Nineteen Year Olds are idiots - #3

        Dear reader,

        We meet again. I’m just going to jump right back into it, picking up where I left off. If you haven’t the foggiest idea as to what I’m going on about, you might want to scroll back and read parts 1 and 2 first. Once again, a big trigger warning here, especially if you’re sensitive to topics surrounding toxic relationships, abuse, mental health, self-harm, suicide and all that jazz…
 
        DOUBTS
 
        About three years into our relationship, we starting talking about moving in together. Freshly nineteen, I’d been longing to get out on my own for as long as I could remember. I’d graduated highschool two years earlier and I was working minimum wage at the supermarket while I tried and tried again to get admitted to the midwives training academy. Ben had successfully set up choirs in four different cities, gaining more members each season. He was well on his way to making a decent, stable living and at twenty-six it was about time that he left the nest. All things considered; it made sense that if we were moving out, we might as well do it together.
 
        It was around this time that my mental health started going downhill. Long story short, you can only repress shit for so long and apparently, I’d come to a point where my subconscious was no longer able to keep it all under lock and key. Not that I was even aware that’s what I’d been doing. All I knew was that I could be feeling perfectly fine one minute and ready to jump off a cliff the next.
        Not all days were that dramatic, though. Most days, I didn’t really feel much of anything at all. I felt no zest for life, not in the present nor regarding the future, whether it be with or without Ben. There was neither pleasure nor pain, everything was grey and I was just going through the motions. I didn’t even realize how numb I was until I found myself boiling over again.  
        My moods confused the hell out of me. They would come up out of nowhere, and disappear as quickly as they came. Whenever I spiralled to a place so dark and desperate that drastic measures crossed my mind, I scared myself enough to consider seeking professional help. I’d have the number ready in my phone, only to wake up the next morning feeling perfectly fine, unable to comprehend how I’d ever felt so bad. The only reminder of yesterday’s madness was a lingering sense of shame, and relief that I hadn’t actually called anyone. After all, clearly there wasn’t anything wrong with me. They could only have concluded that I was being overly dramatic, faking it for attention. I had a good life and no reason to feel depressed, I just had to pull myself together and be grateful for the life and love that I had been blessed with.
 
        With regard to my relationship with Ben, I was secretly having doubts. My feelings for him weren’t as strong as they had once been. Sometimes they even seemed to disappear completely. In fact, there were times when I felt trapped and everything about him seemed to repulse and irritate me. But then again, we had good times, too. And when times were good, they were great. However doubtful I was of my relationship; my self-doubt was always bigger. Especially now that my feelings were so fickle and unpredictable. It made it really hard to figure out what to do, because I felt like I couldn’t trust myself, or my judgement. Whenever I considered breaking up with him, I was terrified that my brain was playing tricks on me again and I’d regret my decision when I felt better.
        Furthermore, even if I was sure of my decision, leaving Ben would be complicated. Our lives were intertwined on more levels than I could count, making it hard to even imagine life without him.
 
        For starters, Ben and I had been together for a long time, our relationship spanning some of the most formative years of my life. Developmentally speaking, this was the time in which I should have been discovering who I was and building up a life of my own. Instead, I did my discovering and growing up within the scaffolding of a deeply enmeshed relationship. My life was fully merged with his, and I had virtually no clue who I was on my own. Losing Ben felt like the equivalent of losing a vital part of myself, and that prospect was incredibly daunting.
        Another concern that prodded at me, was a social one. I expect most of you have probably experienced the awkwardness of navigating your social life after a break up. Dividing up friends like you’re dividing your shared cd-collection, figuring out what belongs to whom…it’s a hot mess. And what about the mutual friends, the in laws, the people who pick sides…Drama, guaranteed.

        But that wasn’t the only thing on my mind. You see, I didn’t even really have a social life of my own anymore. That was partly my own doing; my social awkwardness and anxiety often held me back from making and maintaining connections. At least when I was still in school, I got to see my friends every day. But after graduation, with a lack of initiative from my side, many friendships fell apart or faded to the background. At the same time, Ben had done a pretty good job of isolating me from my own social network and claiming me for himself. After a while, my social life was Ben’s social life. We were always together, a package deal, mostly socializing within his own group of friends, family, colleagues and acquaintances. To them, we were this inseparable, dynamic duo. People would rave about how special it was that we could sing and make music together, telling us how lucky we were to have found one another. And so, whenever I toyed with the idea of breaking up, I felt lonely, guilty and ashamed in advance. I was scared of how people would react and what they would think of me. At the very least, I could rest assured that many people would disappear from my life along with him, effectively rendering me completely alone.
        And there was more. Ben often told me how much he loved me and how he couldn’t live without me. Whether I was in love with him or not, I cared about him deeply and I didn’t want to break his heart. I remembered what he told me about his previous break-up, and if he ever harmed himself because of me and my selfish decision, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.   
        Let’s not forget, this was my first serious relationship. I had no example of what a healthy relationship looked like, so I thought that this was just the way it worked and it was as good as it was ever going to get. Why would I go through the trouble of breaking up and finding someone else (if I even could), only to pour all my energy into building a new relationship that would ultimately be just like this one. It didn’t make sense to me. I didn’t want anyone else. I wanted Ben, or no one.

