I love the bestie. In 33 years, I have never not considered her my best friend. We're brutally honest with each other, we fight like an elderly married couple sometimes, and one never has a problem shoving the other off a cliff when need be. And I was thinking the need might be now, until she turned things around on me. Late last year she reunited with the fella I believe to be the love of her life. They've been on and off for eons now, the reasons for all of the splits being that the possibility of him being transferred out of state for work was always looming, and her uncertainty about marriage. She loves him, she wants to be with him for the long haul, but she's been married before and is not keen to do it again. He wants to get married, have kids and just be happy, preferably in that order. She wants to have kids and be happy and maybe do the marriage thing eventually. He has been itching to propose since they got back together and I've talked him out of it every time, at her request. About a month ago, he took steps to insure that there's no way he'll be transferred anywhere else for work, hoping that would add some stability to their situation and be enough for her to say, "Yes". Thus far, it has not been. She's happy about it and all, but whatever her block is to the marriage thing, it just will not go away. And I'm afraid this is going to end for good because of it.
The youngin once asked me where my aversion to marriage stems from. She understood that my bro-in-law is anti-marriage because of his parents hellish divorce, and that the bestie didn't want to get marriage again because she didn't want to have another divorce, but she didn't get "what my problem is", as she so eloquently put it. The way she saw it, there's no real traumatizing event related to marriage in my past that should put me off it. And she's right, there isn't. I just don't see the point. I don't necessarily have an aversion to it, per se, I just don't need it like some people do. I think the bestie wants to be married, she's just afraid of failing at it again (and really, she wasn't the one who failed the first time). So I was all ready to tell her to just damn the reservations and go for it when she threw a curveball and said she was considering accepting the proposal. I asked why and when she answered, it was one of those moments where you wish you could reach right through the phone and slap the taste out someone's mouth. She found the ring, she loves it and suddenly she now thinks it might be a great idea to say, "Yes". And I'm like, "No. Just no". Take it from a fella who got engaged for the wrong reasons, it's a baaaaaad idea to agree in principle to marry someone for anything short of being crazy about them, and understanding you're also agreeing to work at a marriage with them until one of you dies. I know she loves him, that's not the issue, but the deciding factor shouldn't be the bling. Rather than flinging her off that cliff like I'd intended, I found myself reeling her back in as quickly as I could. After some discussion, she put the ring back (yes, she stared at it the entire time we talked) and realized how crazy it would be to have to tell him the reasoning behind her finally agreeing to marry him.
Now that she's not going to get engaged purely for the ring, she's moved on to be depressed about what will happen if they ever do go through with it. She has this idea in her head that it should all be so romantic and she should say, "Yes" and see the ring simultaneously (seriously, what is it with you womensz and the bling? Like moths to a flame, ya'll). She doesn't think he'll do some big romantic gesture anymore and that it would be more like, "Hey, let's get hitched". She went on to say that she wants an "epic proposal" like mine, which was a scavenger hunt that spanned two continents and involved some loved ones (it was pretty great. Wasted on the wrong person, but I digress). You know what I didn't get outta that proposal? A wife. It's not about the proposal. That's a nice story to tell, but what's important is the emotion behind it, the reasoning behind it and what comes after all of that - a marriage. Sure, it's preferable to tell your kids some romantic story about how you got engaged on a gondola in Italy, instead of like a Taco Bell parking lot. But all it is at the end of the day is a story, the same way that all a wedding is after the dust settles is a party. She knows all of this, but I think part of her is just tired of being on the fence about it and she's not sure why she can't get over her phobia. I hope she does soon though. He's a great guy, she's amazing and it sucks having to see them go through all of this. Whenever we're all together, the rest of us feel like awkward kids sitting between our estranged parents.
