Bridging The Gap

"Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens." – Carl Jung

“Bridging the Gap” from single woman to married woman, one day at a time.

I want to share my story of becoming engaged to the man I love. By sharing my story, I intend to shine a light on the dark places inside of myself that have ached to be seen and understood.

Those places inside that have felt anxious, confused, and shamed. Through my engagement, I questioned my relationship. Whenever I didn’t feel "over-the-moon-excited", I got worried. What's interesting is, the actual “honeymoon” phase of a relationship belongs in the first 12-24 months . This is when one feels most "in love and oxytocin-full”. This honeymoon love eventually wears off and turns into a different kind of love; a love that requires you to get very vulnerable, and meet parts of yourself that you don’t like. A love that requires you to make the space and time to stay connected. A love that requires choosing over not choosing.

Some people think the honeymoon phase ends after the wedding and the actual "honeymoon," but that’s not true. Or maybe it ends when you’re a seasoned married adult and have had 2 children. But, that's not when it ends. It starts weaning off after 12-24 months of a relationship. 50 years ago, people married very early on in their relationship. Some within 3-6 months of meeting. These days, most relationships belong to the "2 years or longer category" before they even get engaged.

What this means for long life couples, is that their "oxytocin-induced-honeymoon-phase" is over. They are now within the reality of a long-term committed relationship. They already live together, have already been through 100’s of fights and make-ups, agreements and disagreements. They have had the time to experience that a relationship is not only what you see in the beginning through heart shaped glasses, but that it actually takes work, time, presence, energy, vulnerability, and continued moments of true connection, to keep love burning. That is real love.

My husband and I met in September of 2013. We completely adored each other from the get-go, but we established a friendship first. I often had doubts pop up because of our age difference, he did too. After our first few months of dating I put a stop to being together because of our age difference. But we were just so drawn towards each other that the stop didn’t last long. I’m not kidding when I say that some invisible force kept putting us in front of each other. We kept bumping into each other, or I would be walking down the street in Bellevue Hill or Double Bay and he would just so happen to be driving by.

After about 2 years together, I took him home to Hawaii where he asked my dad for his permission to marry me (so old fashioned and so cute). A few months prior to that we talked a little bit about the potential of marriage and I was so avoidant I would just freeze. I would freeze even though I deeply wanted this level of commitment, too. (I knew he was the guy I was going to be with and have babies with very early on, I had never had that feeling before in my body)

Another reality for us is that my husband is Australian and I American, which made this a greater commitment than it would be for two humans who are from the same country. The mountains of paperwork, money and legality involved with establishing residency in eachothers countries was ridiculous. But we deeply loved each other, and it was deeply worth it.

When we settled on the decision to get married, we went to a local jeweler to get a ring designed. It was no surprise proposal, but it was intimate, quiet and underrated romantic.

Led by him, on a stormy night in December of 2015, he took me out to dinner at Folonomo in Surry Hills and then to a cliff overlooking the ocean called "The Gap". We witnessed a wild thunder storm.

It was there, he proposed with the ring we designed together. And after only recently finding out the name of this area, I realized it's very fitting for a proposal. It represents the gap between single to married couple, the transition period or rite of passage that comes with getting engaged. It's no coincidence to me that he intuitively chose that particular place to propose.

I knew he brought the ring with him to dinner that night (he isn’t great at hiding things when he is excited and I tried to pretend I didn’t know). He didn’t think out the proposal process very well as I could see this big square box jutting out of his pants pocket LOL. (again i pretended i didn’t notice). I thought he was going to propose at dinner but he didn’t. After dinner he drove us through the darkness to that cliff to propose. He spoke mostly about the love we shared with one another and what that felt like. He said that the ring would symbolize how deep our love is, and would represent our bond, that goes well beyond a marriage. He told me this ring was a gift to always keep no matter we stay together or part.

Even though I knew the proposal was coming, I was flooded with the “over-the-moon” love the moment it happened. I couldn’t believe it, I had gotten engaged.

The ring we had designed holds in it more than I understood at the time. The level of love and commitment seemed to grow over night; there was a deeper feeling of safety and trust. It surprised me, because I didn’t think marriage or getting engaged would change anything. I wasn’t the type of girl who thought much about it as a child. I grew up in a divorced home so I didn’t get a front row view of marriage. I always thought it was just a piece of paper that was legally binding. Like a business deal. Or for tax purposes.