        All in all, at the cusp of this huge change in our lives, I had to decide whether I wanted to jump into it together with Ben or not, and I didn’t take that decision lightly. In fact, in my mind, it had nothing to do with what I wanted. There was too much at stake, and after tallying up the scores I came to the conclusion that if I left, everything would fall apart, whereas if I stayed, the only one that could potentially fall apart was me. And that was a sacrifice I was willing to make.
        Looking back, my gut knew perfectly well what was going on, consistently warning me for years that something wasn’t right and that I should get out. In in turn was consistently gaslighting myself, doubting, ignoring and dismissing my feelings whilst trying to overrule them with my brain. Anyone want to take a wild guess as to where I learned that? 
 
        PROPOSITION
 
        Usually, every time those pesky doubts bubbled up, I pushed them aside and trudged on. But when we started talking about moving in together, everything was thrown inside a pressure cooker. On one hand, I was hoping and praying that my unruly heart would finally give in to my love for Ben, so that we could just skip off into the sunset and have our happily ever after. Also, living at home was negatively impacting my mental health and my dark moods were negatively impacting my relationship. I could only assume that if moving out made me feel better, I’d also feel better about my relationship. And so, I prayed that moving in together would help that process along.
        On the other hand, I was internally freaking out over the prospect of binding myself to Ben even further. After all, if I moved in with him, there was no turning back. I had already decided that I couldn’t break his heart. And because things weren’t going well at home, now that I’d caught wind of an opportunity to escape that suffocating environment, it awoke a burning desire in me to get the hell out. And there was no way in hell that I could return to my family home after having tased the peace and the freedom that came with being out on my own.
 
        Knowing what a big, serious decision it was, I finally plucked up the courage to talk to Ben about my concerns. He was shocked at first, until he eventually admitted that he’d been struggling with some doubts as well. But, as he said, he loved me so much that he had decided that none of that mattered, and he was sure that we could work it out. The fact that he was so certain of his love for me, made me feel intensely guilty for the way my own feelings flickered on and off all the time. But what really broke my heart, was when he started crying and said: “I actually wanted to ask you something in Paris, but now I don’t dare.” The second he uttered those words, I just shut down and started bawling my eyes out. We had a trip to Paris planned for New Years, and it was obvious what he meant. Ben wanted to propose.
        There was something flattering and affirming about that. I mean, if I stayed, I could rest assured that there would always be someone there to love me and take care of me. And I longed for that, so badly. But at the same time, Ben’s confession made me feel awful. Here was this great guy who loved me more than anything, who was so sure about us that he was willing to accept my flaws, work through our rough patches and commit to me for the rest of our lives. And here I was, struggling to reciprocate that same level of affection for him. Hell, I even thought about leaving him almost on a daily basis. What kind of monster was I?
        Somewhere deep inside of me, locked in a cage submerged in the depths of my unconscious mind, a little girl was frantically rattling the bars and thrashing around, her tiny voice begging me to get out while I still could, and set us free. But I just couldn’t do it. Not without being a right cunt, leaving my adoring man for no good reason (because feelings don’t count as reasons, duh…) and tearing him apart in the process, only to end up alone. The way I figured; if Ben loved me that much, how much of a sacrifice was it really, to pretend a little in order to match him and spare his heart. As long as he was happy and his heart still whole, I could live with feeling less for him than he did for me…At least I didn’t have to lose my best friend, and I’d enjoy certainty. Yeah, I could take one for the team. And so, looking up at him through my tears, I breathed ‘I want to marry you too, one day’.
 
