dependent need kicked into gear or something. With all of that I have come to the conclusion that motherhood may not be in my cards.
After all of this, I just try to evaluate the layers that make up this tale of woe. I do generally feel a little battered. Like someone put my heart in a blender on high and forgot to be nice enough to add some tequila to it. One of my closest, dearest and best friends still works with Douche Nozzle. I hear regularly how is pining for me, seems despondent enough and ruing the loss of our 'love'. It makes me angry to a degree that I try to having nothing to do with. Here is the thing about love – it involves a very healthy amount of respect. When a person engages in any version of deception against you, that's not love. The things we do that serve as symbolism of love- i.e. love notes, flowers, gifts -are not love. They're trinkets. They're the physical manifestations of affection that you hope if you give enough of, this person won't trash your heart. They may induce the warm fuzzies, but they're not love. I consider that I have had two relationships that were actual really real hard core down in my bones love. They both were based on abiding friendships with healthy amounts of trust and respect. Once any level of trust and respect were broken, it was downhill from there. Each one simultaneously broke me and made me stronger than I could have imagined. I don't consider what I had with Douche Nozzle to be love, more like temporary insanity. An insanity I'm going to be working through for a bit, but that I try to see more as a catalyst than anything. As for ever again even contemplating marriage… you know the scene at the end of Four Weddings and a Funeral where Charles asks Carrie if she thinks that she might be amenable to not marrying him and if it is something she might consider doing for the rest of their lives? I think I might be that type of girl. What's in a piece of paper anyway? Considering the American divorce rate, apparently not much of anything. But I digress – again – and that's very obviously food for a later thought.
