Prelude to Happily Ever After

We were in an elevator, going down, when my husband said to me, "There's no doubt in my mind that I want to spend the rest of my life with you." Those words were still hanging in the air when the door opened and more people joined us on the ride down. Good thing, because I was struck speechless. We were about four months into it, and everything was going like a house on fire. We'd talked in general terms about "the future," but nothing further out than family weddings and summer vacation.

And there it was -- "THE REST OF MY LIFE" -- in one throwaway sentence. There wasn't even a context, we were talking about where to eat when he dropped his little F-bomb. "F" as in forever. My heart started pounding, my stomach started fluttering, there was a ringing in my ears, time stopped for a second. Then I caught my breath, exited the elevator, and walked out on to the street. Neither of us mentioned it again.

A couple months later, I planned a surprise birthday weekend for him. I booked a room at a romantic bed & breakfast in horse country, set up a tour of some special places he'd always wanted to see, and made reservations at the most amazing restaurant in the area. We got up early that Friday morning; I told him to pack a bag for the weekend, and to make sure that he brought a coat and tie. That's all I'd tell him -- he had to trust me and guess the rest.

We set out in the car, with him calling out destinations, eliminating choices with every road I turned down. It was only when I exited the highway that he guessed the basics of what I'd planned. We checked into our B&B and set out to explore the quaint, historical town and surrounding countryside. As we drove around, he started peppering me with hypothetical questions about what I wanted out of our relationship. Some were pretty basic, like did I prefer the mountains to the water. Others were more personal, like what would I do if he got sick and needed constant care. And some were metaphysical, like my views on God, religion, and the afterlife.

Later that evening, as we were dressing for dinner, he said, "The thing I want most out of this relationship is to know that you're as committed to it as I am." We'd been over this topic a hundred times, mostly when he accused me of being a workaholic or suspected that I harbored feelings for ex-boyfriends. I rolled my eyes and told him that if he still had doubts about my commitment, then there wasn't anything else I could possibly do to satisfy him. Ha!

Even with this foreshadowing, I didn't see it coming. But at dinner, between a marvelous steak and a beautiful chocolate pastry, he repeated the same thing he told me in the elevator that morning a couple months earlier: "There's no doubt in my mind that I want to spend the rest of my life with you." The questions, it seems, were his way of going back over the elaborate checklist he'd created after his divorce. There was only one left to answer.

He pulled a little black velvet box from his jacket pocket and set it on the table between us. I stared at it like it was a mirage, afraid to touch it for fear that it would vanish if I got too close. He reached down and opened the box to show a beautiful diamond ring. "Well?" he asked, "Will you marry me?"

I stared. I swallowed a lump in my throat. I forced back tears. The only thing I could think to say was, "Don't do this to me." To this day, I honestly don't know if I meant that I wasn't ready to make this decision; or, as I told him, that I didn't want to cry in public. He told me later that his heart dropped to his stomach -- he never considered that I might say no. So he asked again. And this time, I said, "Yes, of course I'll marry you."

I sometimes wish that I would have gone with my gut and put him off for a while longer. Had I made him wait, I probably would have found out a lot of things about him that would have been devastating, but not fatal. But that ring was just so damn sparkly...


The Wife Who Knows