And Just Like That, It Suddenly All Became Real....

WARNING! THE FOLLOWING POST IS A TOTAL MUSH-FEST SO PLEASE FEEL FREE TO SKIP OVER, OR AVOID ALTOGEHTER! IN IT I WILL BE GUSHING SHAMELESSLY ABOUT MY BOYFRIEND AND HOW AWESOME HE IS. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!

Well, I know I've mentioned it on this blog once or twice before, but for those of you stumbling upon my bilge-fest for the very first time, I am engaged to be married to the most awesome guy on the planet - as of my birthday, earlier on this year. I hadn't ever believed that he would have been up for the idea, as he's already been divorced once and having been burned, has always proclaimed that he'd tried it once – never again. Myself, well I'd always gone through life assuming that I would never get married. Partly because of the self-esteem issues that wouldn't allow me to believe that anyone would ever want to, but secondly also because I'd never felt anything 'real' or 'special' or 'right' about any of the relationships I'd found myself in.

The fact that I knew without a doubt that I was never going to have children also kind of fed into the notion that I would remain a spinster all my life. I'm pretty old fashioned in some ways - despite being very liberal and forward thinking in others - so in my mind I would never consider having a child outside of marriage. That's just the way I feel about my own standards and situation. Getting back to the marriage thing though, it just never appeared to be 'in the cards' for me. And I'd accepted that; was happy with that even. But then I'd never met a guy like my current fiancé before and I'd never experienced the kind of relationship that we have right now.

My other half, blew me away the night I first met him. I can honestly say I fell for him, the moment I'd laid eyes on him and that is SO not like me! I'm an incredibly down to earth and pragmatic kind of person who never before believed in any 'love at first sight' tales that other people had shared with me. I didn't believe in symbols or signs (of which there were three on that first night of meeting him, that pointed to him being my perfect match and destined to be in my life and future) and I didn't believe in 'soul-mates' either. But then he turned up and made me question all my own philosophies about love and relationships. 

I had however come out of a very bad long-term relationship with my toxic ex-boyfriend, about six months previously and I was in no way looking for a boyfriend when I met my current fiancé. I had been hurt too much....far too badly burned and let down to ever believe that I would be able to entrust my heart to another man ever again. I didn't think I would ever be able to trust another man. I knew that the repeated cheating of my ex would always have me doubting, worrying and being paranoid that I was again being cheated on. I couldn't imagine allowing myself to be vulnerable in the presence of another man after I was so emotionally scarred by my ex. In short, I was not looking for anyone to come into my life. 

Funnily enough, neither was he. He was sort of dating a couple of women on a very casual 'no-strings' basis because he didn't believe that he had anything left inside to give to a relationship. He was still hurting from when his wife had cheated on him, plus he had also had to deal with a full-blown psycho of an ex-girlfriend who was so paranoid (after having suffered abuse as a child) she used to follow him to work, spy on him when he went to the shops and come home suddenly in an attempt to catch him off guard and up to no good. He thought women were all fucked up harridans (and to be fair, for the most part, he's actually right! There's a reason why I don't have many female friends.)

A spark of chemistry went off between us that very first night, when I invited him to come back and stay at my apartment (on the sofa of course!!) rather than fork out a fortune on taxi fares. We sat up all that night until the early hours of Sunday morning, when I finally tucked him in on the sofa and turned in to sleep. I couldn't believe the conversation we'd had; it was incredibly personal, deeply revealing, intense, wide ranging, intelligent, goofy, honest and above all, fun. There's that episode of 'Friends' where Joey sits up talking to a girl all night and when he comes home the following morning to tell Monica and Rachel, they tell him that he's just experienced 'the night', i.e. that one night when you find yourself opening up to the person you've been seeing and connecting on a different level. We had 'the night' on the first day we met. 

I couldn't believe how much we had in common, from our political views, our educational history and our interests, to our taste in music, food and film. Turned out we both also loved Peanut Butter And Marmite Sandwiches too (which was one of the 'signs' I took to show that we were meant to be together!) which made me laugh. It was one of the best evenings of my life as I found myself instantly falling for this guy I had only just met. Everything he told me about himself just made me like him more. I loved that he was a little bit of a 'bad boy' massively into motorbikes, but also a bit of an old fashioned gentleman who believes in honesty, integrity and mutual respect in a relationship. He loves to cook (and I of course very much like to eat – mores the problem!) didn't want any children (I've never wanted to have any brats), was a bit of a science nerd (nerds are actually quite sexy....well, they are when they ride fast bikes and look super cute!) and has the most beautiful, intense, big, brown eyes that I couldn't stop looking at! 

