A Big Announcement

But probably not the announcement you're expecting.

Several months ago, Michael had a goofy dream that he told me about the next day. In the dream, he came over to my house and I had a live duck I was trying to kill. He tried killing it, but couldn't. I asked him what he thought the dream meant and he didn't know. But to me, a quasi-trained Freudian analysist, the meaning was obvious: the duck represented Michael's fear of commitment. I couldn't kill it, he had to kill it himself and he was trying to, but was having a hard time. Since that time, we have joked with each other about his need to kill a duck.

Those who have been following our relationship closely know about Michael's fear of commitment. Of the almost eight months we've been together, we've spent a total of about a month taking "time off" and not communicating so he'd have time to "think about what he wanted." These "times off" frequently resulted in me deciding to break up with him, but every time he would realize he didn't want to lose me, convince me to stick around and he would treat me totally awesome until I became secure in the relationship again and then he'd decide to back out again. We've been through at least three cycle of that.


Our most recent "week off" happened after we had set a wedding date that we were tentatively working towards and we were both happily counting down together. Michael had ordered my engagement ring and I was doing a little wedding planning while waiting for him to pop the question. His request for a week off was fairly (but not entirely) unexpected, but after a prayer and with a lot of help from my Heavenly Father, it became a great blessing to me because I learned to really cherish myself and came to really understand for the first time about each person's divine nature and individual worth (you might remember this post and this post where I reported without telling what was actually going on). You might remember that Michael showed up at my house after the week off with two bouquets of flowers, but I didn't tell you the best, most sweetest part-- after giving me the flowers he said he had something else for me. He went into my kitchen, got out my chopping board and my biggest knife, then he produced a rubber duckie and cut its head off declaring, "The duck is dead!" and that he was ready to commit.

Since then things have been great. I have felt loved and secure and it has been really nice. We went to a play last Monday night and I felt like we were the most in love couple there. It was really nice.

But, sadly, it has come to my attention that the duck is NOT dead, that Michael still doesn't know what he wants, and is very hesitant to give up his bachelor freedoms. I know that he loves me because he tells me all the time and his actions show that he does. And I know that it's not his intention to jerk me around, yet that's what's happening.

And so I decided, as a woman who cherishes myself and who has recently been promised by God that I will have everything I want in a relationship, that I don't want to be with Michael anymore. I want to be with a man who KNOWS that he wants to be with me and who can't imagine being without me, not just a guy who realizes categorically that I'm quite a catch and so is trying to convince himself that he should marry me even though he doesn't really want to. I know he loves me and that he wants to be with me to an extent, but not enough. I'm tired of the trauma. I'm tired of crying because it hurts that he doesn't know if he wants to be with me, but then feeling bad for crying because he treats me nice and says nice things to me and he's TRYING to want to marry me. I'm tired of feeling like as soon as I get comfortable and secure (again) he'll decide (again) that he's not sure. I'm tired of doing lots of little things to make Michael happy (because I love doing them), but then not being sure if he feels the same way about me. I'm tired of the underlying feeling that I've never been quite able to shake that I'm sort of an inconvenience to him. I deserve better.

And so, it's sad for both of us, but I'm calling it quits. I broke up with Michael about 15 minutes ago. Ironically, on the very day that six weeks ago we had been planning to get married.

My sister pointed out that there's a guy out there who is dying to marry me and will want desperately to marry me as soon as he knows me. I know that that is true and I'm excited to for that person to find me.

I don't regret anything about Michael. I don't regret giving him my heart and loving him. It has been really wonderful being loved by him. It has been all-in-all a great experience and one I plan to look back on with gratitude and happiness. But, it's time to move on. It's sad, but I know things will work out for the best and I will be very happy with how it all ends up. I hope very much that the same happens for Michael because he deserves it too.

I love this song and I think it sums up how I feel just about perfectly. Just change the words in the last verse from "David" to "Michael." The whole song is really good and has been a theme song of mine for a few years, but you can just listen to the last verse and get the basic idea of the current situation.



PS I wrote this post on Monday when I decided to end the relationship (Michael was out of town until this afternoon which is why it just now happened). And this post is a reflection of how I saw things then. But now that he and I have talked it out and ended things rather nicely, I feel very calm and assured that this is the right thing (although I reserve the right to weep and wail and cry later, should I feel inclined to do so). Right now, I really feel that more than Michael's fear of commitment, the relationship ended because it wasn't quite right. And that is a very peaceful feeling to me, at least right in this moment.