Pencil Us In

When you get engaged, the first thing everyone asks, after they ogle the ring, is "Have you set a date?" People want to know, so they can start blocking off weekends on their mental calendars. And as we began making our wedding plans, you'd think that a date would be the logical place to start.

Not to my husband.

Sometimes I think he asked me to marry him so he could go jewelry shopping. Seriously, he was jazzed by the drama of the rituals surrounding our engagement -- buying the ring, setting up the perfect romantic situation, popping the question -- but so far from ready to take the next step that it sort of begged the question of why we got engaged in the first place.

Any talk of actually getting married became taboo. He had a host of reasons, some more logical than others, why we shouldn't set a date. The first was logistical. We decided that I would move from the big city to his little town. There were a lot of reasons why this was the more practical choice: his kids, his job, his comfort level... I was willing to make the change, even though it meant walking away from my beloved career when I was at the top of my game.

I first noticed a real difference in his attitude when I began a job search in his area. Every constructive step I took to move this ball forward, caused him to pull back a little further. It mystified him that I could be ecstatic about the prospect of moving to be with him full time, and sad about all the things I was leaving at the same time. He often worried aloud that I wouldn't be happy in his town if the only reason I was moving was him. Point well taken, but I never would have considered this move if he hadn't been waiting for me at the other end.

Instead of help and support, he would send me want ads for positions he knew I would never consider -- support staff at the local utility company or insurance sales, for example -- and then accuse me of not wanting to make the move when I wouldn't send a resume. It was his way of making it my fault that we couldn't set a date.

Eventually I found a position that I could stomach. Though it meant changing career paths, taking a pay cut, and stepping off the fast track, I reasoned that there would be other things in my new life that would more than make up for the lack of job satisfaction. As I made plans to move, he became even more uncooperative about a wedding date.

At one point, he told me that when I moved to the little town, I should plan to get my own place because he wasn't ready to live with me. That position was short-lived: I told him I would not uproot myself just to date him. If we were going to live apart, I would just as soon stay in the big city. He backed down. But he still wouldn't set a date.

Every time I brought up the subject, he accused me of being more interested in the whole process of getting married than in the life that we would build together. What a laugh -- I wanted to elope, but he was the one who insisted on a ceremony. I budgeted $3,000 for the whole thing, and made a concerted effort to avoid bridal magazines, wedding planners, and the helpful suggestions of friends who'd gone down the aisle before me. The ritual was the least of it.

So I stopped talking about it. I stopped making plans. I stopped wearing my ring. Too bad I didn't stop quitting my job and packing up that moving van. It would have saved me so much grief.

The Wife Who Knows