Hi, Carolyn: Two nights ago, my incredible partner of three years asked me if I want to get married. I had been anticipating the question and answered honestly that I would like to have a little while (a few weeks? Maybe longer?) to think/talk it all the way through, which would ideally include some work with a premarital counselor. This is not out of any particular concern or unhappiness with our relationship, but because of the hugeness of the decision. Marriage is (hopefully) for life!
Carolyn Hax: Partner is saddened that his proposal got only a ‘maybe’
My partner is disappointed and saddened that my answer wasn’t, “Of course I would love to!” And now we are having a hard time getting back to normal. I think there is this romanticized idea that when it comes to marriage, one is supposed to “just know” and have no doubts or anything.
Have I screwed up our whole relationship? If I want to take a beat to think about marriage does that truly mean the answer is no?
— Thinking
Thinking: If you screwed up your whole relationship just by being yourself, then you saved yourselves years of pain.
I think the first and most common mistake couples make is to think of each other in terms of marriage, as if marriage is a thing unto itself. As if there is a right way to propose, way to accept, way to feel, way to be, or way to make it work that tells your relationship fortune.
Marriage just legally and/or religiously confirms what is already there. It is only what you and your partner create.
And what you already bring to this relationship of three years is clearly a logic- and process-based way of managing big decisions. Right? This is how you respond to most things, not just the proposal? Let’s think, talk, gather expertise, do it right? (If not — if you’re a romantic and this proposal turned you into an emotional CPA, then, yeah, maybe the answer is no.)
So what I would say to your rocky proposal scene is that it’s merely one version of what you two create together.
Extrapolating from your letter, you’re more methodical, your partner is more magical. That can create a strong, dynamic, respectful pairing where one of you grounds, the other elevates, and you both benefit.
Or it can spiral into a crap cabaret of miscues, lashings-out and manufactured outrages clung to until both of your last breaths.
Kind of up to you. But to stay together happily, you’ll both need the wherewithal and commitment to get through your misfires with your love and energy intact.
I’ll go so far as to say this was the perfect proposal for the two of you, and the perfectly instructive derailment. Your partner needs to be okay with your wanting to nerd it out. That’s your thing. And you need to appreciate your partner’s tendency toward “romanticized” expectations. They’re your partner’s thing.
And you both need to save marriage for when you’re able to anticipate each other better, and not overreact emotionally when your differences show themselves. Even when you’re caught off-guard.
If the proposal hadn’t gone sideways — if you had stepped out of your nature and just said, “Yes!!!” — then you might not have identified this source of potential friction. Be glad you found it, approach your partner, and say, “Hey, this was not an insult, this was me being me — the one you’ve known the last three years. The one you love enough to propose to.”
Perfection is a corrosive myth. A love that can withstand imperfections is worth the “hard time” it takes to find — and the hard walking away when the love you have isn’t it.
Source: WP
