the fiance

I sometimes wonder when I say i was engaged at one time why people seem so shocked.  "you" were engaged?  maybe it's my anti-marriage/anti-kids campaign?  maybe i'm not the marrying kind?  i dunno, but what i do know is that once in my life i had an engagement ring on my finger and a  fiancé...i kept the ring, not the fiancé.  Well I actually only kept it for a little while and then i turned it in and bought a really pretty emerald bracelet - the ring was also an emerald (i'm not a diamond girl). 

i wish i could say i dumped him but, um, ya, well, that would be lying so the truth is, he woke up 4 months before the "big event" to say he just couldn't do this.  this? this?  what was this?  and then he said, i can't get married.  ahhhhhh, that this.

we were living together at the time and while i knew life was not a bed of roses i certainly wasn't expecting the blow.  and more than not expecting to be dumped 4 months before the wedding (yes, almost everything was bought and paid for) i wasn't expecting to find out he had been involved with someone else.  mmmmm, the joy of that, who p.s. he later married.  but! only to cheat on her too and marry someone else, yep i can pick 'em!

but when i look back i think, i had fun.  he was too young for me that is for darn sure (4 years my junior) and the romance was a whirlwind for sure.  i am sure my parents thought i was nuts but he was likeable and given some of my past relationships they were probably just happy that i was happy.  of course they never predicted the sh*t storm that would come with the breakup. 

you see, our families were intertwined already.  my mom and his became fast friends.  our friends melted together.  we did couples things with other couples.  we had game night and movie night.  wow, as i type this i can see why he panicked...we were old already.  but it was fun!  i enjoyed these friends and our family and i enjoyed the simplicity of our life. i liked a bit of routine, i really did.  i guess the homebody in me came alive.  we had fun, or maybe i was the only one having fun?

but really i wasn't having fun.  i remember nights crying on the phone with my best friend but thinking it was wedding planning blues.  i really should have listened to her when about 3 weeks before he dropped the bomb on me, she did!  "you don't have to marry him" she said, "it's not too late to cancel".  i remember thinking to myself, what is she talking about?  i should have run at that moment.  i should have listened to someone who could see me and how i had some how lost myself in this relationship, it was a classic 'run don't walk' moment - but i missed it.

many years later, he and i still do not talk- nothing to say i guess.  but i do thank him on a regular basis.  i thank him for saving me years of misery and what would have likely been a painful divorce.