♫ the ring didn't mean a thing... ♫

This is just a goofy, stupid song from one of my guilty pleasures... Real Housewives of Atlanta.

Last year when we were ready to move from Excelsior, Erik asked me "do you want a house, or do you want a ring?" I said a house of course. 

August 13th of this year marks 7 years that we have been together, and you know what, by then you ARE married. It's funny how bad I wanted our engagement day to come after waiting for so long. Especially when the bitterness was creeping in, watching other friends get married and starting their families. But I was quick to realize that wearing this glittery thing on my left hand, really doesn't change anything. 

Guess what world: marriage is overrated. The hype of it left me about as soon as it came. One week I was diving into magazines and websites, and ideas, and plans....and then it just stopped. I cancelled appointments for venues, I cancelled our trip to the Wedding Expo.

It's not that I wasn't happy about it. I'm just a realist. 

1. I'm not rich, my family isn't rich, his family isn't rich, and this all costs money. And a lot of it at that. Erik and I just worked the last few years clearing our debt and saving our money to buy our first home, I AM NOT going to dive back in to living beyond our means, or charging anything. I am very proud to say that we don't charge anything, anymore, at all.

2. Another main reason my initial excitement died off so quickly, was the realization that Erik and I both have issues within both sides of our families...and a wedding is such that you need your family, you need help with everything that comes along with it. This is sure gonna be a trip.

I still have many single friends, and I want them and everyone else to know that getting that ring on your hand doesn't stop your arguing and fighting, it doesn't make your relationship any different then what it is now (he's not going to jump up and just start loading the dishwasher), and it doesn't resolve family drama, if anything, family drama only gets worse. A ring is not the end all, cure all.

The day we got engaged we kept it to ourselves and enjoyed our Valentine's Day plans, the next day is when we called our best friends, and some family...

FAMILY.

This is a tough word for me, it's a difficult pill to swallow, and it will soon be a topic of many future blog posts. Hell, it could very well be it's own blog, just wait!!

I didn't call my 2 younger brothers or my mom or my dad to tell them I was engaged. At that point, things with all of them were so far gone, I only wanted my phone calls to be reciprocated with happiness and excitement on the other end of the line. I didn't want my moment to be ruined. 

But I still look back on that day with a broken heart that I couldn't share that happy moment with my family. I can never get that day back. I secretly wanted the winds of gossip to carry to them, and have them call me, have all our issues be resolved, have them want to be apart of it all, wave the magic wand...

But in real life there is no magic wand.

In real life your dad calls you early one Saturday morning and leaves an angry, resentful message about how he's heard about the engagement and he's going to erase my number on his phone. This is the straw that breaks the camel's back... Thanks for not calling any of us. He states how I will never understand marriage, or his marriage for that matter. How I will "JUST NEVER GET IT". Will I just leave Erik when times get hard, because you don't just ditch a person. Oh- and thanks Erik for not asking his permission, etc. 

I kept that message on my phone, and I let a bunch of people listen to it, but eventually I deleted it, so I could never hear it again. I hadn't spoken to my dad in over a year, and that is the first contact I got. 

In closing this post, a ring doesn't bring families back together...