So I am engaged.

I am so happy. I wanted to share the journey and tears of getting here. I didn’t think it would but it has changed the dynamic of my relationship. I feel safe and secure and although it feels so old fashioned to say that, I do.

I feel like our relationship is fresh and new again.

I want this to be an honest blog, a super honest blog. I have been with my partner for 9 years. And after 4 years I did start to wonder if this is going anywhere. Broaching the subject of marriage often resulted in a shut down of communication and frustration on both sides.

Arguments, tears, often fuelled with alcohol (every relationship’s best friend).

He felt pressured- I felt rejected.

Was I not enough?

I talked to my friends and they looked at me with big sad eyes, all of them believed he would propose but the insecurities grew and grew. They offered me advice, from their married lives and the main one that came up was why don’t you give him an ultimatum.

The truth is, I don’t believe in them.

I think that when you are ready to give an ultimatum you have to be brave enough to face him leaving and starting all over and sometimes, I think you already know it is over.

For me I wasn’t ready because we love each other. Real love, where we drive each other crazy, crease each other up with laughter and do a million thoughtful things for each other that no one else would notice.

So instead, I did what any forward thinking modern woman would do and left him drunken voicemails (also a healthy relationship’s best friend) which solved nothing except made me feel ashamed about my feelings and the way I delivered them.

He soon learned to switch off his phone when I went out in case I got emotional about it.

Which makes him sound awful and he is far from it.

We are a really open couple when it come to discussions but marriage was just a conversation he didn’t want to have.

I read threads, threads of women like me, being with their partners for x amount of years and not getting asked the question whilst their friends of a few years were getting instantly engaged. It is soul destroying. I related to everything they said, their reasons why they stayed with them and the reasons why they left them.

Heart breaking, I read these posts in tears that so many of us are just as lost and lonely within the walls of a good relationship. I often thought maybe I should just walk away.

Maybe I should start my life over.

Give up the man that makes me happy and laugh so much and find one that values me enough to want to marry me straight away.

I read a rule where if you don’t get a ring within a year then you should get rid of them.

A year?

Do you know someone after a year? I don’t agree at all.

Marriage is serious, a year is not long enough to know if you can live with someone for the rest of your life. No wonder men and women feel they have so much pressure on them to get married.

So I read these threads and blogs and got stuck in the same rut as these women. Feeling lost and not so alone.

I would feel blue.

Black and blue.

A dark cloud would loiter over my head and then he would do something so small and sweet that it would disappear. Normally a conversation where he would tell me he loved me, that he didn’t want anyone else but he just wasn’t there yet. It would be like our relationship started a fresh again.

I could wait.

He was worth it, we are worth the wait. And although I would be happy for months it turned out that cloud never really disappeared. It sometimes hid behind a big fluffy cloud, but it was always there. The doubt in me, the misery of not feeling good enough.

How can someone I love so much make me so miserable.

Or was it all in head.

My Bestie told me I had to think about what I wanted and was marriage so important.
It turns out to me and for me it was.

Four years into our relationship we started looking for a home, together. He was and always has been committed to me. That was never the issue. He just wasn’t ready for marriage and didn’t want to be bullied into asking me.

I am a modern woman, I am but I still felt that I had to wait for him to ask. I still wanted to get married, maybe not the carriage and big white ball gown of my childhood, but I wanted to be a wife.

His wife.

I am a pretty confident person in life, I know I can accomplish whatever I set my mind to but this was out of my hands.

He felt pressure, and not just from me but from everyone. It was always the first question we would be asked mostly by his friends, rarely by mine. Every night out someone would ask us.

“So, when are you two going to get married?”

First we deflected the, we are not there yet response. Which would normally result in an argument by the end of the night.

Then it was the bored excuse, it’s not something we are focused on at the moment. Then the bitter funny “why are you asking me?” response.

Then I just wanted to shout “WHY ARE YOU ASKING ME?” I don’t have a choice in the matter.

Marrieds can be so tactless.

Every time you asked me it hurt. You are causing me pain and the reason behind this is because you care. I know you do, truthfully, I do. But if they had known how many angry conversations your words started. How many tears those words caused. Would you have asked?

I made a vow to myself that I won’t do that to my friends. I won’t put the pressure of marriage or kids on them because somethings are just between two people. The two in the relationship.

Him and me.

There were times, when I would get my hopes up, every holiday, every evening out. Seychelles, London, France, fancy meals, cocktails just him and me.

A small piece of me was crushed at every engagement announcement. I would have a little cry of self-pity. Then I would stop and feel their love and know that marriage isn’t a question but a relationship.

I already have a marriage of sorts and now I get my wedding day. I get to be his wife.

I can only imagine how frustrating it was for him.

The pressure that he had on him from everyone. How it must have hurt him to see me so upset but not prepared to ask me for the wrong reasons.

He wasn’t ready.

Now he is.

And now we are engaged.

It is probably a bit too deep for a first blog. I wanted it to be honest, personal and maybe a bit of peace of mind for those who have been in my situation.

I don’t want people to read this and think that he was in the wrong. Because when he asked me, it was because he really wanted it.

The good ones are worth the wait, but sometimes they don’t make you wait so long.
Dana