I’ve been engaged three times, and none of those experiences were remotely like what you read about in romantic novels or see in Hollywood movies. I don’t know what I expected as a young woman, but it certainly wasn’t any of these three scenarios.
Engagement Scenario #1
My boyfriend was B. (you can read more about him in my June 6, 2010 blog post “A Very Different ‘D Day’ Recollection”). We had been together for about three years and his parents really loved me (and I really loved them). I think they thought I was the right girl to whip B. into shape and give him some motivation and direction in life. No such luck.
B.’s father took him aside and gave him a lovely three quarter carat diamond (that B.’s dad had, set in a nice tie pin). B.’s dad was trying to remove any obstacle to a proposal and a nice engagement ring for me.
B. rather reluctantly showed me the diamond, explained where he got it, and grudgingly admitted we could afford to take it to a jeweler and get it set into a ring. There was no proposal, no romantic fanfare; essentially, it felt like I was engaged to B.’s dad because HE had put more thought and effort into this than his son was capable of.
A couple of weeks later, it was set in a simple, thin band and on my finger. B. looked at it on my hand with the same expression he would have if I’d had a loaded gun pointed at him.
For reasons detailed in my June 6th blog post, that ring shortly wound up off my finger and launched in B.’s direction as I walked out of his aimless, lackluster life. I heard the ring (not even re-set) wound up on the hand of the gal he dated next, knocked up, and later married.
Engagement Scenario #2
This one was really my fault. The entire relationship had red flags that I ignored for six long years. This guy, R., I spotted in 1977 on the campus where we both attended university. It was lust at first sight on my part. I have to admit I wasn’t really interested in what he was like as a person – although he did seem to be very fun and social, was a part-time DJ, and seemed very cool as he drove a white Corvette Stingray. All I saw was his looks, and I thought he was the most gorgeous man I’d ever seen. I w-a-n-t-e-d him.
We crossed paths a bit at the university pub and I was quite tickled when he seemed to take notice of me and called me “Pun’kin” which seemed quite endearing…until I heard him call two other girls the same term within 15 minutes after he addressed me that way. Hmmmm, but I was undeterred.
From late 1977 to 1981 I was otherwise sidetracked by B., who pursued me and I went along for some unknown reason (oh yes, I remember now, he had a wonderful family and fantastic friends – I didn’t want to lose my access to those people).
After I dumped B., I ran off to Maui for a few months and had a great fling there (with a guy who told me I looked like Purdy on “The New Avengers”!), then came home and set my cap for R. He and I did soon get together and started a fun relationship. I even remember after spending one of our first nights together looking at him in the morning and thinking “You’re great, you’re gorgeous, this is really fun, but we’re really not much alike and this is never going to last.” Enter my mother.
I took R. to meet my parents and my mother went totally ga-ga for him. Maybe sexual attraction is genetic? Anyway she had always treated my boyfriends as if they were HER gentleman callers, and pretty much shoved me out of the way and flirted like mad with them (yes, in front of my father).
R. left after this visit with my parents and my mother turned to me with jealous, hateful eyes and in a disdainful tone said “You’ll never be able to land a man like that.” Okay Mom, game ON! I’ll show you. And I spent the next six years trying to “land” him.
R. was very happy to live with me and we had a pretty great time together. I catered to his every wish and whim for 6 years. I really turned up the heat at about the five and half year point and told him if we weren’t officially engaged in the next six months that I would be really unhappy. He agreed that was a reasonable time frame to allow him to do what he wanted to do re: engagement and ring. Six months went by and nothing. I waited and waited. So then I asked. His answer was he wasn’t ready and if I was going to pressure him further he was out of there. I pressured and he left that same night. I was crushed but knew I deserved more and that I’d get over this and move forward.
He walked out in October 1986, but we had plane tickets for a November holiday in Hawaii with my parents. He was back on my doorstep within about two weeks saying he missed me, wanted to try again, and could we go on the Hawaiian vacation and see what happened? I agreed to try.
The holiday went well, all things considered. He was a dedicated windsurfer and was off on the waves most of each day. I lay around the pool with my folks.
One evening after a stroll along Waikiki Beach, R. and I went into one of those ABC corner stores and got (I will never forget this) jelly donuts and chocolate milk. We sat on a park bench and, while I had a mouthful of jelly donut, R. rather dejectedly confessed he wanted me in his life and, if that meant marriage, then he was willing to suck it up and do it for me.
As I chewed and swallowed, I realized what I really felt like doing was laughing in his face and telling him he was a complete schmuck, and this was w-a-y too late and w-a-y too little! Then I also thought about six wasted years with this guy. Did I really want to throw that investment of time and effort away just because his decision to marry me was so pathetically expressed? So, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, let him off the hook, and accepted his wimpy pseudo-proposal.
He then would not give up one day of windsurfing to go ring shopping with me. From my perspective, if I got officially engaged on a Hawaiian vacation, by golly, I was going home with a ring to show for it! And, back then, there were a ton of discount gold and jewelry stores in Waikiki.
I ended up ring shopping with my parents, while R. chased wind and waves. I found a lovely band channel set with 30 tiny diamonds for $400 US dollars – lots of sparkle for not much cost. R. looked as uncomfortable as B. did about seeing a ring on my wedding finger.
R. was cheating on me within 2 years of our wedding and walked out in 1990 (more about this fiasco in a future blog). I wore the ring on my right hand for a few years until the diamonds started falling out of the setting.
Engagement Scenario #3
John and I met and were so in sync and aligned from the first moment. We both knew what we wanted and that was to be together. We’d both been married before, and deeply disappointed and hurt in our first unions. Our level of commitment and expectations matched in every way.