        SPIDERMAN
 
        And so, it came about that Ben and I agreed to move in together, and our house hunt began. We took this very seriously, skimming the listings in the paper each week and weighing the pros and cons for each place before we picked which ones to apply for. We calculated exactly what we could afford and how we’d split the costs fairly, taking into account our respective incomes and expenses. We responded to adds week after week, only to be disappointed each time. We simply hadn’t been on the waiting list long enough to qualify for social housing, and all of the private listings were much too expensive.
        But we got lucky. One day, purely by coincidence, an acquaintance of my mother showed up at the door and whilst chatting about something or another, she mentioned that she had a small studio apartment available and was looking for a new tenant. Technically, it was only built to house one person. But she invited us over to check it out anyway, and of course, we bit.
        Ben and I fell in love with the place instantly, it was so…us. Granted, it was tiny, but it was so cosy and charming. Situated on a little quay alongside a canal, hidden behind the townhouses at the end of the village, it was so quiet you could hear the birds chirp in the morning but you were still just minutes away from the town bustle. The apartment was a century old converted coal shed, the walls painted a shade of Bordeaux red and the wooden beams black. Everything screamed “A GOTH LIVES HERE!” and I could already see myself lounging on my very own sofa in the dimly lit living area, drinking tea, eating chips and watching Gilmore Girls while I waited for hubby to come home. 
        There was a small kitchen, an even smaller bathroom with an eye-hight window in the shower (sticking your head out into the sunshine while you shower…don’t knock it ‘till you try it!) and the doors on the alcove had two little heart-shaped holes that came together when the doors closed. It was absolutely perfect. The place got me so excited that all my doubts melted like snow in spring and I couldn’t bear the thought of anyone else snatching it up while we mulled things over.
        Thankfully, Ben agreed and we called them back the same day to make arrangements.
 
        We planned to move after our trip to Paris, which left us exactly two weeks to get everything sorted. However, during the process of planning and decorating, we ran into some…difficulties.
You see, upon measuring everything up and trying to solve the puzzle of how to fit two people’s belongings and their basic necessities into this one tiny living space, our priorities did not line up. Case in point, Ben’s comic book collection. Being a huge spiderman fan, he owned numerous meter-long boxes of comic books and he was adamant that he keep them all on display in the living room.
        Now, I wasn’t necessarily opposed to having a superhero-shrine in the house, but given the tight space we were working with, I would’ve rather dedicated that space to more important things. You know, like making sure we both had adequate workspace, a place to sit, and enough space to move around without bumping into or climbing over stuff all the time. Which was exactly the reason that I’d assigned most of my non-daily-use stuff to the attic. However, when I talked to Ben about it, I may just as well have been asking him to chop his arm off, because he was not having it.
                This tiny little mosquito turned into an elephant in no time at all, leading to a huge argument that almost ended our relationship. I know it was a ridiculously childish thing to argue about. But for me it wasn’t about the comic books or even about the floorspace. It was about the way he was responding to me during what should have been a perfectly normal deliberation between adults.
 
                The first time I unsuspectingly tried to open a conversation with Ben about it, I showed him the floorplan and suggested that it might be best to keep them in the attic. Or, if the display was the most important part, we could build shelving for them in the hall. Ben, however, was not open to the discussion at all. In fact, he immediately dug his heels into the sand and upped his demand: not only his comics, but also his entire collection of at least 50 black binders of sheet music, simply couldn’t be placed anywhere other than in the living room. No matter how many reasons or alternatives I brought to the table, Ben wouldn’t budge. Instead, he just snapped at me and went straight into cold-shoulder mode, shutting down the conversation and refusing to talk about it any further.
        Over the following days, whenever I tried to have a decorating-related chat with him, he’d tell me he was busy and proceed to ignore me. He may as well have stuck his fingers in his ears and exclaimed “LALALALA, I CAN’T HEAR YOU”, it was same damn thing. Miraculously, though, he did somehow find the time within his busy schedule to write me an extensive email in which he stated that if he couldn’t have his comic books, he’d rather not move in with me at all. In which case, he’d rather have me move into the place alone and he’d just stay with me on the weekends. Of course, I couldn’t afford the rent on my own and Ben knew this. He was purposely putting me on the spot, just to get his way.
        To me, the whole situation was utterly absurd and it triggered me immensely. It bothered me that I could never bring up an issue without it being turned into a huge drama. And somehow, it was always my fault. No matter how careful I tried to be. Within less than three days, my practical and perfectly reasonable request had escalated to an argument that resulted in a text message from Ben, stating that he “wasn’t so sure about everything anymore” and that “we need to talk”. It didn’t feel fair; his response was childish, disproportionate and out of place. Aside from the fact that the words ‘we need to talk’ would give just about anyone a heart attack, Ben was basically telling me that he’d rather sleep in a room full of comic books, than with the young woman he’d been ready to propose to just a week ago. I was perplexed, and something inside me said that it was time to put my foot down. Either that, or it was time to make a choice…should I stay, or should I go?
 
        Ben texted me that if I wanted to speak to him, I’d have to come to his place because he didn’t want to leave the house. I was at work at the time, so I told him I’d be over later as my mind worked a mile a minute running through scenarios and trying to figure out what to say or do. Part of me was in a panic, trying to come up with a way to patch things up and make it work. The other part was screaming at the top of her lungs that this was my chance to get out.
        Eventually, after hours of see-sawing, I made up my mind. The way I saw it, Ben had clearly indicated that given the choice, he would pick his comic books over me. But he was also triggered and under a lot of stress, so I would go to his house and hear him out first. I’d try to have an open and honest conversation with him, and if he still wasn’t willing to compromise, then I’d take a hint. That would be a sign that it was time to choose me, and leave. As I thought it through, that tiny little part of me that was locked in a cage somewhere deep down realized that this might be it. Her heart thrummed wildly as she saw her freedom dangling in front of her, just out of reach. But I wasn’t ready to throw everything away just yet. I had to make sure I’d tried everything else, first.
 