Looks-wise, he was everything I find attractive in a guy. Tall (6ft 2in), athletic looking (that perfect upside-down triangle shaped torso, with broad shoulders, well defined arms, a flat stomach and a trim waist with that hot girdle muscle....he'd been in the pool at the party we met at so I got to see all the goods first time I met him!!), dark haired, smoking hot dark eyes and that perfect designer stubble look that makes him look effortlessly cute.....Yum! Now I'm by no means a shallow person, but I can always appreciate it when a wonderful person with an amazing personality, also comes with a very attractive exterior, making them the total package. And this guy was just that.

Great, silly, sick and surreal sense of humour? Check! Just the right mixture of right-wing sentiments with left-wing sensibilities? Check! Dress code casual, bordering on the scruffy/cool side? Check! Perfect balance of self-confidence and humility? Check! Easy to talk to and easy to listen to? Check! Intelligent and knowledgeable whilst never appearing like an arrogant know-it-all? Check! Cynical, sceptical atheist? Check! Ability to just totally blow me away the minute I laid eyes on him? Check!

Yup, as you can see I was just totally smitten with him from the get-go. That following afternoon when awoke, I found that he'd made me a cup of coffee and placed it just around the corner of my bedroom door, which I thought was really sweet. We sat chatting for another couple of hours before he had to head off and catch his lift home. I knew that this guy was something special and that I couldn't just let him walk out of my apartment and out of my life, not knowing if we'd ever cross paths again. We'd met somewhere that he'd never been before, was only there because he was the plus-one of his mate who was invited because he worked with the daughter of the couple throwing the party we were at. It was highly unlikely that he'd be there again anytime soon. So being way more forward that I ever am normally, I offered to give him my phone number so that we could meet up again and go for a drink sometime. My heart was literally beating in my throat as I waited for him to respond. I thought he might just try to brush me off, not wanting to have to make any future excuses for not wanting to meet up with this fat ugly lump. 

But to my utter surprise he was really eager to swap numbers, which we did, shortly before he left. When he closed the apartment door behind him, I sank back on the couch with the whole 'butterflies in the stomach' thing making me giddy. I totally fancied this guy. I was kind of surprised at myself for having even had any thoughts of wanting to be with another guy, since my negative experience with my ex had made me want to swear off men indefinitely. But it was there. After just one evening/night/morning of chatting, I just felt that there was such a connection. And....it turned out, he felt the same way. We texted each other for a couple of weeks, getting more and more chatty and flirtatious every day. We were texting from morning till evening, spending a fortune topping up the credit on our phones just to text one another until the day finally came for him to ask me to come out for a drink with me. Gulp.

Omigod! Omigod! Omigod! I was so floored, even though I'd been longing for this for the whole fortnight. I immediately started to worry about whether he remembered just how ugly I was, or if he'd had too much to drink that night. What if when we met up, he actually threw up in his mouth a little as he realised just how much of a munter I really was? I was in such a panic as I got ready to meet him that evening after work. It was a Friday and I remember getting changed in the office bathroom and doing my make-up at my desk, the whole time thinking I could just drop him a text and tell him I'd changed my mind. But I couldn't do that. Not only was I excited at the prospect of going to meet him again, but he'd had to get a lift to bring him into town from where he lived about 15 miles away. I just had to bite the bullet and go with it. 

When I walked in to the place we were supposed to meet up, I entered through the back door, glanced around the place and not seeing him, strode as determinedly as I could through the back bar, on through the front bar and out the front door to the smoking area, so as not to let on to anyone in there that I'd been stood up. As soon as I got outside, I lit up a cigarette and started chastising myself for actually believing that he'd show up. Of course he knew how ugly I was; naturally he remembered how fat my thighs were and had just decided to dodge a bullet and not show up. As I stood there puffing away like a proper nicotine addict, I hopefully checked my phone in case there was a message telling me that he'd been held up or something. But there wasn't anything. I ummed and ahhed about texting him myself to see where he was. I didn't want to sound desperate or anything, but I wanted to know for sure that he wasn't coming so I could make my way home via the pizza parlour, to drown my sorrows on my living room floor in a carbohydrate haze. I was just about to type a light hearted message saying I was just heading down to the place we were supposed to be meeting, to give him the chance to tell me the score when I felt someone tap me on my shoulder 

“Don't suppose I could borrow your lighter could I?” 