There was never any question that we were going to get married. It was understood at a deep, mutual level and, therefore, unspoken between us in a formal way. There was no need for a proposal – we were destined to be together.
About a two weeks before a Caribbean vacation we had booked, my divorce from R. was finalized. Celebrating over a curry dinner at an Indian restaurant, I said to John “Why don’t we get married and make the holiday our honeymoon?”
He loved the idea and it worked out well because his kids were visiting in a week and could attend the ceremony; then the following week we’d fly off to sun and sand.
All we really had time and money for was to find and buy matching gold bands, which is what we did. So, again, no formal proposal, no presentation of a ring. I don’t fault John for that – it just wasn’t a priority for either of us at that time. We adored each other and that was all that mattered.
But now, 20 years later, in reflecting on my three engagements, I realize I do feel I missed out on experiencing a wonderful, thoughtful proposal and being presented with a beautiful ring.
Over the years I’ve heard many proposal stories that made me think “Sheesh, why not ever me? Why didn’t my life include that? What is about me that never made a guy think to do that?”
I’ll probably never know the answer to those questions. But, if there IS such a thing as reincarnation, dammit, my next life better include a great proposal, and a honking big diamond from a man who has proven he’s worthy of me!
Todo bien. (It’s all good.)
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The next life always holds dreams!
LMAO Lisa! (I apologize, Haralee – I can’t post directly to the blog poster.)
I got proposed to! Jim got halfway drunk doing something with his friends one Saturday and then proposed to me on the way to ….. drum roll please ….. an extremely exciting bowling banquet. Yes, you read that right – a bowling banquet. While he was driving. He stammered, he stuttered, he asked me if I believed he was sober (I lied and said yes because I was curious) and then he finally spit out “So you wanna get married?”
Oh yeah baby, it was really romantic. I couldn’t even hug him while he was driving. No diamond for me, either. I don’t remember when we went shopping for simple white-gold wedding bands, but at some point we did – and then about a month later we had a tiny wedding with less than 20 people there including us and the friends who were our bridesmaid and best man.
And then ten years later, I happened to be in a jewelry store so my future (now ex) daughter-in-law could get her engagement ring sized and I saw this amazing set of rings (ring with small diamond plus both wedding bands)….
Sparkly! Gorgeous! ON SALE for an absolutely amazing price!!! I bought them, went home and told Jim, “Happy Anniversary, you don’t get to wear your wedding band at work, it’s too gorgeous.”
Even our pasts are similar. Cue up the “Twilight Zone” music, please.
(For our 25th anniversary, I got the diamond changed out for a bigger one. We were in a discount place, I saw a sign about diamonds at half price, went “Ooooh” and led Jim over there. LMAO – again, it was so very romantic.)
That’s okay, though – I know I’m loved and I’ll take it. Gladly.
But Duffy, I want to be loved AND get the princess treatment – just ONCE!
Right now, I do have a gorgeous diamond ring – it was my grandmother’s (my evil mom’s mother’s ring) that lived in my mother’s safety deposit box for over 20 years, willed to me the entire time, when I finally got up the nerve to ask my mother to let me wear it before I got liver spots on my hands from old age!
I’ve had this lovely one carat+ stone re-set and surrounded by diamonds from my ill-fated Hawaiian engagement ring so it’s now stunning…and dear John gets all the credit because people assume he chose and gave me this ring! Tee hee.
Sorry, ladies, but we don’t allow men to participate on Vibrant Nation.
[See our Community Guidelines.]
Thanks, Beth. Interestingly – it says “While we understand that men may be curious to see what’s going on at VibrantNation.com (and we welcome their interest), men are not allowed to post comments on the site as members.”
So they’re welcome to join and lurk, reading everything – but they just can’t post comments? If Aussie hadn’t made it clear in his post that he was a man talking about his wife, no-one would ever have known. Not even if he made a thousand comments. Okay then, Aussie – welcome to Vibrant Nation, it was nice chatting with you. Now you have to shut up. Sorry, good friend of Lisa’s!
there was no romance. I said that I would leave to move in with two gal pals in Montreal, so he’d better let me know, if he wants me to stay. He did. Then followed:”Would you like to be the mother of my children?” a short while later. I said:”Legally, yes!” We were both 22 at the time. He felt he needed to go and ask his parents, if he should get married. That should have raised a red flag. I had only met them twice. His mother wanted him to become a Priest. Another red flag should have gone up. His dad was o.k. with everything. Cool guy. They lived in another city, so I thought we’d be alright. He let me pick out the engagement ring and we got married 6 mos. later. We had a daughter 6 years later. Then he decided that we needed to move to his parent’s city, down the street from them and we had a son. And that was the beginning of the end of our marriage. His mother took over our lives. It lasted an incredible 32 years, 17 of which we were just room-mates, and I was one of those women, who stayed for the kids. Regrets? I have a few. He now looks after that 92 year old mother… and I found someone, who treats me right after a few years on my own. I took the diamond out of my old engagement ring, we went to his fave jewelery store and I found a gorgeous ring, that needed a stone. He bought the ring, and I contributed the diamond, which was just being wasted in the jewelery box for years. We celebrated with a lovely dinner and roses, and my daughter came for a visit a week later. Now, of course, everybody wants to know, when we are getting married. The ring was a sign of our commitment to each other. We are both from 2 different countries and I’d lose my pension, if we were to go through all the legal hassles to get married at this late stage in our lives. We are not planning to have babies at 65, so the piece of paper to make our union legal, just does not mean much to us. Neither of us has any financial gains from this, should one us die soon, but with both of us contributing to our retirement living [in his house], it is working out just fine this way. We have each other.