The End of Seven Years

I knew it wasn’t right the moment he asked.  We were on the London Eye in England and had spent the entire trip arguing.  It was my first time in Europe and I had idealized this holiday my entire life.  Traveling overseas for the first time, but I was caught off guard, and my initial reaction was actually no.  However, we went to a cafe afterwards and discussed what we both wanted and I changed my “no” to a “yes, if”.  If you let me finish school first.  If you didn’t expect to have kids anytime soon.  If we don’t get married in a church.  The list went on.  I knew it wasn’t like the movies, but I thought maybe this is it.  We’ve been together for six years.  He has a good job.  We drive luxury cars.  We own a house together.  We were in Europe together on vacation when he asked, a destination proposal.  Maybe you weren’t supposed to have these big feelings one sees in pop culture, you were just supposed to be content.  He was someone I started to build an adult life with when I was still a teenager, and I liked the life we had, it wasn’t bad.  I didn’t have any married friends or knew of anyone who had been in a relationship as long as us.  I had just turned twenty four and thought, maybe this is what a marriage looks like in real life. 

I didn’t tell anyone we were engaged, I asked him not to either.  I said it was because I wanted to enjoy it just for ourselves while we were still on vacation, but looking back I think I knew then it just wasn’t right.  Once we were back in Connecticut we started telling people.  I made an ominous but tasteful post on Instagram.  Everyone was congratulating me.  Friends and coworkers celebrated me.  Throwing me parties, taking me out, and buying me gifts.  I think everyone else's excitement got me excited for the first time since I started wearing the ten thousand dollar engagement ring.  As if I fed off other’s emotions, and their intensity made me actually want this.  I started doing all the fun wedding stuff with the women in my life.  Going to conventions, looking at venues, I even bought a dress.  I was the first in my family to be engaged.  Out of all my siblings and cousins, and for the first time in my life received all the attention.  I was so thrilled to plan and throw this grand event that the entire idea of marriage wasn’t even on my mind anymore.  I felt removed from what I was actually setting my life up for.

Running off this new found attention-induced hype, I found myself really excited for this wedding.  Then a few weeks into my engagement something happened.  I was working my bank job when I met a newly hired coworker.  We instantly hit it off, I had never felt a connection like that, and I tried to keep my distance, but he was hard to ignore.  I actually thought to myself, if I had met him just a month earlier, I wouldn’t be engaged right now.  I didn’t know what to do with this information because it wasn’t like I could tell anyone.  I considered my options and decided ending an engagement because you had a new work crush wasn’t a good idea.  Especially when you owned a house with the other person.  The wedding plans continued moving forward even though the doubts grew.  As it got closer, getting more serious, I started talking to my fiance and family about my hesitancy, feeling no better about moving forward.  No one was taking me seriously.  Ignoring what I was saying, and continuing to carry on with the upcoming wedding date.  I felt embarrassed that I let it go on for so long.  Embarrassed to call it off after invites had already gone out.  Ashamed that things were in place, planned and paid for.  What would people say?  What would I say?  What was my exact reasoning afterall?  It didn’t seem sane to end a long term relationship based on feelings alone. 

 It sounds very silly, but what gave me the push was actually Kim Kardashian’s divorce to Kanye West.  I thought that if Kim could go through this very public and humiliating divorce I could quietly call off my wedding and high school relationship.  I’m not a fan of the Kardashians.  I don’t keep up with them, I don’t follow them on social media, but for whatever reason I found a lot of comfort in their divorce.  To this day, it’s one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, separating two lives when I was the one who objected.  I hurt a lot of people.  Not just my fiancé at the time, but our families and friends, and people who got involved.  I still feel bad about it, but at least I wasn’t hurting myself anymore.  Eventually I started feeling more at ease, less horrible, and things really did get better.  I switched careers, I deleted my Facebook, and I refinanced my house.  I’m more independent then I’ve ever been and probably would have ever needed to be had I gotten married.  Seven years later and my life is better than I could have imagined in many different ways.  I am currently dating and living with that coworker, but he’s not the reason I didn’t get married, he was just the ignition.