(...continued from previous)
We want to get married for all the usual reasons: mutual deep and abiding love that we hope will last a lifetime; a desire to fill our only "one-slot position" with each other; a desire to be each other's next of kin in the event of an emergency; social and familial recognition of our connection; financial perks (such as insurance, tax, and student loan things, among others); an excuse to get extra time off work to go on a kick-ass vacation; etc.
While it is true that I learn more about him (and myself) every passing month, I feel like at a certain point, it is possible to say "OK, I know enough now that I feel safe making this level of commitment." I felt that way about becoming engaged pretty quickly, when I knew of our sexual chemistry and compatibility of personality, and when I knew of his talent, intellect, and, most importantly, that incredibly golden heart he has.
And now, over two years into the relationship, with the NRE gone and some HUGE things that we've weathered together, I feel that way about the actual marriage.
Now I also know of his ability to save financially toward common goals, how he behaves in NRE and breakups with other people, and how he reacts to huge changes and being under stress. I know that he's still attracted to me when I'm sick or frazzled and have a week's worth of razor stubble everywhere and haven't washed my hair in god knows how long (dry shampoo FTW!). I know the things he's lazy about and the areas where he has blind spots. I know all his kinks and fears. I know what his relationships with his parents and his exes are like.
And I know that I can trust him to be 100% honest with me as soon as he figures out what his truth is, since he doesn't always know right when I ask him. I know how committed he is to me and how he is willing to compromise with me and support me when I struggle—that I can come to him with my own fears and issues, no matter how petty or how big they are, and he will comfort me and stand by my side as long as I am willing to do the work to overcome them. I know that he loves me with every piece of him.
And there are still nine months of engagement left to go! I know enough about him now that I trust that, in that time period, whatever else I learn will be similarly agreeable to me as the rest of it has been.
He knows all my "stuff" too: my pet peeves and kinks and darkest secrets that I've never even told to Oona or past partners; my biggest fears and all my little insecurities and my sometimes not-so-little emotional issues that stem from my fucked up childhood; my strengths and foibles and kryptonites; how I go completely batshit with PMS two days a month. I hide nothing from him, no matter how dark or ridiculous. I tell him new things I discover about myself as soon as I learn them. And he loves me so completely anyway.
I realized a long time ago that it was foolish of me to marry Moss when I was 26 and didn't know or like myself very much yet. Not to mention that I didn't know
him very well yet either after a 16-month courtship. I vowed never to make that mistake again. And I'm totally not this time.
It's not that I don't understand how, if I were planning to get married NEXT WEEK and Rider and I had just had that big issue, Oona might gently ask me if I were sure we'd ironed everything out. But to accuse me of rushing into something that's still nine months away—when I am sure I already told her that I felt a ton better about our recent problem mere days after it happened—I don't get that at all. And why now? What triggered her desire to reach out and poke me about that? I wasn't talking about getting married. I was talking about taking a vacation!
Yes, I said I'm trying not to feel like I have to do everything rightthissecond, but, like, nine months away, after over three years of dating and a year and a half of living together is not rightthissecond—nor is it even as soon as the time frame I was discussing for the vacation.
Sometimes I really do wonder if it's just sour grapes. Once in a while she says something about hating to be the last of her friends to get married, or how she doesn't want to hit 40 unmarried, or how she brings up the idea of marriage to Toby and at first he said he never wanted to, but then she was happy when he finally said he could see himself marrying her. When she says the first thing, I usually try to remind her that she could have already had a failed marriage just like me if she'd wanted to, but she was smart and held off. When she's said the second, I reminded her that 40 is just a number and there's no race to hit certain milestones by certain ages if you're not planning on having kids (which she is not). When she's said the third (it was pretty early in their relationship), I reminded her that it was a bit early to be talking about it, and that once they were together longer, he would be open to the idea—and he was.
She sometimes likes to throw in my face that I've been engaged multiple times, and it is true that in the past, I have accepted proposals without truly intending to follow through on them. Previous partners (not including Moss, obviously) have noticed me starting to check out of the relationship and have surprise-proposed to me as a way to sort of tie me back into it, I think. And because I wasn't yet in a place where I had an exit plan, even though I knew I wanted out, I've said yes and then just sat on it, not planning any kind of wedding things, until I figured out how to extricate myself without making my life a living hell. If there was a ring, I have returned it.
Maybe that's cowardice, but it's always felt like necessity at the time. I am never in a financial place where I can make a hasty exit from a cohabiting relationship, which many of mine have been, and those past partners have been the kind of people who would make "roommate-only" life very difficult after a breakup—I even tried it with The Ex when staying in the relationship did become intolerable, and I kind of wished I'd taken the other approach instead. He made my life hell during that period I tried living with him post-breakup, and I am STILL paying back the credit card debt I accrued when I hastily split.
But the situation is WAY different with Rider. I am the opposite of "checked out"—I am the one who proposed to him! And he's super into it and excited about marrying me too. This isn't some additional aborted engagement—and even if it were, who cares? If I discovered two weeks ago that we really weren't right for each other after all, instead of discovering that we're actually an even better fit than I thought, it would not have been a bad thing to end it. It would have been the right thing to do.
She also likes to talk about how it looks to other people for me to have been engaged multiple times: how can they take me seriously? And I actually don't give a flying fuck what other people's opinion of my love life or history is. It's my life. I have done what I needed to do, or what I thought was best for me with the information I have had, at every turn. If other people thought they knew better, good for them, but it's still my life. If people want to not take me seriously, that's their business. It's like that saying "what other people think of me is none of my business." If they want to talk behind my back but be supportive to my face, fuck 'em. If they want to be unsupportive to my face, fuck 'em. I'm still going to do what I think is right for me.
If people want to sit in judgment of my choices, that's fine, as long as they don't chide me over them. I have so few fucks to give about it that I can't even muster up a shred of embarrassment or shame (if that's what I'm "supposed to" be feeling about it). Don't like multiple engagements? Don't have them, then. But I'm not sure why anyone would care about mine as long as I'm not being unethical and stealing the ring or whatever. If they have ethical qualms about my staying in a relationship while I formulate an exit strategy, that's one thing, but those surprise proposals put me between a rock and a hard place and I didn't feel like I had much of a choice. If I'd just straight-up said no, the relationship (and therefore my life) would have crumbled on the spot.
Anyway, the entire thing just irritated me. I hate it when Oona tries to talk me out of things that I am excited about and dead set on doing. It just creates tension and conflict between us, and I am going to do what I want to do anyway. She has to know that about me by now. I'm a stubborn fuck when it comes to living my life on my own terms, and, yes, even making my own mistakes when necessary.
And I hate it that she is so opinionated about how I conduct my love life when, by all measures, Rider and I have a much more peaceful and stable relationship than she and Toby have, even taking into account our sporadic poly-drama. I don't live my life the way she would live hers because, well, I'm not her. If I *were* her, I wouldn't be so right for Rider in the first place.
She voiced her objection to the idea before I proposed, and that would have been enough for her to be able to say "I told you so" if I'm wrong about all of this and my marriage blows up in my face spectacularly. She doesn't need to keep trying to talk me out of it during the course of the entire engagement. If she can't be happy for me that I'm happy—that Rider and I are BOTH happy—she could at least stop raining on my parade.
</rant>
