I believe it was the day before Scott died that he asked me if I had any good memories of our life. I paused for a minute and told him that yes, I did…but they were all tinged by something that he had just done, was in the midst of doing that I would find out later or did right after the memory. This, unfortunately, applies to our engagement as well.
As I said in the previous post, Scott’s proposal and the night that led up to it were memorable and lovely. But it was all tinged by the conversation we had the very night before it happened. I was actually so shocked that he proposed because of this talk. It was a doozy.
Two days before he proposed, he gave me an assignment to write down all my concerns, questions and problems I saw with us getting married. I prefaced this paragraph with this little nugget:
Scott and I have talked a lot about getting married lately, but it was more me asking him different questions about marriage. Don’t get me wrong, he’s talked about it some, too, but he only brings it up every once in a while.
This was the very first paragraph I wrote in my journal! That should have told me something. Clearly I wrote it and made the distinction about his not wanting to talk about it, but I guess I didn’t want to think about what it really meant. I think I just wanted to be loved so much. I wanted to be wanted. I clearly wasn’t, but I didn’t know what love looked like.
Why would that be something he needed me to do? Or even wanted me to do? It is pretty apparent to me now that he was trying to get me to either convince myself that we shouldn’t get married, have something or several things that would change his mind, or both. I know now that he already had the ring, since he proposed two days later, but this is not a “make my heart swoon, you’re so special to me, I adore and love you”. It was “convince me and I guess I’ll go through with it”. It left me with some pretty rough questions going through my mind: Why does no one just love me for who I am? Why am I so hard to love? Or, worse yet, not even easy to like?
This was my next paragraph:
I really didn’t know what to think. I thought it was a good idea, but kinda made me a little nervous, though. I thought it was dealing an awful lot with the negatives of our relationship and no positives. Now, though, after I’ve thought about it for a while, I think it’s something that everyone should do. It’s kinda like doing your own marital counseling.
I was so delusional. The reason you have marital counseling is to bring you out of the clouds a little to see the reality of what marriage is. People are usually so overwhelmed with love for each other and the coming wedding and honeymoon that they forget that life is tough and there will be problems. Scott, of course, could only focus on the problems because I truly think he wanted to find a way out of going through with it. I know I wasn’t pushing him to marry me, so I’m at a loss for why he even asked.
This was my last paragraph from that day:
I think that, maybe, we should have this talk. Scott usually has good ideas like this. I guess that’s good since he’s the more logical one and I’m more emotional. We go well together.
I can’t even believe that I said this. I learned to see everything he did as good and myself as completely flawed. I remember Scott telling me all the time how I was too emotional and, therefore, couldn’t make good decisions or be trusted to make big decisions on my own. I was made to believe I needed to run everything through him. I remember second-guessing everything I thought or did. If I didn’t second-guess everything and even felt good about what I did or a decision I had made, so often, he would criticize me or tell me how I was wrong.
Here’s the takeaway – if things are being said that make you feel less than or uneasy, don’t come up with ridiculous positives like I did to make it alright. You deserve to be loved, cherished and defended. Don’t marry or continue dating someone who doesn’t make you feel this way. Staying with a person simply to have someone isn’t worth it. You will lose the very essence of who you are. Pay attention to what is said and done and act if there are red flags popping up all over the place. You are worthy of so much more and someone who loves you unconditionally.
~ Joanna Lynn