        GROUND ZERO

        This brings us to what Christopher Titus would refer to as the Armageddon fight. The Ground-Zero fight. The fight where you’re at Home Depot the next morning, asking them if that’s all the spackle they have.
 
        I left work with my legs shaking and my mind racing. When I arrived at his parent’s place, I found him slumped over the kitchen table, dressed in his ratty, old, pale blue bathrobe, his mother stroking his back as he dramatically wailed and sobbed, his foot with ingrown toenail soaking in a tub of suds. I remember a split second of disgust breaching my system as I took it all in. He looked utterly pathetic and part of me just wanted to tell him to grow the hell up. But of course, I didn’t. Instead, I composed myself, sat down next to him and proceeded to comfort him until he was eventually willing to follow me upstairs to his bedroom and talk.
        I asked him what was wrong. He told me that he was stressed out. Something happened at work the night before, and combined with the whole apartment situation, he was just overwhelmed and starting to doubt everything. He explained that I often said things that made him feel bad, and whenever that happened, his feelings for me dampened. Those feelings usually came right back whenever we did something nice together. But this time, those feelings hadn’t returned.
        Upon hearing this, my heart fell into panic mode and all I heard on repeat was: this is it, it’s over. By now, we were both crying. The pain I felt at the prospect of losing him was horrendous, like something inside me was dying. And that feeling was quickly weakening my resolve. If it all felt this awful already, I wasn’t so sure that I should be leaving him at all. I’d come here with the intention to stand my ground, but now that everything seemed to be falling apart and we were crying in each other’s arms, I wasn’t sure about any of it anymore. Maybe I really was just being petty and selfish, and I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life over some stupid comic books. If it was that important to him, maybe I should calm down and let him have his wish.
        The thought of the comic books snapped me back into reality, reminding me what I’d came to do. I had to ask. I had to know where I stood, and make a decision. And so, swallowing thickly, I asked about what he’d said in his e-mail. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, Ben’s opinion had not changed since then. If he couldn’t have his comic books, I wasn’t letting him be himself and he didn’t want to move in with me.
        At this point, my heart was beating out of my chest. This was what I’d been anticipating. I’d made a decision and rehearsed my response beforehand, now all I had to do was stand my ground and see it through. Adrenalin coursed through my veins and my voice quivered as I choked out my response: “Ok, if that’s your final decision, then this is goodbye. I’m going to find someone who has more respect for me than that.”
        No sooner had the words left my lips, and the screaming began. As I moved to get off the bed, Ben began wailing and screaming incoherently at the top of his lungs. I couldn’t understand what he was saying, but the sheer volume along with the redness of his face and the flailing of his arms sent me into a panic as I scrambled to get my shoes on. The second I stood up and turned to say goodbye, Ben flung himself across the bed and grabbed hold of my legs. I stood there trembling as Ben lay on his stomach and locked his arms around the backs of my knees, crying uncontrollably and begging me not to go. Suddenly, I heard someone thumping up the stairs and seconds later both his parents burst into the room, stumbling over each other as they cried out for us to calm down. Ben immediately began to scream at them to leave us alone and get the hell out, and I just stood there, frozen in place, staring down at him. My heart was pounding uncontrollably, my chest was heaving, my whole body was buzzing and I wanted to leave, but…I couldn’t move. I guess my mind took ‘standing my ground’ a bit too literally. I don’t even remember exactly what happened next, other than that his parents left and we must have made up at some point.
        The next thing I remember, is cycling back home and noticing this distinct split feeling. On the outside, I was smiling and my brain was feeding me relief over the fact that I still had Ben and I was still going to be moving into that lovely apartment with him. But there was another part of me that I was fighting really hard to ignore. That girl in the cage who kept telling me that I should have run. I had my chance to escape, and I blew it. Now I was stuck, and there was no turning back.
        She couldn’t possibly be right, could she?
 
