Marry In Haste, Repent at Leisure

notaneffingfairytale - 11 Sep 16

I knew my wedding was a mistake as I was saying my vows. I knew my wedding was a mistake in the weeks leading up to it. I knew it would be a mistake when I said yes to the strained and quite frankly, depressing proposal (in-between tube stations on the Piccadilly line).

I sobbed during my vows. I stood sobbing in that grotty, gloomy registry office in Richmond Town Hall, surrounded by friends and family of my husband who I barely knew and a handful of my old friends that I hadn’t seen in ten years who I had never, and have still never, been honest with. People who thought I was sobbing out of joy.

My young son from my previous marriage was sitting behind me and I knew I just had to get on with the day for his sake. To create the family I promised when divorce tore his father and I apart just a year earlier. To create a family with the man who I had ripped our lives apart for who had turned out to be less Prince Charming and more Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. My second chance, my happy ending – it was all a sham.

I sobbed during my vows because I did love him. I loved him and I meant what I was saying, but it all felt so wrong. It was a horrible feeling to have, but as I looked at him, I wanted to run away.

  Marry in haste, repent at leisure. That old saying was all I could think that day.

I have never looked at any of our wedding photos. In the few I have seen taken by relatives that made it onto Facebook, my husband and I look as if we were attending a funeral rather than our own wedding. There was no affection between us. By the time of the wedding I had stopped trying as I was constantly told I was ‘putting him under pressure’ by showing affection.

The photos I did see were grim: Him in a suit he bought with the only concern being how his friends would think he looked in it, and me in my cheap, high street dress that I bought all on my own a few weeks before, miserable and upset that I had no one who would come with me to look at dresses for my ‘big day’. No looking into each otter’s eyes, no genuine smiles, no affection. Just strained smiles and awkwardness.

There was no excitement leading up to the wedding. It was all planned with one thing in mind: my future husbands friends and what would make them happy on the day. I wasn’t even an afterthought in my own wedding, it was all about them, basically a big night out for the ‘lads’. A registry office do followed by a meal in a grotty pub. Nothing too posh as they were from a different area and we weren’t to make them feel uncomfortable.

I ate chips for my wedding meal, and not in an ironic, hipster way.

A week before the wedding we had argued. I had booked a trip away to the coast for a few days in a desperate bit to try and connect to the man I would soon be married to, which had backfired massively, as all he wanted to do was get drunk and sleep. So much for a weekend of passion; I spent it wither appologising to bouncers for his awful drunken behavior or sitting alone wondering what the hell happened to my life while he either slept off hangovers or spent hours on the phone to his friends.

 I wish I had nice wedding photos and good memories of our day. I long to have those wedding photos where you see the couple looking into each others eyes, happy and elated.

We didn’t have a single moment like that. At our wedding reception he disappeared for an hour leaving me sat on my own wanting to cry. Our wedding night was spent arguing as he didn’t think I prioritised his friends that day. The day after our wedding was spent with me waiting hand on foot on his family as they came for lunch, the day spent in a surreal, awkward immitation of life, as my new husband was still not speaking to me.

Five years later, I am still here. Things are a little easier as I have detached and no longer care. I just concentrate on myself and my son. Five years later and a lot of people I know are getting married. I am always so happy when I see the candid photos of their weddings on social media; the smiles between the couple, the looking into each others eyes, the shared, whispered jokes. But there is a stabbing jealousy in the pit of my stomach to because I wanted that. I want that.

 But I married the wrong person for me.

notaneffingfairytale

View profile for posts, events and more info