An unlikely betrothal

If you’ve ever watched any of the older cartoons and seen when their eyes pop out of their heads in surprise, then you can pretty much picture my parents’ faces when I told them I wanted to get married. I was 19, and they knew it was a bad choice. But they also knew from the other events of that year that I would do it without them if they said no. 

I’m not sure if I imagined the twitching or if they were holding so much in that it was a reality, but the “twitching” began when I told them that I wanted to get married a mere 3 months later. When my brother proposed to his girlfriend and decided to get married 5 weeks after me, I’m not sure how they held it together. But somehow they managed, and we did some rush planning to get the wedding underway. 

Those controlling emotions I was feeling grew even stronger through all of this. I can remember telling people that I would seriously consider suicide if Anthony ever died, and at the time, I didn’t see how that was worrisome. For all of the good in our relationship, there was an equal amount of bad. There was one specific night I remember about two weeks before the wedding when we had a nasty fight- I’m not even sure what it was about- but I sat with my roommate and another good friend that night while they told me I didn’t HAVE to marry him. I was resolved in my mind, and afraid to admit I could be wrong. After all, I did love him. And what about all the money my parents had spent? It should have been another clue a week later when I had to make him tell his own dad that we were getting married. But when they say love is blind, it’s not an exaggeration. 

The week before the wedding, he went out and bought his first motorcycle, and then our first house...both without consulting me first. For a girl who had always been outspoken, I surprisingly had nothing to say about either. I was excited about the bike, I loved riding on the back. The house was less than desirable, but it got us our own place. He had still lived with his dad until then, so in my eyes it was an upgrade, even though I had no choice in the matter. We were still married a week later. 

Within our first month of marriage, he decided we saw each other too often, and needed breathing room, so weekends were spent with our separate groups of friends. Through his new riding hobby he met a whole new group of friends. I met them, but he would party with them while I was at work at night, fall asleep on the couch, and end up sleeping there all night. He could sleep through a category 4 hurricane, (no joke, he slept through Ivan) so his phone did not wake him. And for the first 3 months, I had no idea where the guy who held the parties lived. I would spend hours wondering where he was and if he was even alive. Cue my major insecurities. About this point was when I started calling him any time I’d been gone and was headed home. I didn’t actually want to know if he was cheating, though I suspected it the whole marriage. So, I would give him fair warning and time to get anyone out of the house. 

We made it through almost the first two years of marriage without any major incidents, minus a motorcycle wreck that left him with a broken collarbone. Relationally, we kept on good faces and played the game well. At least until, New Year’s Eve 2006, when we were drinking with friends and the wife of his now best friend decided to tell me after several drinks that he didn’t want to be with me. 

There wasn’t enough tequila in the house that night.