        ARC DE TRIOMPHE
 
        After our fight, Ben and I seemed closer than ever. We’d worked out our differences, we were happily buying furniture and making plans, and we were looking forward to our trip to Paris. The girl in the cage stirred from time to time, but I kept her under lock and key. After all, I’d been faced with the ultimate choice, and I’d made the decision to stay. As a woman of my word, that was it. There were no take-backsies and if there was any part of me that didn’t agree, she’d just have to suck it up and make it work. I’d made my bed, now I must lie in it.
        A few days into the new year, Ben and I got on the Thalys and left for Paris. While we were gone, my father was going to put together a new bed in the alcove and custom build us a closet and a bookcase so that we’d be ready to move in upon our return.
         We spent a couple of days exploring all the main tourist attractions, visiting Disneyland and even having our portrait drawn together at Place du Tertre. One day, after we’d spent hours roaming the city and wandering around the Louvre, I was so tired that I was nauseous. I asked Ben if we could skip the Arc de Triomphe and head back to the hotel for an early night in, but Ben disagreed. He was adamant that we keep going, and in the back of my mind I had an inkling he was up to something.
        Evening had fallen as we left the underground and climbed up the stairs out into the dark. It was cold and there were tiny little snowflakes dancing through the air as Ben put his arm around me and steered me towards the centre of the Arc. Once we were there, Ben took both my hands into his and stared into my eyes.         My stomach instantly dropped. This was it. It was happening. In the middle of a strange city, just the two of us, a few days left alone together and with nowhere else to go…He was going to pop the question. I looked at him and it occurred to me that there was no possible way I could get out of this. Knowing how well Ben took rejection, there was no way in hell I was going to risk saying no to him whilst alone in a strange city hundreds of miles away from home. Not only that, but my rejection would simply break him. I couldn’t do that to him. It was my fault that I’d let it get this far, and now I had to see it through and deal with the consequences.
        All the options and scenarios swam through my head as Ben stood before me with my hands in his. I knew what I was getting into, and I knew that I didn’t have a choice. And so, my brain worked to find whatever creative mind-trick it could come up with to make peace with what I was about to do. I was going to have to marry someone that I didn’t want to marry, and my brain needed to find a way to make it ok. To justify my decision and help me make it through. Ironically, I found my survival in thinking of death. You see, depressed as I already was, I didn’t expect to live very long. So, why on earth would I break his heart if I could let him have this and just stick it out until my inevitable death.
        Indeed, there was only one viable option and I just had to accept my fate. And so, when Ben asked me to marry him...I took a deep breath and choked out: “Yes, of course.” 

                Ben was ecstatic. He took me out to Buffalo Grill to celebrate, which might not sound like the most romantic option but honestly, that’s the only place that would serve dinner at a reasonable hour. Sitting across from me in that leather booth, Ben grinned from ear to ear and told me that he was completely in love with me again. I forced a smile and nodded, shoving a chunk of steak into my mouth to avoid talking and giving myself away.
        The rest of our trip passed in a blur. I felt trapped, wanting to escape but frozen in place. I stood on the Eiffel Tower and wondered what it would be like to just jump. There was no way out of this, I felt, other than death. And maybe, that was the best way to go about it. Ben would never have to know how I really felt about him. He could live the rest of his life thinking that I’d loved him, but that my own demons had gotten the better of me. There’d be no damage to his own ego, while I got to go free. It was a sick way to think, but quite frankly, I was sick. Much more so than I realized at the time. And all the while, Ben floated through the days on his pink cloud, oblivious to it all. We went to a souvenir shop and bought little picture frames for our portrait, planning to give one to each of our parents as we broke the news.
 
        Upon returning home, the next big shock awaited me.
I ran up to my bedroom hoping to retreat from the world for a moment. But when I pushed open the door, I was horrified to find my room completely empty. In an attempt to be helpful, my parents had packed all my belongings and taken them to my new apartment while I was away. They didn’t have any boxes, so they’d put all my stuff into garbage bags and piled them all up in the middle of my new living room. Everything had been randomly thrown in together, so my belongings were all mixed up and I couldn’t find a thing. Some stuff had even been damaged along the way. Although I understood that my pragmatic parents meant well, I was absolutely devastated. I felt like they just wanted to get rid of me as quickly as possible. And not only that; my bedroom, my safe space, the place I’d always locked myself up in to hide from the world, was gone. It had been torn away from me, right when I needed it more than ever. I hadn’t even gotten to say goodbye and I had nowhere else to go. After all, my new place was a shared space and it wasn’t even ready yet. I felt completely and utterly lost.
                I did my absolute best to pull the place together as quickly as humanly possible, but quite frankly, I never did manage to recreate the safety of my own little sanctuary. Even when it was done.
The closest I came to finding a new safe space, was my car. And that car would soon become vital, my only solace, along with an internet forum that I frequented.
 
                The first couple of months living together, actually went surprisingly well. It really seemed that we’d set aside our differences and grown closer, we were working with each other and hadn’t had any big arguments since ground zero. In fact, we were so lovey-dovey that you’d think we’d already entered the honeymoon phase before even tying the knot. This sparked some hope within me, that maybe we were meant for each other after all. Maybe Ben had changed, and maybe my heart had finally given in and switched the love back on. Maybe…things were going to be ok.
 
