Unofficially Official

So, what does it mean to be "unofficially, officially" engaged?

It means he wanted help picking out the ring and then when I found one I really liked and it was on sale, he bought it on the spot.  So, now the surprise is the delivery/official proposal once the ring gets back from being sized.  So, that is what that means.

Of course I'm excited.  It's incredible to love someone and know they love you back and that they want to commit to spending the rest of their life building a life with you.

Now with that said, I'm also realistic.  I mean, this is (er, going to be) my third engagement/ third marriage.  Ugh, I feel like a character in a soap opera just typing that.  

It's truly scary to know I have done this twice before and failed both times.  It's scary to trust myself enough to make this decision for me and my kids.  It's scary to know the statistics of divorce for third marriages (70-73%).  And I know my friends and family probably have their own quiet concerns and reservations.  I don't blame them.  That is just natural when you love someone and are watching them head down a path where you have already seen them fail over and over again.

What I do trust is that I have my eyes wide open.  I trust that I am looking at this decision from every possible angle and weighing what is right.  I trust that I am not entering this lightly and that I am not doing it for the wrong reasons.  I trust how much I have grown and how much I have learned about myself and about how to love people.  I trust that no one is blinded by emotion (that is sooooo my M.O. in 99% of my life and in both of my previous decisions to get married).  No one is swept up in the romance of brand new love.  We've been together for over a year.  We've had some fights.  We've seen each other on our worst and best days.  We've faced some tough challenges.  We've spent time alone together and time raising children together.   We see eye to eye on our life goals and on how you should behave in a committed relationship.  We make compromises in the areas where we disagree.  Nothing feels forced or out of balance.  Never do I feel like the entire weight of keeping the relationship running smoothly is on one person.  Never do I feel like I don't matter or the kids don't matter.  Never do I feel like I'm not being heard.  Never do I feel like I'm on the verge of being abandoned, cast aside, or replaced.  

Our relationship just makes sense.  We naturally evolved into a family - a real family - and that is all I have ever wanted my entire life, and it is what I want for my children.  And so it makes sense to me to declare before our friends and family and God that we are a unit wholly committed to one another and our family.

When he decides it's time to make our engagement "officially, official" I will say yes.  And I will pray for us just the way I do now.  And he will too just the way he does now.  Please do me a favor and say a prayer for us too because I want nothing more than to have God in the big, fat middle of this relationship helping us stay on the right path.  I want nothing more than for his hand to be the last hand I ever hold.  I want nothing more than for our relationship to work just the way it does now for the rest of forever.

And I know I have been given a partner who will be wholly committed to working together to be part of the 27-30% of couples who make that third time a charm.  

So, watch for the upcoming announcement of things being officially official.