Don’t Treat Me Like Your Married Friend

April 24, 2012 at 7:35 am | Posted in Friends Then and Now, Relationship Woes | Leave a comment
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Ever since I got an engaged, I have seen a change in the way people interact with me.  It’s almost as if I’m playing some sport and I just got traded to the other team — the “serious couples” team, the “married” team.  Typically, I try to be very sensitive to the “other” side — the single side, because I know a lot of people are not there by choice, and societal pressures to “settle down” can be overwhelming.

But today I need to stick my neck out for all the engaged folk who are not “settling” or “settling down.”  Just because I’m getting married doesn’t mean I don’t want to go out and have fun.  I may be wearing a ring, but don’t brand me as boring.  I still want to drink, dance, sing, party.  I still want to be your wingwoman and help you get your game on.  I can still listen to your dating stories and talk about hot guys.

I may have found my partner, but I’m not ready to settle into a life of dinner parties with other married couples.  I’m not about to buy a house and start a family — not yet.  It may seem that I have my shit together, and in some respects I do more so than others, but I still have things that I want to do, and that includes hanging out with you.

I still want to do girls nights out.  I still want to be considered one of the guys.  I don’t want to sit around talking about wedding planning.  I want to shoot the shit, talk about the crazy things we do and did, what’s on tv and in the movies, what’s going on in the world.  I want to tease you and let you break my balls.  I want to be there for you when things are good and things are bad.

I want to be your friend — not your “married” friend who doesn’t go out anymore.  I don’t want my pending nuptials to wedge a block between us.  Sometimes, we are going to be going through different things at different times.  We might be on different pages but what made us friends still remains.

So don’t treat me like your married friend, and I won’t treat you like my single friend. Relationship status is not a disease.  You are you and I am me.

When Your Ex Gets Married

November 10, 2011 at 7:36 am | Posted in Relationship Woes | Leave a comment
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It’s not all flowers and smiles when you get engaged.  There are some people, even people who are close to you, who are not going to be happy for you.  It’s a sad truth, but a truth it is.  Perhaps your girlfriend wants to be happy for you, but she so badly wants what you have that she can’t get passed it, or maybe you have a family member that doesn’t like your future spouse, or maybe you have an ex that, even if he/she knows its over, cannot be happy for you, or maybe there’s someone out there that wishes you weren’t “off the market.”

But you can’t control people’s reactions to the news.  It is your choice as to how to handle these responses, and it’s your choice to brag about it as little or as much as you want.

But it does make you wonder about that one person who meant so much to you at one time.  The one that, if things had gone differently, you may have ended up with.  It wasn’t easy, but eventually you ended on good terms with that partner, and you each went your separate ways knowing that it wasn’t meant to be.  You don’t really talk anymore, aren’t even friends on Facebook.  Why would you want to know everything about your ex?  But then you wonder, does he know that your engaged?  Does he know that not only have you moved on, but you have met the person who you plan to spend the rest of your life with?  Does he need to know? Should you tell him?

At this point in my life, I have seen a few of my exes go on and get married, but the one, the most serious one, I don’t know what he’s up to.  I assume that he has moved on as it has been so long and I have chosen to leave the rest of those questions unanswered at this point.  But I am at the point where, even though I may be curious, I would be happy for him either way, and I hope that he would be happy for me.

To borrow some content from my friend over at White Girl in Black Face,

Clicking is cool,
reading is rad.
Comments are classy, and
sharing is caring.

I Still Do

June 28, 2011 at 7:30 am | Posted in Relationship Woes | 5 Comments
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Last week, I poked my head into a colleague’s office — a man who I knew was on vacation when I made my engagement announcement to my company and I knew he’d be happy to hear the news. I also knew he would join the ranks of those giving me advice, and his advice would be truly genuine and meaningful because it would be more about my pending marriage rather than my wedding.  If this man could speak with every couple in the world that was considering divorce, he would singlehandedly reduce the divorce rate significantly.  I know I won’t be able to repeat word for word what he said to me but I wanted to share a few things that really stuck with me.

He told me that the person you marry today will not be the same person in 10 years, 20 years, or 30 years, and I won’t be the same woman either.  We will experience things that will change our lives and change who we are.  We will be broken down and built back up.  Our relationship will change. Our priorities will change.  We will make decisions we never imagined we would make, or have to make.  The beauty of marriage is being able to grow together, to change together, to accept the changes, and support each other through the good times and the bad.

He said that he mourns the end of his friends’ relationships.  Happily married for 20 plus years, he can’t imagine throwing all of that time away.  You can’t celebrate your children’s accomplishments together, or your grand children’s.  You give up having someone to share your life and memories with, the one you built so much with.

I’ve heard him talk about his wife and relationships many times, and it’s amazing to see how much he still loves her.  It’s incredibly admirable and something to look up to.  He told me about his wedding day, how they really made it their own.  How he sang a duet with his professional opera singing wife even though he has no singing talent at all and how he replays that moment in his mind all the time.  He told me the officiate of the ceremony was a very wordy man.  When the officiate spoke he waited patiently and nervously for the moment to say “I do,” and how he spoke too soon.  The officiate wasn’t done with his shpeal yet so he was going to have to say it again.  When the officiate was really done he said “I still do.”

I still do.  He and his wife had that saying engraved on their rings.

10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years, I want to say I still will.

I still will.

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