 
                VERBAL DIARRHOEA
 
                Back from Paris, it was time to break the big news to our parents. We set up coffee dates with them all under the guise of having so much to talk about after our trip. We popped in with my future in-laws first, where Ben gave them a small parcel. Once they’d torn off the wrapping paper to uncover the little portrait of us, Ben made his grand announcement. His parents were ecstatic, and Ben just seemed so proud. It broke my heart to see them all so happy, knowing that it was all built on sand. The guilt crept further into my bones as I imagined what would happen if any of them ever found out that I didn’t feel the same, and I confirmed myself in my supposition that my own wants and needs simply weren’t worth all the pain they’d cause if I decided to honour them. It was my own fault for letting it come this far, and quite frankly, I could never have what I wanted anyway. I just wasn’t worth it. The best course of action was to resign to at least making sure that everyone else was happy, for as long as I possibly could. And so, trying my very best to match the joviality in the room, I put on my mask and hoped to God that I was doing a good enough job.
                After draining their coffee pot, Ben and I left his parent’s place and moved on to mine. It was my turn to speak, and I wasn’t looking forward to it. Not that I was afraid of how they’d react, it was just that…when you’re stuck in a situation that you’re ashamed and unhappy about, obviously you’d rather not shout it from the rooftops. Drawing all this attention to our ‘happy news’ and dragging in so many people along the way, only made me feel more trapped and ashamed. It was like rubbing salt into an open wound. It felt like my life was snowballing and I wanted to dig my heels into the ground and make it stop, but I knew I couldn’t.
                We sat down on the sofa across from my parents making small talk, my tongue thick and dry and my heart pounding to an uneven beat in my chest. Time was ticking by and we were running out of banter, I could feel Ben’s impatient glances burning a hole into the side of my head. I knew damn well that I couldn’t avoid it forever, but I just couldn’t get the words out of my mouth and I worried that I wouldn’t be able to force out the right emotions either. I felt like I had walked right into a bear trap. I couldn’t exactly refuse, or ask Ben to take over. That would blow my cover and simultaneously blow the top off pandora’s box. I had to do something. So, I took yet another deep breath and hoped that my creative brain would crop up with a solution on the spot.
                Well, boy did she come through. Apparently, she decided that the only way to avoid all the land-mines in this hot mess of a situation would be to strategically plant the news within a bout of verbal diarrhoea and hope that someone else would take the bait, taking the announcement out of my hands. In practice, that went a little like this:
 
                “Yeah, so first we walked around the city for a while and got a bag of pain au chocolat at the supermarket because they didn’t have normal bread isn’t that weird and then we went to the Louvre and saw the Mona Lisa which was much smaller than you’d expect and then after that we went to the Arc de Triomphe and Ben proposed to me and I said yes and then we walked past the Moulin Rouge and went out to dinner in a grill restaurant which was-“
                “Wait, back up, what did you just say?”
                “Huh? Which part?”
                “You guys are getting married!?”
 
        Aaaand que me falling into a fit of giggles until the penny dropped and the others joined in, making it seem as though I’d intentionally come up with this quirky way to surprise them, just like you’d do with a cute pregnancy announcement. Once the awkward laughter fizzled out, I handed them the little parcel with the portrait and my flustered parents congratulated us. I could tell that they were taken aback and trying to cover up their reservations, and I was thankful that they kept quiet. The thing is, they knew how stubborn I could be. They probably understood that if they said anything, it would drive me even further into Ben’s arms just trying to prove them wrong. So, once the portrait was up on the windowsill, we continued to exchange pleasantries and ignore the elephant in the room. It was done, the news was out, everything and everyone was still intact and I even got away with not having to make an actual announcement. End scene.
 
        WEDDING PLANS
 
                Once the news was out, it was time to start planning. Now, I know that some girls start planning their wedding day from birth and go full bridezilla for their perfect, magical day. Yeah, I’m not one of those girls. Shocker. Not only had I never really given it any thought, but I wasn’t exactly excited about this wedding to begin with. In fact, the more I was forced to think about it, and the more people we involved, the more horrible I felt. But I knew how much it meant to Ben, and since the only thing I wanted for myself was to get through the whole thing unscathed, I decided I’d put all my focus on making sure that Ben was happy. In an attempt to compensate for my apparent inability to reciprocate his feelings for me, the least I could do was let him have this. It would be his day; he’d have the time of his life and he’d have all those happy memories to hold close if I eventually left this earth. I know, what a bundle of joy, right?
 
