TOTW66 – A Risk Worth Taking

Thirty-one years ago at this time of year, I was planning my wedding.  I had just turned 18.  I was working at KFC (back then, it was still called Kentucky Friend Chicken), and I was skipping school, so that I could stay home to visit with my mom.  Every hour of my life that was not spent at work or supposed to be spent at school was spent with Dave, the man I was going to marry.

I didn’t want to get married right after graduation.  I wanted to go to college and start a career.  But Dave wanted me to move in with him after graduation, and I couldn’t hide that.   I couldn’t pretend that I was “saving myself for marriage” while I lived with this man.

I had told him from day one that I wanted to wait until we were married.  He pushed and pressured, and I repeatedly gave a little bit more in the hopes that he would stop pushing.  He never did.  I eventually stopped resisting and felt like a failure until relatively recently.

Our relationship, and thus our marriage, was a parent/child situation.  He controlled pretty much every aspect of my life.  He controlled the money.  He told me which routes I could drive to work.  He scolded me for saying “damn.”

When I finally divorced him, 8 years later, he laid down in front of an oncoming train.  I blamed myself for years.

In the 21 years since his death,  I have had one shitty relationship after another.  I have repeatedly had nightmares that I was married to Dave again.  I’d be cursing myself, “WTF were you thinking?  How did we get back to this?”

I’ve considered marriage three times since my divorce.  In two of the cases, it was the idea of impending marriage that caused me to realize that this is not someone I want to spend my life with.  The third broke my heart at the time, but I later realized it was absolutely the best thing for me.

So…. here I am.  49 years old, and newly engaged.  I can only describe this as the feeling I got when I went to the top of the stratosphere in Las Vegas.  My knees are week, my heart is pounding.  It feels slightly dangerous.  But the view is gorgeous!  This man is generous.  He is loving.  He is easy to talk to.  I think he goes out of his way to make sure I feel loved and appreciated.  And I do feel loved and appreciated.

When I think of being married to him, I think this makes all that other stuff worth the pain and frustration.

In July, we’ll be moving to Reno, NV, so we can be within an hour or two of our friends and family.  From there, I’ll continue to work toward being healthier.  If possible, I want to get back to teaching.  For now, I’m tutoring one day a week at a local middle school and I’m loving it.  According to the teacher, the kids are loving it, too.  This is what I need to be doing.

So, for me, marrying this man is a risk worth taking.