This is it, the moment that the husband hunter has been waiting for since you devastated her with your happiness. It is the moment she will prove to herself that she is in fact, better than you. Now whether she was single when you so callously broke the news to her, or whether she had a boyfriend who was not yet popping the question, is irrelevant here. Regardless of the circumstances, you dared to make a man love you enough to propose, and for that you must pay.
At this point, we will turn ALL of our attention towards the man in her life. He will become her husband, and it’s going to be sooner than you think. Even if a month ago she was ready to call it quits because he talks to his mom 3 times a day and sleeps with his socks on, she is now ready to become Mr. Happens-to-be-Here. As an anti-bride who was never that hung up on marriage, you don’t quite see why she is so frustrated, but then again, she’s been hunting and not catching for a long time.
As your plans start to come together (and let’s face it, no matter how casual or intimate an affair you will have, planning becomes a central theme of your life), the husband hunter is plotting. She needs to make sure you don’t get the crazy idea that this should be about you or your future husband. She needs to make sure she instils as much doubt about your relationship, and your man into you as she can, and she needs to ensure your happiness does not fly around, all unchecked and free to grow. This is about the point in which you start to hear sarcasm in her voice, even regarding the simplest things. You’re idea about forgoing wedding favours in light of the fact that NO ONE ever so much as thinks about them after the wedding, yields a response such as “well if you really think that’s appropriate” or “to each their own I suppose”. She questions every decision you make, looking out for your best interest of course, and begins interjecting her opinions in the form of her fictitious wedding. With phrases like “well when WE get married…” and “at OUR wedding”, will become more common than hello, and you will start to forget which of the two of you is actually engaged. But don’t worry, she most certainly has not.
This is also about the time she will start to ask you how you managed to “get him to cave in and propose” and what you had to do to “finally get your ring”. See, for you, life has been about spending time with your beloved, and making the most of every moment. For her, it has been a waiting game to see when someone will propose. She is sure that there is some magical formula you have discovered but are not sharing with her, because let’s face it, how could you get engaged before her? You must have tricked him, there must be a way to get her man to propose, and she must know the secret. She is officially obsessed with getting engaged at this point, she is working every angle with the man in her life, and will stop at nothing to succeed. This is the moment some husband hunters might consider faking a pregnancy, because what else will have her racing down the aisle faster than you can say “nut job”.
In my story, my husband hunter used immigration to solidify her place in the wives club. And that is almost better than a fake pregnancy, because you don’t have to go back on your word and run the risk that someone might pick up on your lies.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Friday, October 17, 2008
Chapter 2 - Oh, so, you're engaged...
The response you will get from your close, husband hunting friend when you spill the news of your pending nuptials will be something akin to the feeling you get when you wake up and realize you’ve left your wallet in the back of last night’s cab, but that you can’t call to see if they found it, because your phone is also there. You almost want to kill yourself because that skin crawling sickness is taking over, but you try to be optimistic that everything will come together as it should.
Your husband hunting friend will say things like “oh that’s exciting”. But in that tone your mother used to give you when you asked how you looked before going to your 10th grade dance. In case this isn’t clear, it will be full of false approval and the attempt to be nice for the sake of your feelings. She will timidly ask if you’ve chosen a date, and move right into statements about “sea foam taffeta bridesmaids dresses”, which are really just a desperate attempt to ensure she is going to be your MOH (maid of honour for those of you lucky enough to not know that acronym). She will appear to be way more thrilled that you, but in that crazy person way in which you can just TELL she is ready to climb out on the ledge. And shortly thereafter, things will start to fall apart.
You, as the anti-bride, will continue to navigate the world of $17,000 wedding dresses (dresses should NEVER be allowed to cost as much as cars) and the idea that someone would charge you for cutting a cake. You will go through countless conversations that involve phrases like “I don’t see why the chairs have to match the garter belt” and “But I don’t want pink hearts on my invitations”. You will tell your mother/father/sister/grandma, whoever the traditionalist is (and if you’ve got only one of those, you’re truly blessed), over 100 times why you don’t think you need a limousines to go 11 blocks or why you think candle ceremonies are a horrible tradition. All the while, your husband hunter is brooding behind your back, carefully plotting her revenge in the form of outdoing your happiness. One of the best parts about this process is, while she is brooding and growing to hate you more and more each day, you are none the wiser. However, don’t let this honeymoon phase fool you, as the green monster will shortly appear.
