Taking a Second Chance

I hung up on the only man I thought I'd ever love and sat silent for a moment before the sobs started. Engaged? How could he be engaged to someone else? He was engaged to me!

D. was my best friend. When we first met each other it was like seeing an old friend whom you haven't seen in years. We both had that feeling of recognition. Over time, that friendship grew into love. This, I was convinced, was my soul mate. We were fated to be together.

Which made his infidelity after we were engaged all the more devastating. And not just having sex with other women, which happened. But the way he'd flirt with other women, in front of me, then blame me for getting upset. He'd never acted this way when we were just friends. Why do this, of all times, now?

When I finally sorted through my confusion I was left with only one thing. I couldn't trust him. I loved him with all my heart. I always would. I would never love another man, in fact, I was sure of that. But I couldn't marry someone I couldn't trust and he had to understand that.

So we postponed the wedding date while he went away for awhile to think things over. I urged him to go into counseling, and he promised he'd think about it. He asked for space and I agreed to give it to him.

Now this. I'd decided to surprise him with a call, only to have him tell me to never again contact him. He was engaged, to a girl he'd gotten pregnant. And that was that.

It took me five years to get over him. For five years I went on with my life, convinced I'd never love another man, never marry, never have a family. I didn't want those things unless I could have them with D., and that just wasn't going to happen.

And then one day I woke up, and I wanted to try again.

I hated myself for it. How could I be feeling this longing for love, for a relationship, for marriage? Was I crazy? Hadn't I been hurt enough? No way was I going through that again. Besides, what could I get out of marriage that I couldn't get any other way? No. I wasn't doing that to myself. Five years of grieving was enough for one life. No other man was going to have a chance to do that to me.

But I couldn't make that little thread of longing go away. It stayed and it grew. It grew until it was so large that I couldn't help but do something about it.

Hope is a terrible thing when you don't want it.

When I met the husband we both took things gradually. We fell in love with each other very quickly, but neither of us was inclined to trust that feeling. Love was no reason to get married, we agreed. It was, instead, a reason to see if we thought we could make a marriage work.

We took a year to make that decision. In the end, he proposed to me using words we had used often during that year.

"Wouldn't it be nice," he said casually, as we sat on the couch watching a movie, "if we got married?"

"Yes, it would," I said. We'd talked this over many times before after all. We both agreed that we really hoped we would be able to decide we could get married.

There was a long pause before he spoke again, and this time he seemed to carefully shape each word in his mouth before he released it. "That was a proposal."

I sat up quickly, from where I'd been leaning against him. I stared for a moment, then burst out with a "YES!" I decided to say it a few more times, just in case I hadn't been emphatic enough. "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!" I threw my arms around him as I chanted the word and he laughed as he hugged me back.

Not the most romantic proposal in the world, no, but it suited us.

We were married three months later, in a small ceremony that also suited us. Right up to the last moment I was examining myself to make sure that this was the right thing, that I wasn't rushing into another terrible mistake.

And the little voice inside me that wouldn't let me live alone the rest of my life said, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes."

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