#NerdsUnite: Confessions of an Unwed Bride

<editorsnote>  Julie Wilson recently endured an agonizing break up with her fiancé after being together for 8 years. She is now in her late 20s and confused about what to do next. These are some of her frustrations, and ways she is attempting to heal from her loss. </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's Julie Wilson

The Beginning of the End

It's weird to look back on a relationship coming to an end. I can now clearly see that his behavior, my behavior and certain events = breakup, but when things very slowly digress it's not easy to see. It's like suddenly realizing that 2+2=4 and then thinking to yourself, "How the hell did I not see that before?! It very obviously never equaled 5!"

April 2010
A few days after his birthday he finally gets a job that isn't waiting tables, a job that makes our dream of moving out here and succeeding a reality. We are both so happy. I feel like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders  because now I am not the only one bringing home the bacon. Life is good.

Summer 2010    
I notice a change in him. He's always been very outgoing and a bit cocky, always wanting to be the center of attention, but now that he has a job he can be confident about, he's turning into a monster. His head cannot fit through the door. Luckily, I have two friends, I'll call them Danny and Ellen (they will play a pivotal role in what is one of the most fucked up nights of my life) that we knew back in Orlando where the ex and Danny went to school together. I ask them if they have noticed a change in him as well and they both vehemently agree. I felt better that at least I wasn't just making stuff up.

He always comes home and tells me stories of what happened at work that day, the funny thing he did that made everyone crack up. He starts mentioning She Devil (she's not even worth a fake name). Any job in post production basically means you are a slave and will be working 60+ hour work weeks and you will also be working on many Saturdays. I miss him. I feel trapped, I do not have my own car, I don't have many friends. It is worth it though to see his name in the credits of a movie. I am so, so proud of my baby. I am beyond proud when he gets an IMDB page. This whole move has been validated. But L.A. is not a kind city. It is a wonderful, fun place to live. But it will lash out at you. You will get more parking tickets you can afford. Your car will get fucked up. You will pass people asking you for money everyday. It is not a relationship city. You will hate this place. Then one day, you absolutely love it and can't imagine leaving.

September 2010
My mother and aunt come out from Florida for a visit. They help me look for a car to buy. At the last minute my ex and I talk and decide that this is a bad time to get a car. He says we should just wait until after the wedding.

It's 11:00 pm on a weekday. We are sitting on the couch watching TV. She Devil texts him. I think to myself, "I don't text my male coworkers this late at night." I think that after a certain time it's inappropriate. I am not her. I work in a corporate environment, their office is like the opposite, and there isn't even an HR department. I don't like this; I don't get a good vibe from her.

It's a Friday night. I am home alone. He is out with coworkers. I don't have a car and it's kinda tricky to get to the valley without one, especially the area they are in. Me now without a car would have just called a cab. But the me then didn't. It's "understood" that I can always join him, but he never actually asks me to and I just don't really feel welcome. He comes home at 2 in the morning. I am sleeping on the couch, he tries to kiss me, but I am angry and I can taste the cigarettes and alcohol.

Random Sunday, he starts to do the laundry. I yell at him for using the roll of quarters that are wrapped in paper instead of the one wrapped in plastic because thanks a lot, now the quarters are going to go everywhere in my purse and I put the other roll of quarters out for you (needed them to take the bus). Totally ridiculous on my part. Huge to him. He doesn't forget this.

I have to pull teeth to get him to sit down and create our Save The Date. He complains that he sits in front of a computer all day and doesn't want to do it now. We do eventually finish it and I couldn't have asked for it to come out better. I am so freakin excited.

Our wedding was going to be in the Florida Keys. This is an image of the 7 mile bridge.

Early October 2010
He looks right through me. What does that mean? What does that look like? I had read this term before in many books but hadn't experienced it until him and this time period. We would be sitting right in front of each other and I felt that I wasn't even in the room. Like I could start dancing in front of him and he still wouldn't care, not even enough to think I was nuts. This is what denial feels like. I know that I knew that things weren't going so well, but I just never in a million billion years thought we would break up. That simply wasn't an actual possibility in my mind. We were getting married.

I do something that in 7 years I have never done before. I pick up his iPhone and read his text messages. I don't go very far back into his and She Devil's messages before I am bothered. Had I gone back further I probably would have something that spelled out that he was cheating on me. I ask him about what I read, he snatches the phone away and plays it off. This is the beginning of nasty habits on both of our parts; I am going through his stuff and he is lying to me.

The worst part of all of this? I am starting to send out Save The Dates. I send them out as I collect the addresses. I leave these piles on the end table by the door so that I can drop them off at the post office before work. He has to see these. What was going through his mind each day as he left for work?  I hate him for this. It is not easy to tell someone that you have been with for over 7 years that you have feelings for someone else, that you don't know how you feel about them, that you may not want to get married. But when you see Save The Date cards on the table that should scream at you that now is the time to have that awful talk that you do not want to have. That doesn't happen. He lets me find out.

#nerdsunite

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