                So, we set the date for April 7th, which was only three months away. Ben wanted a small wedding in our hometown, and I was all up for that. In fact, I was perfectly willing to give up the reigns and let him organize the whole thing in whatever way he saw fit. Quite frankly, any way in which I could keep a low profile, avoid the fuss and get it over with as quickly as possible was fine by me. But with everyone congratulating me, and asking me how excited I was all the time, guilt was gnawing at me. I felt a lot of pressure to put on a happy face and enjoy the process. I mean, come on. I had a man who loved me to bits, and I didn’t even have the decency to at least try to muster a little enthusiasm for our wedding day? What kind of monster was I...   
        I think the most fun I had in our preparation, was coming up with a playlist for the party. I took great pleasure in imagining his non-expecting vanilla parents being swallowed up by a mosh pit on the dancefloor. It certainly wouldn’t be the first dance they were expecting to see. 
 
        Anyway, we decided on this cute little historical courthouse in town for the ceremony, and we booked the town café around the corner from our house for the reception. Our theme would be somewhat alternative, everything in black and red, including our outfits. The invites had a big red rose on the front, which would match my bouquet on the day. I asked a close friend if she’d arrange for her horses to bring us to the courthouse in their black carriage, and I invited another close friend to come dress shopping with me. Of course, this goth wouldn’t be caught dead wearing white and I sure as hell wasn’t going to book a bunch of awkward appointments and spend a fortune on a dress that I could only wear once in my life. No, I found my dress at my favourite alternative clothing store. It was an Adderlass gothic dress, black denim with white pinstripes, shoulder straps with buckles and a lace up bodice showing off an unholy amount of skin and cleavage, even with my modest handful. And what did it cost, you might ask, to offend the almighty God in the face of our Holy union? Why, no more than 185 measly euros. What a deal, right?
        Our ring appointment went off without a hitch, I remember the cheery jeweller being all amazed at how in tune we were, and how quickly we made our decision. The same went for picking out invites, creating the guest list and deliberating with the registrar who would be marrying us. We just seemed to float through the whole process. Of course, that’s no real surprise given how numb and compliant I was; I just agreed and went along with everything. That’ll speed any process along.
        I guess it’s no wonder that Ben was so happy and in love with me again after our rough patch either; I had become an extension of himself, and he couldn’t exactly disagree with that, now, could he.
 
                THE BIG DAY
 
                If I had a penny for every time some random person asked me if I was nervous for the big day, I needn’t have been so worried about the divorce lawyer’s fee. By the time April rolled around, I was so sick of that question that I was almost glad the day had finally come. Too bad I didn’t realize that the question was about to be replaced by an equally annoying avalanche of people asking me how it felt to be a married woman. Don’t get me wrong, it was all well-meant and very sweet…but every question that rubbed my predicament in my face and forced me to plaster on another fake smile, just added insult to injury. I just wanted to face my fate, get it over with and forget about it, for as far as possible of course.
 
                You know how I wanted to keep the whole getting-married-thing as low profile as possible? Yeah, well, that did not go as planned as my upcoming wedding kinda ended up making the papers. It was a full-on article, I shit you not, complete with a picture of me in my wedding dress, standing next to my bike with the big newspaper bags on the back. Thing was, I’d been delivering the daily newspaper at the butt-crack of dawn for many years at that point, and my wedding day would be no exception. I’d just get up a little earlier and complete my route before heading off to get my make-up done. Apparently, that story was funny and intriguing enough to warrant a commending piece in the newspapers the day before. And not only that, but I believe my mum actually also dropped notes in all the mailboxes on my route, telling people about it. Effectively, this meant that literally every household on my route knew about my wedding, and all of these lovely people were sweet enough to stick congratulatory notes and cards to their mailboxes that day. The fact that this was supposed to be a sweet surprise, putting me in the spotlight on my special day…made me feel like the biggest piece of shit on the planet. I’m talking over 100 Courics, for sure. Randy Marsh, I’m coming for you.
        To me, each and every note was just another reminder of what an idiot I was, jumping into the biggest mistake of my life with my eyes wide open and being that selfish, horrible bitch leading everyone on. Everyone was being so nice, involved, enthusiastic…surely if they found out they were pouring all this effort and kindness into a freaking fraud, they’d never forgive me. I couldn’t even forgive myself…
 
                Looking back, guilt is one of the main things that got me so deep into this mess into the first place, and held me hostage there. Which makes sense, because again, I’d been conditioned that way. My father used emotional blackmail and guilt-tripping to keep me under his control since I was little. I’d been called selfish so many times that I felt guilty for as little as my own existence, terrified that I really was the horrible person he seemed to believe I was. I spent my whole life desperately trying to disprove that, but in the end, people pleasing and lack of boundaries often got me tangled up in compromising situations with the exact opposite result. Unfortunately, I’d never been taught that setting boundaries or being honest about my feelings were actually very compassionate things to do, for both parties. Somehow, by trying so hard to keep Ben happy, I had become the selfish, dishonest, ungrateful person I feared I was, and I just kept dragging more people in. I was convinced that the only way to make up for it, was to finish what I started. To sacrifice myself, my happiness and my future for Ben and everyone else who needed to believe the charade. For this reason, I would literally have rather died than told anyone the truth.
 
