Although I am not very romantic and don’t buy into the whole Valentines Day, I still had hoped for a more romantic proposal. I often wonder what would have been if I had said no at that moment? We were sitting at my parent’s kitchen table and I was making a couple of sandwiches for him. We were talking and then out of the blue he asked: ‘How about getting married?’ I looked at him and he was smiling and I thought – I don’t really know what I thought. I was taken so much by surprise that I said he should say it to my parents first and only then would I believe him to be serious. Really! Really! Should not an alarm clock have gone off in my head? He said sure he would do that right now and I should call my parents into the kitchen. Which I did and he said to my father he would very much like to marry me. That was it. Parents were o.k. with that since I was o.k. with that too.
Alarm bells? Alarm bells? Where were you? No ring, not even a phrase of “I love you so much I would like to marry you and spent the rest of my life with you”. In fact, still waiting for the promised solitary ring.
My father did take me to the side at some point and asked me if I really was sure about marrying him. I should know I could always change my mind. But I was in love. Today, I understand that it was not just love but I had already stepped into the road of being his narcissistic source. I defended him to my girlfriends about his very unromantic, minimalist marriage proposal. And while I was hoping he would invite me out to dinner, or organize a romantic evening and present me with a ring, he had already primed me well for I never insisted on a proper proposal. Maybe because he had told me early on that he did not believe in romance and was not romantic at all. What I failed to see was that he had set the carrot out and I had complied by not wanting the carrot.