Storyworth: Taking the Leap
Nov. 13th, 2020 04:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lillibetHow did you decide to get married?
I have always wanted to be married. My parents had a very strong partnership and I’ve always wanted that in my life. I was generally goal oriented in my personal life, always viewing relationships as potential lifelong commitments--in some ways that was not the best attitude to take, but it did make a good filter that mostly kept me from getting stuck in relationships that weren’t headed in that direction.
At twenty-seven I was starting to feel that time was running out. It’s funny to look back now, when twenty-seven seems so young, but at the time it felt that I had been dating for so long without finding the right match that perhaps the search was doomed to failure. I had started thinking seriously about becoming a single parent. And then I met Jason.
From the start my relationship with Jason felt comfortable and easy. We had so much in common, so many shared tastes and dreams, with just enough difference to keep things from being boring. He was smart and beautiful, funny and talented. We could talk for hours and laughed over so many shared references that we had to be careful not to shut other people out of our conversation. I was always happy to be spending time with him and being with him made me a nicer person. When we had been together only a few months, people assumed we’d been a couple for years. We certainly had our differences, but being together felt deeply right.
A couple of months after we started dating, we got into a conversation with a friend of Jason who said of the woman he was dating that she wasn’t someone he would marry. I asked if she knew that and he said no, that it would just hurt her, and I pointed out that he was treating her with a severe lack of respect. Afterward I told Jason that although we had only been together a brief time, I saw ours as a marriage track relationship--not that I was planning to marry him, but that I was assuming that if things continued to go well for a year or so, then we would probably be talking about it at that point--and that if he felt otherwise, or came to the conclusion that he could not see himself marrying me, then I expected him to let me know that.
Furthermore, I told him that if he were not ready to discuss marriage within two years, then I would probably move on. I liked him and we were good together and I was willing to do this just for the fun of it, but I had places to be. I think he was a little overwhelmed by that in the moment, but took it all in and agreed that was fair.
A month or so later, he started talking from time to time about “when we live together” and after a few instances of this, I stopped him and explained that I was not interested in living with him until we were engaged. That was not for any moral scruple, but a very practical concern. I had gone through the experience of ending relationships also disrupting my living situation and decided to avoid that if I could. While an engagement can certainly be broken, it at least requires a more serious commitment than simply signing a lease together because it’s more economical. Jason said he understood and stopped mentioning it for about six months. When he brought it up again I reminded him how I felt and he smiled and said “I remember.”
From that point on, we basically acted engaged. On my 30th birthday, when we had been together for a little over a year, we were having a deep conversation over dinner about values and plans, when I stopped him and said that we seemed to be talking like people who were planning to be married and that I was starting to trust in that. I needed to know that we were on the same page, that I wasn’t being played for a fool. He assured me that he was right there with me and saw us being married as the next step.
So I started looking at wedding venues and over the next several months we often spent weekend days visiting hotels, gardens, museums and wineries. But we still weren’t officially engaged. I kept waiting, but nothing seemed to happen. Finally I set a deadline of a planned trip to visit his parents--I wanted a ring on my finger and for him to tell them that we were planning to be married. Rather than buy a ring and present me with it, Jason felt that we should shop for the ring together. This led us as close to breaking up as we have ever come.
Jason and I have very different shopping styles. I might have gone to as many as three stores, tried on half a dozen rings, and picked the one that I liked best. Jason, however, wants to be sure that he has found the right choice, and the only way for him to be sure of that is to examine every possible option. So he dragged me to nine different shops and had me try on what seemed like hundreds of rings. I tried on rings until my fingers were sore and I was tired and hungry and didn’t even want to marry him any more if I had to try on one more ring. Fortunately, we gave up for that day.
The next day we went to a little boutique a few blocks from my apartment--I still hadn’t let him move in--and bought a simple sapphire ring with diamonds on either side. It was ready a week later, but Jason wasn’t available to pick it up that day, so I collected it from the jeweler, gave it to him on our way out to dinner that evening and he put it on my finger at the table. And the next day we flew up to Seattle and told his folks.
It was all terribly anticlimactic. I didn’t even realize at the time how disappointed I was. I could have proposed to him, but all along I was the one setting the pace and focusing on marriage. It was important to me that he do the asking, if only so he couldn’t say later that it was all my idea. For years, whenever friends would get engaged with a romantic surprise, I would have trouble not letting my grief overwhelm my joy for them, and I cried over many YouTube videos of over-the-top proposals, even though I would have been entirely happy with something much more modest. It took more than a decade for him to understand how painful it was for me not to have a good proposal story, and to apologize. It’s still a sadness for me, but now that it no longer feels like a conflict between us, it has been easier to let go.
The important thing is that we did decide to marry. We found a beautiful location at Paradise Ridge Winery in Santa Rosa, California and Jason was a real partner in all the wedding plans. September 16, 2000 was a beautiful day in every way and the twenty years since then have been better than I could ever have imagined.
I have always wanted to be married. My parents had a very strong partnership and I’ve always wanted that in my life. I was generally goal oriented in my personal life, always viewing relationships as potential lifelong commitments--in some ways that was not the best attitude to take, but it did make a good filter that mostly kept me from getting stuck in relationships that weren’t headed in that direction.
At twenty-seven I was starting to feel that time was running out. It’s funny to look back now, when twenty-seven seems so young, but at the time it felt that I had been dating for so long without finding the right match that perhaps the search was doomed to failure. I had started thinking seriously about becoming a single parent. And then I met Jason.