Your husband hunting friend will say things like “oh that’s exciting”. But in that tone your mother used to give you when you asked how you looked before going to your 10th grade dance. In case this isn’t clear, it will be full of false approval and the attempt to be nice for the sake of your feelings. She will timidly ask if you’ve chosen a date, and move right into statements about “sea foam taffeta bridesmaids dresses”, which are really just a desperate attempt to ensure she is going to be your MOH (maid of honour for those of you lucky enough to not know that acronym). She will appear to be way more thrilled that you, but in that crazy person way in which you can just TELL she is ready to climb out on the ledge. And shortly thereafter, things will start to fall apart.
You, as the anti-bride, will continue to navigate the world of $17,000 wedding dresses (dresses should NEVER be allowed to cost as much as cars) and the idea that someone would charge you for cutting a cake. You will go through countless conversations that involve phrases like “I don’t see why the chairs have to match the garter belt” and “But I don’t want pink hearts on my invitations”. You will tell your mother/father/sister/grandma, whoever the traditionalist is (and if you’ve got only one of those, you’re truly blessed), over 100 times why you don’t think you need a limousines to go 11 blocks or why you think candle ceremonies are a horrible tradition. All the while, your husband hunter is brooding behind your back, carefully plotting her revenge in the form of outdoing your happiness. One of the best parts about this process is, while she is brooding and growing to hate you more and more each day, you are none the wiser. However, don’t let this honeymoon phase fool you, as the green monster will shortly appear.
Chapter 1 - OMG you're ENGAGED!!!!
This is that moment I mentioned before, where you, as a woman, are supposed to race into every social function from here on out, flashing your 1 carat Tiffany’s solitaire at anyone with eyeballs, and finding ways to use the word “finance” where it does not belong. “Oh you’re sink is plugged hey? I remember when my FIANCE told me about the time he plugged his sink 6 years before he met me, it was bad”. This is what happens to the Husband Hunters. Never mind that they don’t even know the middle name or terrible teeth picking habit of their husband-to-be. And why should it matter? She’s got the ring so life is good.
As an anti-bride, you experience this moment quite differently. You are nothing short of absolutely ecstatic that the man you love loves you back, and that you’re going to spend the rest of your lives together. You’re not rolling your eyes at the thought or shying away. You are a realist, not one of those kooky feminist types who think all men are evil monsters out to suck every ounce of individuality out of you (and I am not saying this is a general theme for all feminists, just that there are SOME that seem to think this way). But you’re cautiously optimistic, a little nervous about telling people, and certainly not into throwing the dreaded “F” word around unless absolutely necessary. You’re wearing a ring that is so perfectly you, you think it’s possible that said F word hypnotized you to pick it out for yourself. This ring is also not likely from a store like Tiffany’s, didn’t cost anywhere near something with 5 zero’s, and god forbid, may not even be a diamond. It is also the kind of ring that will forever have idiots and husband hunters questioning why you would wear a ring on your “wedding finger” if you’re not married. I mean, no one would choose a non-traditional ring to profess their love, would they? Doesn’t love only come in blue boxes? With shiny diamonds and loads of debt? Isn’t that how you truly KNOW you are loved?
When you tell people you are now to be wed, you are always asked “well aren’t you happy about this?” It is not because you have tears streaming down your face, but because you are not telling them about the engagement, while simultaneously booking the wedding band, looking through fabric swatches and starting your diet of grapefruit juice and carrot sticks. As an anti-bride, you are probably telling people about your engagement before you’ve even chosen a date. This is a dangerous situation, as some people’s heads will actually explode at the thought that not every detail has been laid out and decided before the proposal actually happened. You’re simply taking all this information in, and living in the moment awhile. You’ve got the ring, you’ve got the man you love, and the rest is all details. If it happened tomorrow in Vegas or 9 years from now in your living room, you really would not care. And that is because you’re whole life has not been building up to this moment. Unfortunately YOU are part of the minority.