Not really paying attention to this fellow smoker, I rummaged around my bag (which like all women's bags is constantly full of shit) to try and find the same lighter I'd literally just used myself, only for the person to say 

“You don't recognise me, do you?”

Say what? I looked up and fuck me, it was him. Only he looked really different to the last time I'd seen him. He'd changed his hair from a longer style, to a short crew cut, which if anything made him look even cuter than he had, the night I'd met him. He'd been in the bar when I strode in looking like I had 'much more important things to be doing than hanging around a bar' – his words, not mine – and when he saw me leave without having so much as glanced his way, realised what was going on and quickly followed me out. I felt like a total dick. But then I'm really bad at seeing anything more than a metre away from myself. I'm supposed to wear glasses, but just don't need anything else to add to my grotesque fat face.) He did look different though. So I was forgiven for marching past him in the bar and not recognising who he was.

That night was fantastic. Just like the first night we'd met. We got on like a house on fire and were chatting away constantly, as well as meeting up with some other friends of mine who just sort of accepted us like an already established couple. He asked me if he could hold my hand on the way home that night which I thought was really sweet, so naturally I accepted. For the next four weeks, we sort of met up regularly on a 'friendly' basis. We hadn't slept together – hell we hadn't even kissed. We had some mad party-drug-binge-nights where we just got totally fucked up together, then he befriended my housemate who helped him get a job with the building firm he worked for, so I started to make him little packed lunches to take to work with him and told him to come round to the flat after work for a proper decent hot dinner. He was at my house more than he was at his own place and had even started sleeping in my bed – on a purely platonic, no-touching kind of way.

But after four weeks of ridiculous chemistry, flirting and sexual tension, we just gave up on the whole notion that we were 'just friends' and ended up jumping each other's bones!! From that day on we were officially a couple and that date became our couples 'going out together anniversary'. The fact that he was sleeping at my house every night and hated having to make the long bus journey back to his place to get clothes or shoes or music. It was totally pointless him paying rent at that place when he was never there. So after a month of us having been together as a couple, I moved him in – going against all the principles we both held about not rushing into things in any relationship that we wanted to succeed. Yes we were being total hypocrites, but it didn't feel too soon at all. We'd already dropped the L-bomb – him a week before me, but then I DID want to make sure I meant it before I said it – and we were technically living together anyway. It just seemed to make so much more sense. 

He saved money on rent by moving in with me and my housemate and only having to pay a share rather than the whole rent amount he was paying on his own separate apartment. Even when the housemate moved out to move in with his own girlfriend, it was still cheaper to be paying half the rent. Then there was all the money spent on getting between properties and work etc. But of course, the main reason was that we just knew that we were meant to be together and wanted to spend as much time together as possible. And that included being able to just wake up and go to sleep next to each other. 

I know a lot of people thought that it was an incredibly rushed whirlwind of a relationship, with him moving in just way too soon. But he's been here ever since and we've never once regretted the speed at which we moved in together. He's been here just over five years now and I cannot believe how quickly time has passed. I remember our first year anniversary, our second year anniversary, but then all of a sudden it was five years together!! We've been incredibly lucky in those five years. Yes, we've gone through quite a few crises and issues external to our relationship that have put pressures on us both, but our actual relationship has actually grown stronger, the more time we've spent together and the harder life has tried to make things for us. In one way I'm amazed that this utterly awesome guy would have looked twice at me in the first place, never mind be with me for five whole years; but in another way I'm not surprised because of the strange premonition I had the second I laid eyes on him, which flashed a weird cinema reel of future footage of me and this guy living happily ever after, past my eyes, before I'd so much as said two words to him!

I do not take for granted one iota, the fact that he chooses to be with me every day. I'm grateful for every day he chooses to be in my life. But over the past year or so, I'd started to think about the one thing I never thought I'd long for with a guy.....Marriage! I'd gone through life assuming that I remain single but it suddenly started to make sense to me: that idea of wanting to make a solemn, legally binding, vow of devotion to my other half. Wanting to be 'officially' bound together, written down in the annuls of time as 'man and wife', even me taking his second name so we became even more of a recognisable unit of solidarity, commitment and love. I was almost ashamed with myself for becoming so fucking soppy in my old age, but it just slowly became more and more important to me, to not only share the rest of my life with my boyfriend, but become joined to him in marriage, bound together forever, till death do us part. I'd never felt this way about a man before, but then I'd never been with someone anything like my other half before either. He really caused me to re-evaluate my perception of relationships, marriage and all that it entailed.

