Reflections

The other day I was searching my emails for a friend's wedding invitation, and came across an email I received almost 12 years ago--four days before my own wedding. I hadn't looked at or read this email since the day it was sent, and had forgotten about it. Morbid curiosity consumed me, and I stopped to read it through.  It was a disjointed, begging, pleading email several pages long, from the person who came closest to winning the title of my ex. We had had a long, dull history of un-spiciness--exchanging books and emails and conversations mostly about things like Sir Ernest Shackleton's expedition to the Antarctic. It was the closest thing to courtship I had ever experienced, and the black hole of loneliness and desperation I was in at the time made me happy to settle for anything. (Do not ever settle, my single friends! Hold out for the best, I promise it's coming!)  After three years of this languid semi-courtship going nowhere at all, I decided to take the advice of friends and family and stop contacting him. I was realizing that this thing was all one way, and if he was actually interested in me he should pursue me--I was tired of doing all the chasing and meanwhile sacrificing my self worth.  Wouldn't you know, he predictably became a ghost in the wind. I did not hear a single word from him for 11 months, and I moved on with my life. I started practicing martial arts, hit up old friends I'd neglected, and spent a lot of time with my family.  One of the old friends who hit me up and started talking to me again was a very long time crush of mine, one TJ Greer. We met at a friend's house and the sparks flew like 4th of July when there's a burn ban in place. TJ and I talked and flirted the entire evening and my friend's daughter teased me that I was going to marry him. He hugged me goodbye in the moonlight and I felt things I had never felt before, so much that it scared me a little!  Wouldn't you know, about two weeks later the ex called. (For lack of a better word.) He acted like everything was normal and like he hadn't just neglected me excessively for well nigh a year.  I had been talking to TJ and texting him non stop, and wanted closure on my previous "relationship", so I took the opportunity to ask ex the question: "What's up with us and where do you think we are going with this?" He answered nonchalantly "OH, that. Oh yes, I'm not interested in you and don't think about me any more!" I cried for a bit, mostly out of frustration and humiliation that I had wasted so much of my time, and called TJ to tell him all about it.

If you want the details of our courtship and engagement, click the link here . It was fast, hot, and heavy--we couldn't keep our hands off each other, and both of us were beyond ready to start our lives together. Four days before my wedding I received this email. I debated in my mind whether or not to copy paste the entire thing here, but it is such a good read that I think I will. I will carefully hide all names and recognition markers because I have no desire to humiliate or embarrass anyone.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

January 6, 2015

I don't know what else to say to you Jenna. I feel as if I was trying to stop you from going over Niagara Falls in a barrel. I could see you doing that too, knowing I was right, but in a headstrong fashion doing it anyway. I don't think I could stand watching you do that either. 

The consequence of getting married without thinking the important parts of matter through are not pretty. You have no idea of the number of tragedy's I have seen that resulted from this. You see Jenna, I can not tell you for certain that you have a bad young man. He certainly did not impress anybody here. Some people can carry politeness too far at the wrong time. I get along with most people. And I did my very best to like him for your sake. But after I had to spend an entire day with him, and particularly after I saw the way you treated each other, I kind of got very upset. Basically I think he views himself as a lady's man, and that is something that decent people just don't much respect for.

What I do know for sure is that if there is a mistake to be made, you are making it.  You got upset with me, ran into him, and within three days had decided to marry him, and therefore came to the conclusion it did not matter about holding off on physical contact because you had worked it all out in the three days. If anyone you cared about came to you with a story like that, you would be pulling your hair out too. When it is a stranger you look at it and say, "well I hope that it works out but it doesn't look good". When it is someone you really, really care about you just feel awful.

You see Jenna, we know you cannot keep your head when your infatuated because you are not. Anybody who is willing to present to the public the appearance you have put on, is not thinking straight.

Basically, I think you are going to have a very tough time if you go through with this. In about six months to a year the high emotions, and excitement will wear off and you will realize that you are the same Jenna as before, who did not want to marry the same TJ as a before, for the same reasons as before. And then you will be very unhappy. 