The worst moment in time will come if you, as an anti-bride, have a close friend who is a husband hunter. And if said husband hunter is older than you, and not engaged before you, you’ve got a real battle on your hands. Telling a husband hunter that you are in fact engaged, before them, is a can of worms that would really be better left unopened.
Of course, you cannot hide this fact from them for long. So you suck it up and make the call. Hesitant, you spill the news to someone who is supposed to be a close friend. And as you start talking you wonder why this overwhelming guilt and sudden nausea is taking over. Should this not be easy for you? She is your close friend, you are extremely happy, and aren’t friends supposed to share in each other’s joy? Of course they are, but only if it all happens in the right order.
As an anti-bride, you experience this moment quite differently. You are nothing short of absolutely ecstatic that the man you love loves you back, and that you’re going to spend the rest of your lives together. You’re not rolling your eyes at the thought or shying away. You are a realist, not one of those kooky feminist types who think all men are evil monsters out to suck every ounce of individuality out of you (and I am not saying this is a general theme for all feminists, just that there are SOME that seem to think this way). But you’re cautiously optimistic, a little nervous about telling people, and certainly not into throwing the dreaded “F” word around unless absolutely necessary. You’re wearing a ring that is so perfectly you, you think it’s possible that said F word hypnotized you to pick it out for yourself. This ring is also not likely from a store like Tiffany’s, didn’t cost anywhere near something with 5 zero’s, and god forbid, may not even be a diamond. It is also the kind of ring that will forever have idiots and husband hunters questioning why you would wear a ring on your “wedding finger” if you’re not married. I mean, no one would choose a non-traditional ring to profess their love, would they? Doesn’t love only come in blue boxes? With shiny diamonds and loads of debt? Isn’t that how you truly KNOW you are loved?
When you tell people you are now to be wed, you are always asked “well aren’t you happy about this?” It is not because you have tears streaming down your face, but because you are not telling them about the engagement, while simultaneously booking the wedding band, looking through fabric swatches and starting your diet of grapefruit juice and carrot sticks. As an anti-bride, you are probably telling people about your engagement before you’ve even chosen a date. This is a dangerous situation, as some people’s heads will actually explode at the thought that not every detail has been laid out and decided before the proposal actually happened. You’re simply taking all this information in, and living in the moment awhile. You’ve got the ring, you’ve got the man you love, and the rest is all details. If it happened tomorrow in Vegas or 9 years from now in your living room, you really would not care. And that is because you’re whole life has not been building up to this moment. Unfortunately YOU are part of the minority.
The worst moment in time will come if you, as an anti-bride, have a close friend who is a husband hunter. And if said husband hunter is older than you, and not engaged before you, you’ve got a real battle on your hands. Telling a husband hunter that you are in fact engaged, before them, is a can of worms that would really be better left unopened.
Of course, you cannot hide this fact from them for long. So you suck it up and make the call. Hesitant, you spill the news to someone who is supposed to be a close friend. And as you start talking you wonder why this overwhelming guilt and sudden nausea is taking over. Should this not be easy for you? She is your close friend, you are extremely happy, and aren’t friends supposed to share in each other’s joy? Of course they are, but only if it all happens in the right order.
The Prologue
When I got engaged in December of 2006, I didn’t realize the chaos I was about to encounter. Getting engaged changes your whole world, and no matter how hard you try to not let it, it is an unstoppable force that actually seems to change the molecular structure of people’s brains. I never intended to be that bride that cares about bow sashes or different shades of pink. I never claimed to be one of those girls who had dreamed of getting married her entire life, and I was certainly not about to spend countless hours agonizing over the most minute detail that nobody cared about anyway. No, I was going to be the girl who held it all together, had the perfect intimate affair, and didn’t gain a frown line in the process. I was going to beat the system.