                April rolled around and the day came that I would sign my life away. Or as some call it, my wedding day. I wondered how I’d get through the day, and I now know how I did it: dissociation. I was completely numb and disconnected, floating somewhere outside my body. To me, it was just another Friday and I was going through the motions, feeling nothing, but trying to play the part none the less. I woke up before sunrise in what was left of my old bedroom, pulling on an old tracksuit and hitting the streets for my paper route When I got back, I sat and read the paper with a cup of tea at the kitchen table before going back upstairs for a shower. I longed to get back into bed and hide under the covers, but I had to pop over to the make-up stylist down the road before slapping on this weird sticky bra and getting into my black dress. My uncle arrived early, as we’d asked him to be our photographer. After taking what seemed like hundreds of pictures of me with my family in various combinations, our dog Mickey kindly alerted us that the doorbell had indeed rung and that there were two huge beasts a.k.a. horses standing in front of the house. Ben had arrived. It was time to go.
                To be honest, the whole day went by in a blur. I remember the pain in my face from having to consciously force out emotions that weren’t there. My cheeks burned from the fake smile I kept plastered on, and my head felt like it was about to explode. I remember the pangs of anxiety, guilt and awkwardness every time anything or anyone referred to ‘our love’, because every little thing required me to squeeze out yet another convincing act with just the right words and just the right amount of joy and excitement to back them up. I was tired, my energy and my patience were wearing thin and my facial muscles weren’t trained for such a marathon. I could only hope for this day to come to an end before I ran out of steam. The end of the day wouldn’t take me out of the woods though, I still had a honeymoon to survive…
 
                Oh yes, the honeymoon. As much as I’d like to spill some hot tea about what objectively should have been the most romantic experience of my life…I can’t. Literally. There’s a honeymoon shaped hole in my memory, I have virtually no recollection of anything that happened on that trip.
I can tell you what I do remember. While brainstorming ideas, Ben proposed that we keep it simple and book a short weekend trip to Maastricht. I immediately latched on to that plan because aside from the fact that I wasn’t interested in drinking poolside cocktails at some boring, lavish resort that we couldn’t afford, I also dreaded spending so much time alone with him, on each other’s lip, dealing with all the inevitable expectations of being newlywed. I knew what was expected of me, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up the act for a full-length vacation without throwing myself out of a window at some point. Of course, I didn’t tell Ben that. I simply agreed that Maastricht was lovely and that staying close to home would fit the theme of our simple, down-to-earth wedding.
 
        So, Maastricht it was. The party wasn’t even over yet when we left, grabbing our weekend bags and pulling our coats on over our wedding clothes. The remaining visitors waved us off as we piled into my father’s car for him to drop us off at the train station. It was a 3+ hour journey to our destination, plus a transfer to the hotel. Enough time for me stress out over the upcoming wedding night, trying to come up with the most kind and inconspicuous ways to get out of sleeping with him. Maybe I could tell him that I was too tired. No, that wouldn’t work, I already knew from experience how he’d respond to that and I didn’t have to energy to deal with him getting into a funk. Maybe I could convince him to take a nice bath before bed, and pretend to fall asleep while waiting for him. Or maybe I could pull myself together, stop being a cunt and just do it. Dozens of scenarios crossed my mind, and by the time we arrived at the hotel, I was terrified. I knew I had to either act my way through it, or act my way out of it. I just didn’t know if I could.
        When we arrived, I stood in front of the tall building and gazed up at the windows, imagining what it would be like to jump. The pressure was on, and I needed something to keep me going. My brain understood the assignment, reassuring me that the emergency exit was always slightly ajar in case I needed it. I had to know that there was a way out. By blowing off steam through the secret valve of suicidal ideation, I could survive. And so, pulling my suitcase through the revolving door, we stepped up to the reception desk to collect our card key. I remember getting to the hotel room and opening the door, pulling off my coat and sighing a breath of relief as I finally freed my bosom from that horribly uncomfortable contraption of a sticky bra. Seriously, who invented that?! Never again.
        And that’s it. That’s all I remember. I have no idea what happened, what we did or where we went during that weekend. I don’t know if we argued or had fun, I don’t know where or what we ate, I don’t know what attractions we visited, I don’t even know if we consummated the wedding, it’s all blank. I have no recollection of any of it. My first memory after getting to the hotel room, is coming back home and finding our alcove looking like a Mc Donald’s ball pit, filled to the brim by balloons courtesy of Ben’s friends who had secretly made a copy of our house key before we left. That was sweet, and a rather amusing distraction to come home to. Other than that, I was just glad to be back home and I hoped that everything would settle down and get back to normal soon.

To be continued....