But like I said, as I was starting to have all these feelings about wanting to get married, I wasn't remotely confident that he felt the same way as he would always remark to those who asked if he'd been married before: “Yeah, tried it once, never again!” But I couldn't let myself go on feeling this way, not knowing if it would ever be a potential possibility in our future. My racing thoughts all came to a halt on my birthday, earlier on this year. As usual, every year on my birthday I look at where I am with my life and have all the usual regrets for not having achieved anything great with my life so far. I usually hate my birthday. Another twelve months have passed and in that time, so little has changed or improved work-wise/ambition-wise. I turned 33 this year and because that's like, just under a third of 100, it felt really significant, because assuming I make it to 100 (which for some reason, I'm pretty sure I will) I have now used up a whole third of my time here on this earth and I haven't achieved any of the things that I really want to accomplish during my lifetime. 

This feeling of inertia, of not making any changes for the better, kind of spurred me on to have enough bravery to bring up the topic of marriage with my other half, on the evening of my birthday. I can't remember the last time I've ever felt so scared or worried about the outcome of a conversation. What I was expecting, was that himself would agree that he did want us to spend the rest of our lives together, but that he just didn't want to get involved with the whole wedding thing, after his first failed marriage, due to his first wife being a cheating slag! But despite my thinking I knew how the conversation was going to pan out, I went ahead and told him that I had something important to discuss with him. Something that was really important to tell him, but might actually end up putting him off being with me altogether! He started to look really uncomfortable which wasn't a great start, so I just kind of blurted out that I was really sorry to suddenly be changing the goalposts, but despite having previously told him that I wasn't interested in getting married, I'd slowly over the past year realised just how much I did actually want to marry him and become his wife.

GULP! There it was. I'd put it out there for him to hear and feel terrified by.....I was just waiting for him to go 'WOAH!' and tell me in no uncertain terms that he was flattered, but no, it just wasn't going to happen....when instead, he just gave this massive sigh of relief and started laughing. “Oh, god I thought you were going to tell me something awful like you'd cheated or didn't love me anymore or that you wanted to take a break or something!” He was actually' laughing, partly in how ridiculous his presumption had been, but partly out of relief. Apparently, the way I'd gone about telling him that I had something to talk about, had sounded so ominous and sinister, he really was expecting the worst. But when he found out that I was thinking about us getting married, he said he really wanted to do it too and was going to get around to formally asking me himself, in the near future. 

PHEW!!!

I don't think that I have ever felt such an intense sense of relief, followed by such an incredible sense of euphoria before in my life – nor am I likely to again! It hit me! He'd told me he wanted to get married! He wanted to marry me! AAAARRRRRGGHH!!! I was bubbling up with giddiness and a stupid girlish kind of happiness. I'd been worrying about this for about a year, worried about how to broach the subject with my boyfriend and worried about what I thought was going to be his inevitable refusal. But all that worrying had been for nothing. This was something he'd been thinking about himself recently, what with us having been together so happily, for so long. I'd changed his mind about wanting to give marriage another chance because he knew that I would never be anything like his ex-wife. We sat and chatted about it for about another hour, with the overall outcome being that we became officially engaged to be married, with a specific date in mind for our actual wedding: we wanted to get married, seven years to the day that we officially became a couple!

We've now been engaged for a few months and it's a complete secret from everyone else. I can talk about it on here because no one knows who I am in real life here. This is somewhere that I can be completely honest, without worrying that people will discover all my problems, issues or secrets in the real world. The anonymity allows me to be as free as I wish when talking about stuff. And that's great because I partly want to scream it from every rooftop, that me & he are engaged to be married. But I can't because it's really important to me that no one knows about this engagement or marriage. I absolutely HATE weddings and cannot bear the thought of lots of people looking on as I make incredibly personal vows of love, commitment and devotion to the man I love. That is a private thing for me. I don't want to have people staring at me as me and himself take this step into the rest of our lives. I just want us to have this day, signifying the beginning of the rest of our lives together, for us and us alone.

He agrees. We don't want either of our families to know about the wedding beforehand, because ultimately everyone will want a say in it, there will all the usual bollocks of pomp and circumstance that you have at every other pathetically predictable boring annoying wedding. We're not doing all of that. We're going to run away to Gretna Green in Scotland, which is a famous location for eloping couples, who would traditionally run away to get married there at the Blacksmith's shop over the famous anvil, away from the prying eyes or permissions of family members. 

I love the idea of running off to our secret wedding. I love that right now I can call him my secret fiancé when I send him text messages. Your wedding day is supposed to be everything you want, done perfectly so that you are completely happy with every decision and remember it for the right reason for the rest of your lives. And the whole 'dress like a meringue for a long day of shit mass produced food, long, boring, unfunny speeches and a crap disco' thing does not appeal to either of us. 

