A Not Very Long Engagement

Some of you more observant lot may remember that for a short while between April and May I wrote a few pieces for this website about the whole getting married thing. I generally griped about organisation issues and venue finding and once it was accompanied by a lovely picture of a tiger. Then I rather abruptly stopped. The reason for this? Well the engagement sadly ended rather quickly and became the single life again.

I should point out before I go any further that I am ok about this now, several months down the line, even though it felt like it was and still is to an extent a worse mess than the BP oil spill, albeit much less slick.

I was an emotional wreck for a while and would have considered nothing worse than writing up about it, but I was asked very nicely by the lovely editor of this website if I could knock some words up about what happened as couples breaking-up during engagement or even marriage is a lot more common than you think.

So here we go, and I should point out that while this isn’t the easiest thing to type, its still a damn sight less complicated than my essay at university on Greek theatre, and not least because I still struggle with spelling Agamemnon and then insisting he was the ancient Greek Eminem.

What happened I hear you ask? Well, thanks for asking, but I won’t delve into the to’s and fro’s too deeply as it’s a tad personal, but I will say that after nearly seven years of a relationship, it was sealing the deal with the engagement that made my girlfriend suddenly not sure if she wanted to spend the whole rest of her life with me. It does that, an engagement.

Whereas before you could live in this rather hazy mid-ground of boyfriend and girlfriend town seemingly forever, that ‘yes’ propels things into ‘rest of your mortal life’ territory and suddenly that can be terrifying. We had both thought engagement would be the natural next step but if anything, it was a step downstairs and someone had left an inappropriately-placed skateboard on said step.

The mad rush to plan weddings so quickly and the stress of sorting things out made it evident to my fiancée that she had been so busy thinking about all of that, she’d ignored the bigger problem of not being happy with us.

I will say that its better this all happened when it did, rather than after a marriage or even after kids. Engagement is the last bit of your ‘easy get out’ clause before things get difficult.

If there are problems that can’t be solved it’s better to escape them early on rather than plough through a life of misery like very sad farmer.

While there are still many things to sort out between us, it’s all been hugely amicable and I can’t help but feel it would have been ten times worse were there a divorce to deal with as well, or small people to get custody of. Though I would really like all my CDs back soon.

I understand that from a reader’s point of view this probably seems a tad whimsical for something that really wasn’t, but part of the reason for me writing this was to say if this has or does happen to you (and I hope it doesn’t) then it does end up ok.

It’s taken me a while, but I’ve realised that while I didn’t want things to end, it did and life very much has to move on. Yes, why don’t I just call the cliché police now and be done with it, but seriously it’s the best thing I can advise. Nearly seven years of your life is a long time and you can’t just get over that in a week, unless you are some sort of lizard person (eg George Osbourne).

My friends and family have been hugely supportive and I suppose I’m lucky in that work is very busy with the Edinburgh festival keeping me focussed till September. Not only that but I’m able to write about the whole thing which is a rather cathartic process. My current favourite gag is pointing out that when girlfriends become ex-girlfriends, it’s no way as cool as when normal people become X-Men. You can have that one for free.

So all you can do is focus on the positives of these things. While initially I’ve never have been a fan of single – if I buy music I’ll get an album, on trains I always buy returns, and I definitely prefer double cream – I’m starting to enjoy living my life on my own terms again.

I’ve gone from thinking about the future with marriage and kids to using my new free time alone to do things I hadn’t done in a while. The last few weeks have been full of drinking, seeing friends and generally pushing myself with my work in a way I hadn’t done before.

And I’m in no rush to find someone else and to do the engagement/marriage thing all over again. If, and when I do, firstly I’ll make sure it’s definitely, definitely what we both want, and then not rush straight into running around venues like a hyperactive child and shouting about stationary. No, next time will be slower, paced, and only done in the way that both of us want it to be. Oh, and I promise I’ll write it about it here and put plenty more pictures of tigers up too.

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Just as a end note, much credit should be given to the jewellers Annoushka (www.annoushka-jewellry.com) in Central London. Despite it being past the returns date, they were very happy to take the ring back in exchange for a credit note after the situation was explained, which was very nice of them.

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