I was totally wrong. It is a legal document that is tied in with a profound rite of passage. One you know nothing about, and no one can explain, until you are inside of it yourself. This rite of passage, a letting go of “single-hood”, transitioning from being just a daughter and sister to a wife, no longer just a “single” friend; is filled with deep healing and transformation.

The unprocessed grief that lay dormant in me from my parents divorce came pouring out in my first year of engagement. The pervasive questioning barely let up. Did I make the right choice? Is there a "better" partner out there for me? Will I get divorced like my parents? The perpetuating doubt. All signs of relationship anxiety I didn’t experience until our engagement. If I trace back through my life, I now see that a high sensitivity and general worry was always present. I also have an anxious and avoidant attachment style. It wasn't until I was in a stable loving relationship, with an emotionally available partner, that I could see the truth about myself.

And then, I was set free.

I didn't have a name for what was happening to me. Not until a dear friend pointed me in the direction of a wonderful woman's work. That work is Conscious Transitions, created by Sheryl Paul. I didn't know that what I was uncovering was true personal growth and healing (not just the new-age-bypassing-kind) integrating in a very profound way. The stories the mind creates to protect us from pain and loss are pretty insane. As one session with Sheryl Paul taught me: when you go within, and truly surrender to your heart, you can hear the quiet whispers and feel the truth as clear as crystal.

Engagement is a time of transition. A transition from maiden to married woman, daughter to wife, single to couple. It is a time of letting go, a time for grief, a time for celebration and a time to surrender to the new life you are choosing. A beautiful place of the unknown.

And by the way, transitions often aren’t easy or smooth, for the highly sensitive person.

Even pausing for a moment, think of the transitions in your life up until this point. Transitions include a big move, a change in careers, a break up, divorce, loss or birth of a child. Did you give yourself care, loving-attention, and carve out space to feel all that you were feeling as these things happened?

I will forever thank my engagement for showing me my unresolved grief. Grief from ex-romances, grief from my parents divorce, grief from international and interstate moves, and other losses I hadn’t ever felt.

It was so wild as all these seemingly irrational and intrusive thoughts invaded my mind, and showed up blaring in my face shouting for attention. Most brides do not feel that grief, anxiety, or doubt are acceptable to experience during engagement. We just aren’t taught about this. We aren’t taught how to make space for the loss that comes with the gain, the grief that comes with the joy. We are taught that if the emotion or thought is “negative” about our partner, then it’s probably the "wrong" person, or whatever. There is a harmful belief plastered through media and living in our psyches.

As Sheryl Paul says, the harmful and untrue belief of "doubt means don't."

I'll say that again, "doubt means don’t" isn't the truth. If doubt or uncertainty arises in the mind, some women throw themselves into the planning: the colors, venue, dress, silverware, and every. single. detail. about the wedding. Obsession and perfectionism take over, hallmarks of anxiety. Unfortunately, one doesn’t realize theres something underneath all of that. There is a wide range of emotion unfolding within the transition that is actually calling to be felt. And we must feel it. It's scary to go into these parts of ourselves and feel the pain, grief, and joy. However hard and painful, we need to allow ourselves to go beyond the thoughts, connect with the body, and feel the underlying emotions during a transition.

It’s ok if we don’t feel like the bride-to-be that we “should” feel like.

It is so incredibly common and normal (if we are conscious) to have doubts, questions, and concerns when we are making one of the biggest decisions of our lives. Marriage is a legal binding, in the same way that buying a house is. There is always time and room to feel emotion, have questions, and think thoughts. The real work is exploring it all and getting vulnerable within the exploration. To be careful not to project our pain and stories onto the relationship (*cue* Is he enough? Do I REALLY love him? Is he intelligent enough?) All of those thoughts point back to us: Am I enough? Do I love myself? Am I intelligent? The thoughts try to protect us from going inward, into the shadowed places where all those beliefs developed, and where the pain lives.

Do not push it down. Do not hide. Do not search outside of yourself. Because when you try to get answers from anyone outside of you, you’ll likely be met with their beliefs, their fears, and their projections/experiences/concerns/wounds.

When you practice letting yourself feel what is authentic to you, you step into your truth, no one else’s. And in your truth lies the deepest gems, the true transformation, and the connection to yourself that you are searching outside for.

The connection you have with yourself is something no one on this earth will ever understand but you. You are always you, no matter married or single. And to know yourself and be yourself, is the greatest privilege on this planet.

I would have known none of this if it weren’t for Sheryl Paul. If you are having intense relationship anxiety, consider her course, Break Free from Relationship Anxiety.

Her work is gold. And so is mine!

Us in Sydney, Australia circa April 2017