It wasn’t too long after the engagement happened that I started to realize what the words “fiancé” and “wedding” do to people, women specifically. Some of them scream and swoon, act like the most amazing thing ever just happened. Others are bitter, resentful and unable to think for one second about the happiness of the other person. Most people fall in the middle, excitedly resentful I guess you could call it. I don’t think it’s that they mean to be. I think it is just a natural defensive reaction in all women. Women were bred to compete to win the best man, to bear his offspring and spread his seed. We were created with an innate need to be the best, even if it only means a small victory. Beyond this, we are raised in a world that places an archaic meaning on the word relationship, and are often led to believe that we are defined by the relationships we can build and foster.
This happens to friends as much as lovers. Us women trying to hold onto every person we’ve ever met; determined to build long meaningful relationships with every person we encounter. It is why women are not as good at having one night stands. We just can’t let go. And why? I think if there was an answer for that it would change a lot of things in this world. I think part of our behaviour is just instinctive, and some of that can never be changed. We just feel the need to make everyone like us, to please everyone and to never move on. We torture ourselves in countless toxic relationships, blaming the person we’re in it with for the way they make us feel, and not taking the initiative to break it off like you would with a bad lover. Breaking up with a friend with whom you are incompatible doesn’t seem to be an option. That would be failure. It would be social suicide, the cessation of a torture you’ve grown accustom to, and it would be one of the best things in your life.
There seems to be this assumption, that the mere act of being proposed to by the man you love will forever change your demeanour. You are now expected to be permanently happy. All the time, no matter what, happy. After all, what do you have to complain about? You’re getting married, you’ve found the one, you are so lucky. Never mind that the entire idea of marriage goes against what you stand for, or that the thought of throwing a large wedding, complete with unity candles and mind-numbing traditions makes you want to run screaming for the hills. None of that matters, what matters is you’ve secured yourself a place in the circle of wives, where you can look down upon single girls and those serial daters who never seem to find “the one”. Your journey is over, you’ve caught your prey and you have absolutely no choice but to embrace it, or face the wrath of those who are not yet so lucky. You are now part of an elite group of women, and you cannot for a second believe that you will ever be free. So much of the time it seems, marriage is not about the making a commitment to the person you love, it’s about proving to the world that someone could love you forever.
Of course, not all women are like this. There is a large collection of us who have never gone on a husband hunt. Those who are perfectly content to casually date, or live in a long term committed relationship with a man, who is not technically your husband. We are the realists. The content few who don't see marriage as a must have. We are the Anti-Brides. These are the people who believe that marriage and commitment are not mutually exclusive, and who respect themselves and their partner enough to use words instead of legally binding contracts to nourish their relationship. It’s not to say women in this group are against marriage, or that they don’t want it to happen. Instead, we simply understand that it is not a requirement for happiness, and that it certainly does not change much of anything overall. A strong relationship will grow stronger, regardless of a ceremonial promise, and a weak relationship will continue to deteriorate, despite being legally bound to survive. The overarching theme of this group of women is that they lack the desperation and the constant need to be validated by their partner. They do not define who they are by who they are with, and they do not allow a relationship to dictate any facet of their lives. Instead they stand strong, as supportive partners and equals, resisting amalgamation, and working hard to avoid simply becoming someone’s “wife”.
That is quite often where the confusion lies, and things get messy. Friendships end, your once BFF is now simply a close acquaintance, and the two of you look at each other and wonder how it is you've made it this far, when your ideals are so different. The husband hunters cannot for a moment comprehend what it means to want to get married, but to also not care if you ever do. And the Anti-brides? Well we just don't understand why you would care whether the centerpieces were fuchsia or magenta (is there a difference?). In fact, most of us don't even understand the need for centerpieces at all.
There is a simple way to tell the Husband Hunters from the Anti-Brides. Allow the latter type to get engaged, and watch what happens to the former. The gloves are off, the nails are out and it is go time. There is no way the husband hunter would ever allow the laid back anti-bride to get married ahead of her.
