Engaging

This is what I think of when I think of weddings.Billy Idol is the man
  http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=AofzLsvTsM0

This past Tuesday night I went over to my girlfriend's place and proposed to her. We met playing a Scrabble type game online so I snuck the ring in the bag of Scrabble tiles and waited for her to pick a tile. Now, it was pretty much a foregone conclusion that she was going to say yes, but when it took her more than a minute to get her bearings to answer I must say I got a little nervous. I could not imagine proposing though when there was any question to the answer.

I am not saying that I can't see proposing without knowing because I am that cocky, but more because I believe in communication. It seems to me that if both people in the relationship communicate their feelings and listen to each other then it should be pretty obvious what the answer will be. There are many instances when a proposal is turned down or someone, in our society usually the woman, is waiting for a proposal that never happens,  but in a relationship with a foundation of honesty and communication this should be the exception.

My fiancee and I had previously talked about how we saw a marriage and what we anticipated for our relationship moving into the future. If I wasn't looking to have a marriage then I would not have stayed with her because I knew that was in her long time plans. Along that same line if she didn't anticipate marriage I wouldn't have maintained a committed relationship because I see commitment as important and marriage as the ultimate goal.

I have become much more mature over the years because before I could have easily seen myself proposing and being turned down. This is because instead of listening to my partner and being aware of her desires, I tended to make a plan in my mind and then created a warped version of reality where she fit this plan. As you can imagine this would lead me to unnecessary drama and sadness. I never actually got to the point of a proposal, but I did date a woman in college who I thought I was in love with after two weeks. We had something real positive going, but my obsession and lack of ability to see reality led to her breaking up with me one month to the day from when we started dating. At the time I didn't understand why the love of my life would do that, but now I am aware that I didn't even know her well enough to know if I liked her let alone loved her. I was in love with the image of her in my mind and not the true person in front of me.



My experiences have taught me valuable painful lessons that I can and will pass on to my daughter. Take time to get to know who you are with and not make them into someone they are not. Good thing is that I live in a truly wonderful engagement with a person I know loves me and I love her, the real her!