When
Exes Keep Getting Married: ”I’m Always the One Before The One”
Last
week, I got a call from an ex — a man I truly believed I’d one day see
in a tux smiling at me from the end of a church aisle. He’s been dating
the same girl since we broke up two years ago, and the crushing words
that came out of his mouth were ones I had secretly prayed I’d never
hear: “Shade,” he said, “I’m going to marry her.” I promptly burst into
tears. See, this isn’t the first time I’ve been the girlfriend before
the girlfriend who becomes the wife.
It has happened — you’re not going
to believe this — seven times (and I’m only 28)! It’s like I’m prepping
guys for marriage to someone else.
I guess you could consider a girl like me a husband fluffer — you know
how in romantic movies, there’s a crew member called the fluffer whose
job is to get the actor, um, ready for his scene?
In my case, I put in
lots of hard work, and then someone else steps in right before the money
shot…I mean, the wedding scene. Ha.
The details vary, but the basic scenario is the same: Boy meets me. Boy
and I fall in love. Boy and I break up. Boy marries next girl. Take
Jude, my first boyfriend after college. I
was convinced he was The One, but two years in, I realized I’d never
lived on my own as a single chick. Shouldn’t you do that before you get
married? So we took a little break. He
started dating another girl… and now they’re engaged.
Then there was Mide. Oh, Mide. Like Jude, he was an older guy, charming,
successful, and handsome. I was madly in love with him. I thought, With
a guy like this, you gotta play a little
hard to get. But I missed the signs that he was playing a more grown-up
game. He left me for a model (ouch!), whom he’s now marrying.
Given these stories, I asked myself what I had done to drive these men
into the arms of other women. Had I sparked their desire for a wife? Or
made them want out of the dating game for good?
I posed those questions to my therapist. “You thought you wanted to
marry these guys, right?” she asked. Right. “So you made them work
through their issues and got them ready for marriage.” Right. “But were
you ready?”