This week, my friend Adam got an ultimatum from his girl: marry me or I’m out. I’m on Adam’s side on this one and not just because he’s my friend. Adam isn’t ready. After years of navigating the peaks and valleys of romance, I finally get what this means.
“I’m not ready.” One of the most mystifying sentences in the English language. If you’re about to jump out of an airplane with a busted parachute, or you’re a scallop that hasn’t been cooked all the way through, then by all means, you’re not ready. But not ready for love? Not ready for the comforting bonds of relationship? What kind of horse poo is that?
For most women, love is not something which requires preparedness. Love pours down from the heavens out of the blue, nullifying anything else in life that holds meaning and merging the lovers in the highest state of existential bliss, of which a committed relationship is the ultimate expression. Who wouldn’t want this?
But guys have to be “ready.” I finally understood this last year, when Matt the Moody Chef hit me with an unexpected “I’m Not Ready” after a prolonged period of becoming intimately enmeshed.
“Relationships don’t work out for me,” he said the night of our romantic demise. “This is too intense. I can’t do it right now.”
Later, after chugging an entire bottle of Chianti, I got to thinking. Matt had signed his divorce papers less than six months before we met. His apartment was a barren crypt, stripped by his ex-wife of any furnishing that might make it seem like a home. Entering into another relationship then would’ve been like sticking his tongue back on an icy flag pole ten seconds after he’d yanked it off.
A few months after separating from my own ex, I dated a sexy lawyer who in every way was a super catch. But once he started asking how my day had been and stroking my cheek, I recoiled as if he were a slobbering bulldog licking my face. A relationship was not something I could handle. I needed to heal, needed space, needed my life to become mine again after giving it over to the entity that was my marriage.
I wasn’t ready.
Indeed, love comes whether we have braced ourselves for it or not. But commitment offers a choice, tapping us on the shoulder to say, “sorry to bother you. Is this a good time?”
Adam has never been married but wants to be one day. And he loves his gal. But his finances are in the crapper, his job is shit, life isn’t matching up with his goals and he just wants to flush the whole thing. Wherever he ends up, Adam wants this woman there with him. He’s just not sure where “there” is.
We gals always make men the nucleus around which the rest of our lives float. But a man wants to invite a woman into a life that has already been made whole without her, perhaps even, in anticipation of her arrival. “I’m not ready” doesn’t always mean, “I’m not ready to stop chasing tail and playing beer pong with my buddies.” Often it means, “this table has not yet been set for two.”
And sometimes it means bigger questions are being asked. Am I ready to drop my defenses and let this other person see me warts and all? To feel so profoundly concerned about someone else’s well-being and allow this person’s presence to become necessary to my happiness? To surrender to love and risk losing it?
While Adam considers this ultimatum, I hope his girlfriend sees how his mulling it over demonstrates the depth of his feelings. I hope she understands she’s not only asking for a wedding ceremony, she’s asking for a lifetime. And mostly, I hope she doesn’t push. Like jumping out of an airplane or eating seafood, if you act before the time is right, you’re only going to puke.
Why would she leave him if she truly wants to spend the rest of her life with him? It shouldn’t matter how long it takes as long as they are together. People are so silly…
I have to admit…I’m in the “I’m not ready = I’m not that into you” camp. Reading this makes me think and go a bit easier on the not-ready guys. However, in any case, whether he really does want her or not, I think it would still do her some good to consider herself single and available. Sure, she should not demonize him, but she shouldn’t play wifey either.
Let me just say that if marriage is important to you, it is important. If it’s not–it’s not. I won’t call anyone’s desire silly if that is what they truly want.
I can’t help but wonder how long Adam and his girlfriend have been together. Also what plan is he putting in motion to improve his financial situation, career, etc., so that they will no longer be barriers?
If Adam gets all his ducks in row with his job and finances, will he marry her? Can Adam answer that question for himself? I can’t help but wonder if his reasons (which are good reasons) are serving as excuses to conceal the real question that he and his girlfriend both have: Does he want to marry HER?
If Adam wanted to marry her wouldn’t he have asked her?
I don’t want to marry any woman who asks me first. So forget it!
Take it from someone who’s been married. A life long commitment is not guaranteed with a marriage certificate. Working together to ensure the continued success and happiness of both people in the relationship is far more meanigful than putting a label on it with a piece of paper.
Laura,
Your writing is so fresh, raw, and dead on. I can’t tell you how many blogs I’ve read of yours and upon finishing them thought “Yes, that’s makes perfect sense!” Seems like something always clicks!
Cheers to you!
Laura, the “I’m not ready” comment is a goldmine for discussion because there are so many angles to it; psychological, too soon on the rebound, incomplete financial nest building, and/or baggage fatigue. One thing I have discovered is a failed marriage or long-term relationship, whether it was good but faded over time or was a train wreck from the beginning, is a living breathing thing (as many self-help books like to point out) that requires a mourning period before one can move on. This period of mourning has to be acknowledged and honored, whether it last for a few months or years, before a new relationship has a chance of taking hold.
I also believe that the human male is the nest builder in our little courtship ritual of life. With the exception of those few who are content with mooching off a woman, most guys want to build a secure environment that will attract the right one. The type of nest we build will determine the type of women attracted. Sometime all it takes is the right car or style of dress (of course then you get what you pay for), but most guys, I think, believe it is the quality of career and prestige of position that matters most. I find it all very interesting and wonder if some of us spend too much time trying to get the nest perfect. For most of us there is no such thing, there will always be something lacking, not yet achieved, in a career or a paycheck. And a woman of quality will look more to a man’s potential and sincerity than his job title or the square footage of his domicile. It would be interesting to know how long Adam and his girlfriend have been together and if he has considered whether he could better achieve his goals with her than without. Sometimes the best nest are built by two.
Keep up the good work,
Rick
If she were to move to a state that permits same-sex marriage wouldn’t that increase the number of potential partners?
Nick’s comment is stupid, disgusting and sexist, and my wife agrees with me.