I had a long conversation today with my best friend about dating and relationships, specifically major mistakes we've made in the past. It all came up because I recently ran into the sister of my ex-fiancee who also happens to be the sister of my best friends' ex-husband (confused yet?). My best friend has always had a habit of dating the brothers of my girlfriends. It started with my very first girlfriend in high school and continued until she got married some years ago to the brother of my ex-fiancee. The wedding was awkward since my ex and I were in the very early stages of our bitter break-up (and everyone there knew it), but I didn't want to rain on the best friends parade so I avoided any major drama. He was the only guy I ever really trusted her with and I was happy they were happy. Until they weren't happy anymore because she majorly screwed up (long story, no cheating involved) and they "divorced" (the marriage wasn't really legal, again, long story). I don't know if it had anything to do with my break-up and the complicated family dynamics going on there or not. But she concluded that their relationship moved way too fast (met and married within a year) and that her fear about marriage was the major contributor to their demise.
The best friend asked me why I proposed in the first place and I opened my mouth to speak then realized I had no good answer to that question. Literally nothing came to mind. I've thought about it a lot since and I can come up with all kinds of answers but nothing that's good enough to justify putting a ring on it. A big part of it was that I was looking to cling to anything that felt good at that point in my life. In hindsight, had I gone with my gut instinct when she told me she wanted to marry me I likely woulda saved myself a ton of trouble. I remember thinking, 'Is this it?' rather than knowing that she was the one. Even as I popped the question, I can remember feeling absolutely nothing when she said yes. But I still dove into wedding planning (alone, that shoulda been a sign) like I was an excited groom-to-be. And even in the preliminary stages of the planning, two months away from what was supposed to be the wedding date, I was terrified. Part of me felt like if I could just get down the aisle everything would be okay, while another part of me knew this was wrong but couldn't put a finger on why it was wrong.
Looking back, I don't even know what it was I saw in this relationship that made me think it was gonna go the distance. She was gorgeous and she was a great friend but there were a lot of other areas where our relationship was severely lacking. If she needed to talk, I would stay up all night long until she felt she had said everything she needed to say. I do that with/for anyone I care about but with her, it was a one-way street. She always had other things to do or sleep to catch up on when I needed to get something off my chest. She was eight years older than me in age but definitely emotionally immature. And she liked to keep secrets (BIG secrets, as I later found out) which I didn't like but I had secrets of my own at the time so I didn't press her on it. If I were in that type of relationship now, it would be over before it began because it was full of everything I don't want or need. It wasn't the outward, in your face drama that I had grown so used to in my other relationships but there was always something unsaid beneath the surface. She didn't try to figure it out cuz she was steppin' out on me the entire time and I didn't try to figure it out because I was fighting a losing battle with my demons and just trying to get by.
I'm wondering if that entire experience is what's put me off marriage entirely. Never say never obviously but I can say with 99.99999% certainty that I will never walk down an aisle as a groom. And I know it's wrong to come to that conclusion based on one negative experience but I can't seem to shake the feeling I have about never tying the knot. Of course that could change if I meet someone and they change everything and that whole cliched scenario. I'm not bitter anymore about it, I wasted too much energy on that. Now it's more like thinking about why I felt compelled to propose to someone who I never could've married and counting my blessings that I did not actually go through with it. It's one of those, 'What the hell was I thinking?!' moments. And a learning experience, no doubt. But you know what's funny? Between the ages of 22 and 27, nearly every woman I dated was over marriage and either never wanted to do it again or do it for the first time. Now most women I'm interested in are all about getting married and having the whole fairytale ending. Ain't that the way it goes.