I really think Jenna, that you should get in your car right now and get out of there. Let someone explain to the guests. These things are much easier to postpone then you think. Having a nice marriage is much more important than a nice wedding. If you could have a month or two away from it all, I think you would be able to put things into perspective and make a good decision from that point on. And maybe you would decide that you wanted to marry TJ after all. Then the two of you would both have the satisfaction of knowing that you got married because from a normal, ordinary point of view, without any oddness, you made a good decision to marry him. Right now you both can't help escaping the fact that you are only getting married because  for a few days you misunderstood (very understandably) what I actually thought when I was talking to you that day in September. If TJ has any sensibility at all that has got to bother him. It would certainly bother me.

Jenna, don't get married just because the church is arranged and you have worked out the nice little details. They don't matter at all compared to some other things. 

Don't get married based on the fact you are what is technically known as "in love". It is much easier to love someone long term who you just really, really like. And that should not be just because he knows how to handle woman. Frankly I think a young man who has to much of a way with the lady's has focused on the wrong things. I think that if you really examine yourself deeply, you will realize that you are getting married on Saturday for two reasons: One is because you are having fun. You are getting your house and wedding and all the things that go with it arranged. You have been dreaming about this for years and it is finally coming to fruition. The second is that you would feel greatly embarrassed to turn back now. I think you got into this particular young man because you felt you didn't have another option. 

None of those things will make for a happy marriage ten years from now if I am right and you are wrong. 

Believe me Jenna, if you delay this thing a few months and TJ is someone you should marry, he will wait for you. I assure you from personal experience a young man will wait as long as is necessary for whatever reason if he cares about you in the right way and believes there is good chance of things coming right in the end. 

The last three months have been most awful ones in my life. I have been doing a lousy job on my work, and haven't had slept very well. And every time I start to get reconciled to the situation I learn something new that convinces me that yes things are just as bad as I think they are. Jenna, it is not easy to lose someone you have wanted to marry for almost five years. But I don't think it would be so bad if you know that they are going to have a good life. It is shear torture when you can see quite clearly that they are not thinking about things correctly and are likely going to be very unhappy. 

I know that this email is going probably going to have very little affect on you. Right now you are trying your best to dismiss me as something unpleasant from your past that you would rather not think about. The only thing I know to do is to keep telling you the plain truth and hoping that you somehow will break all the usual rules and listen sometime before Saturday. I am not very optimistic and am afraid that you are going have to learn the hard way. And it won't be pretty. Because you know, marriage is for life! It is either a life blessing or a life sentence. You definitely don't get into something like that because of some high feelings and a few days of conversation when you were upset. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11 Years Later

I rolled over in bed and looked long and hard at my husband sleeping peacefully. I spent some time gazing at his face, the laugh lines and worry lines smoothed out in slumber, his muscular arm flung carelessly on top of the bedding. My sleeping baby stirred, and reached out her little chubby hand. Finding his arm, she instantly relaxed and settled back again, her beautiful eyes shaded by her long eyelashes. The way she loves her Dada and the way all of my children feel so safe with him, alone is a testimony to what a good man he is. My ex in his email 4 days before my wedding said that I was marrying TJ because I felt I had no other option and in ten years I would be unhappy. I laid there, looking around at the house we bought and the children we had and the life we built together, and deep, abiding, soul tingling, indescribable happiness welled up in me from my toes to my scalp. I felt so unbelievably blessed that I followed my heart, my head, and my instincts almost 12 years ago and didn't listen to the fear mongering and gaslighting from a person who had no real interest in my life. TJ has been the most faithful, loving, strong, and amazing husband in the world--he's perfect, and after 11.5 years of marriage that's saying something. He values me, protects me, loves me, and chooses me every day, and the happiness we have together will carry on into the next life and beyond. He also still encourages me to follow my instincts, and if something smells rotten it's bad and if someone tells me who they are, believe them.

I was such a naive, vulnerable little girl with no real life experience. I grew up unbelievably sheltered with no idea which way was up or how the world works. I know many girls who grew up the way I did and were fully taken advantage of by the men in their lives. I am so thankful for the decision I made, more than a decade ago, to jump the broomstick with the man I loved and build a life together. Thank you, ex-friend, for the window into the past and the extra reflections this week.