It wasn’t too long after the engagement happened that I started to realize what the words “fiancé” and “wedding” do to people, women specifically. Some of them scream and swoon, act like the most amazing thing ever just happened. Others are bitter, resentful and unable to think for one second about the happiness of the other person. Most people fall in the middle, excitedly resentful I guess you could call it. I don’t think it’s that they mean to be. I think it is just a natural defensive reaction in all women. Women were bred to compete to win the best man, to bear his offspring and spread his seed. We were created with an innate need to be the best, even if it only means a small victory. Beyond this, we are raised in a world that places an archaic meaning on the word relationship, and are often led to believe that we are defined by the relationships we can build and foster.
This happens to friends as much as lovers. Us women trying to hold onto every person we’ve ever met; determined to build long meaningful relationships with every person we encounter. It is why women are not as good at having one night stands. We just can’t let go. And why? I think if there was an answer for that it would change a lot of things in this world. I think part of our behaviour is just instinctive, and some of that can never be changed. We just feel the need to make everyone like us, to please everyone and to never move on. We torture ourselves in countless toxic relationships, blaming the person we’re in it with for the way they make us feel, and not taking the initiative to break it off like you would with a bad lover. Breaking up with a friend with whom you are incompatible doesn’t seem to be an option. That would be failure. It would be social suicide, the cessation of a torture you’ve grown accustom to, and it would be one of the best things in your life.
There seems to be this assumption, that the mere act of being proposed to by the man you love will forever change your demeanour. You are now expected to be permanently happy. All the time, no matter what, happy. After all, what do you have to complain about? You’re getting married, you’ve found the one, you are so lucky. Never mind that the entire idea of marriage goes against what you stand for, or that the thought of throwing a large wedding, complete with unity candles and mind-numbing traditions makes you want to run screaming for the hills. None of that matters, what matters is you’ve secured yourself a place in the circle of wives, where you can look down upon single girls and those serial daters who never seem to find “the one”. Your journey is over, you’ve caught your prey and you have absolutely no choice but to embrace it, or face the wrath of those who are not yet so lucky. You are now part of an elite group of women, and you cannot for a second believe that you will ever be free. So much of the time it seems, marriage is not about the making a commitment to the person you love, it’s about proving to the world that someone could love you forever.
Of course, not all women are like this. There is a large collection of us who have never gone on a husband hunt. Those who are perfectly content to casually date, or live in a long term committed relationship with a man, who is not technically your husband. We are the realists. The content few who don't see marriage as a must have. We are the Anti-Brides. These are the people who believe that marriage and commitment are not mutually exclusive, and who respect themselves and their partner enough to use words instead of legally binding contracts to nourish their relationship. It’s not to say women in this group are against marriage, or that they don’t want it to happen. Instead, we simply understand that it is not a requirement for happiness, and that it certainly does not change much of anything overall. A strong relationship will grow stronger, regardless of a ceremonial promise, and a weak relationship will continue to deteriorate, despite being legally bound to survive. The overarching theme of this group of women is that they lack the desperation and the constant need to be validated by their partner. They do not define who they are by who they are with, and they do not allow a relationship to dictate any facet of their lives. Instead they stand strong, as supportive partners and equals, resisting amalgamation, and working hard to avoid simply becoming someone’s “wife”.
That is quite often where the confusion lies, and things get messy. Friendships end, your once BFF is now simply a close acquaintance, and the two of you look at each other and wonder how it is you've made it this far, when your ideals are so different. The husband hunters cannot for a moment comprehend what it means to want to get married, but to also not care if you ever do. And the Anti-brides? Well we just don't understand why you would care whether the centerpieces were fuchsia or magenta (is there a difference?). In fact, most of us don't even understand the need for centerpieces at all.
There is a simple way to tell the Husband Hunters from the Anti-Brides. Allow the latter type to get engaged, and watch what happens to the former. The gloves are off, the nails are out and it is go time. There is no way the husband hunter would ever allow the laid back anti-bride to get married ahead of her.
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