From the start my relationship with Jason felt comfortable and easy. We had so much in common, so many shared tastes and dreams, with just enough difference to keep things from being boring. He was smart and beautiful, funny and talented. We could talk for hours and laughed over so many shared references that we had to be careful not to shut other people out of our conversation. I was always happy to be spending time with him and being with him made me a nicer person. When we had been together only a few months, people assumed we’d been a couple for years. We certainly had our differences, but being together felt deeply right.
A couple of months after we started dating, we got into a conversation with a friend of Jason who said of the woman he was dating that she wasn’t someone he would marry. I asked if she knew that and he said no, that it would just hurt her, and I pointed out that he was treating her with a severe lack of respect. Afterward I told Jason that although we had only been together a brief time, I saw ours as a marriage track relationship--not that I was planning to marry him, but that I was assuming that if things continued to go well for a year or so, then we would probably be talking about it at that point--and that if he felt otherwise, or came to the conclusion that he could not see himself marrying me, then I expected him to let me know that.
Furthermore, I told him that if he were not ready to discuss marriage within two years, then I would probably move on. I liked him and we were good together and I was willing to do this just for the fun of it, but I had places to be. I think he was a little overwhelmed by that in the moment, but took it all in and agreed that was fair.
A month or so later, he started talking from time to time about “when we live together” and after a few instances of this, I stopped him and explained that I was not interested in living with him until we were engaged. That was not for any moral scruple, but a very practical concern. I had gone through the experience of ending relationships also disrupting my living situation and decided to avoid that if I could. While an engagement can certainly be broken, it at least requires a more serious commitment than simply signing a lease together because it’s more economical. Jason said he understood and stopped mentioning it for about six months. When he brought it up again I reminded him how I felt and he smiled and said “I remember.”
From that point on, we basically acted engaged. On my 30th birthday, when we had been together for a little over a year, we were having a deep conversation over dinner about values and plans, when I stopped him and said that we seemed to be talking like people who were planning to be married and that I was starting to trust in that. I needed to know that we were on the same page, that I wasn’t being played for a fool. He assured me that he was right there with me and saw us being married as the next step.
So I started looking at wedding venues and over the next several months we often spent weekend days visiting hotels, gardens, museums and wineries. But we still weren’t officially engaged. I kept waiting, but nothing seemed to happen. Finally I set a deadline of a planned trip to visit his parents--I wanted a ring on my finger and for him to tell them that we were planning to be married. Rather than buy a ring and present me with it, Jason felt that we should shop for the ring together. This led us as close to breaking up as we have ever come.
Jason and I have very different shopping styles. I might have gone to as many as three stores, tried on half a dozen rings, and picked the one that I liked best. Jason, however, wants to be sure that he has found the right choice, and the only way for him to be sure of that is to examine every possible option. So he dragged me to nine different shops and had me try on what seemed like hundreds of rings. I tried on rings until my fingers were sore and I was tired and hungry and didn’t even want to marry him any more if I had to try on one more ring. Fortunately, we gave up for that day.
The next day we went to a little boutique a few blocks from my apartment--I still hadn’t let him move in--and bought a simple sapphire ring with diamonds on either side. It was ready a week later, but Jason wasn’t available to pick it up that day, so I collected it from the jeweler, gave it to him on our way out to dinner that evening and he put it on my finger at the table. And the next day we flew up to Seattle and told his folks.
It was all terribly anticlimactic. I didn’t even realize at the time how disappointed I was. I could have proposed to him, but all along I was the one setting the pace and focusing on marriage. It was important to me that he do the asking, if only so he couldn’t say later that it was all my idea. For years, whenever friends would get engaged with a romantic surprise, I would have trouble not letting my grief overwhelm my joy for them, and I cried over many YouTube videos of over-the-top proposals, even though I would have been entirely happy with something much more modest. It took more than a decade for him to understand how painful it was for me not to have a good proposal story, and to apologize. It’s still a sadness for me, but now that it no longer feels like a conflict between us, it has been easier to let go.
The important thing is that we did decide to marry. We found a beautiful location at Paradise Ridge Winery in Santa Rosa, California and Jason was a real partner in all the wedding plans. September 16, 2000 was a beautiful day in every way and the twenty years since then have been better than I could ever have imagined.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-15 02:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-16 03:04 am (UTC)The many good similarities between your relationship with Jason & my relationship with Andy have been a source of strength & happiness for me. I don't know that I can fully explain that, but, it is true, & I am grateful. I treasure your compliment of our wedding, too. <3
no subject
Date: 2020-11-20 09:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-20 09:50 pm (UTC)Gosh, I miss you!
no subject
Date: 2020-11-21 05:55 pm (UTC)Jerry: "I could imagine us being the sort of couple that was engaged for years and years before getting married."
Me: "Yeah, I could see that. Wait, was that a proposal?"
Jerry: "Um... sure, I guess so!"
Me: "Well, okay then."
I kind of thought about trying to have a do-over that made for a better romantic story, but we never did. :) And, it's kind of emblematic of our relationship in general, which is pretty low-key but on the same page.
I think of proposals as the big relationship milestone that you plan separately, and weddings as the big relationship milestone that you plan together. It doesn't surprise me that the first doesn't always come together so well. :-\