If our families got involved they would insist on paying a fortune to have huge big, excessive affairs – no expenses spared. And that is so not us. I've probably said it before, but to us the concept of 'being married' is much more important that the notion of 'getting married' which seems to be the main focus of the majority of shallow women who get married these days. Urgh! No, we're going to take the train up to Gretna Green, where we will spend the night in their beautiful hotel, have a quickie civil ceremony the next day, go for a nice meal directly afterwards in one of the nice little restaurants in the area and then spend another night in the hotel before going off on our honeymoon, which will hopefully involve a week in Amsterdam.

This has all been discussed and chatted about numerous times before, but just a few days ago I sent the inquiry email to the wedding organizers at Gretna Green and provisionally booked our chosen date to get married!! I can't believe it! This shit is really happening! I mean, I always knew it was going to happen, ever since we had that initial conversation where it turned out we both wanted to marry each other, but THIS was making things official. We have actually planned the date, planned the day and provisionally booked it. I just need to forward them a payment to cover the deposit and it's officially 'our big day'! How insane is that? It really is happening!!

On top of that, we also picked out our wedding rings that we want too. We both really wanted titanium as it's a much more durable metal (symbolic hopefully of the durability of the relationship!) as well as being a lovely dark, shiny shade of gun-metal grey. I also want to get an engagement ring that will be made from titanium, with a solitaire diamond in it, so that the two ring bands sit next to each other, matching perfectly. I hunted around for a bit and found the perfect rings, which tonight we both decided were going to be 'the' rings. 

Again, this was something else that made it all just feel so much more real, tangible and definitely going to happen. This isn't just a daydream or a fairytale anymore....this is actually going to take place. We are going to get married. I am going to be his wife. 

I am unbelievably excited!

I am looking forward to being able to call this man my husband; to being introduced to other people as his wife. I can't wait to change my name and signature, so that we both have the same name. I am incredibly proud to be taking this man's name. There's nothing wrong with my current surname – I actually quite like it and have always thought it went perfectly with my first name – but I'm going to be Mrs _______________, married to Mr _______________ in less than two years! I really want to show him what it's like when you actually get it right. When you're married to someone you can love and trust and never have to worry about what they're up to. I want to be the best wife I can so he is glad that he made the decision to get hitched for the second time. 

Obviously, part of my being the perfect wife is making myself as physically perfect as possible for him. I've been floundering a little bit this past week, because I've been so happy. I know that sounds dumb, but with all the talk of our secret engagement and impending nuptials, I've allowed myself to eat really badly on about three or four days this past fortnight. But I know more than most that happiness in a relationship can be just as damaging as feeling miserable. You can binge eat out of depression in a bad relationship, but when you're in a good one and your other half is a real foodie who loves to cook nice - but naughty - meals for you, it can also have an effect on your waistline and weight. The binges I've had lately have been because of that euphoric feeling I've just had running through my veins; that sudden 'Oh shit!' sensation I've had creep up on me when I've been busy doing something else, that suddenly remind me that the wheels for this marriage have now been set in motion and it's really gonna happen!

I need to start thinking more sensibly though, because I cannot have himself looking upon me now as the best it's gonna get. I need to show him that I can be the better Thindarella Version 2.0 that he deserves to have on his arm. I need to get all the other stuff along with weight loss, like a boob job and a bit of botox done, before he has to commit to spending the rest of his life with me. I know I can do it if I put my mind to it – I've seen plenty of success so far when I've been taking it seriously, so it's time to get back on the wagon properly and continue to restrict until I get to the size I need to be in order to happy with the way I look on my husband-to-be's arm. 

So, with that in mind, I'm off to have a cup of black coffee and a cigarette. I'm really sorry to have bored y'all with this total mush-fest of a post, but I've just been feeling so overwhelmed with the whole wedding thing really happening, that I needed an outlet to vent from. This is the only place I can speak freely about it, whilst remaining anonymous, so I'm sorry if I've made you all vomit with my soppy, sentimental drivel. What can I say? I'm a real happy girl to have this guy in my life at all, so to have him tell me he wants to marry me, just about sent me flying 100ft into the air with excitement and euphoria. I'll try not to be such a mushy-mare, going forward, but there will of course be the odd occasional mention of the upcoming day as it gets closer and closer, but I just needed to use this post to get all the giddiness out of my system.

Ok. We shall now return to normal services.

Thanks for listening.

xx