Saturday Night Lone

Once again my favorite Saturday night date is Andy Samberg.

Maybe now is a good time to tell you that I was engaged to be married in FEB of 08.

Nights like tonite, when I was with him, I enjoyed staying in and vegging out. Not that I don't enjoy it now, I am not much of a bar scene-type of person but now it somehow feels like I am wasting time I could be using to accumulate my 60 dates (a story for another day).

I forgive him for what he did. No, he didn't cheat, kill or steal, what he did was not that terrible. In fact, if he were not my fiance at the time I may not have cared as much. Sometimes I wish I didn't care so much.

The cliff notes version of the story is this: we both had decent jobs but we lost them. On they same day. We had some money saved and we both had separate houses; on top of that we were given a severance package. He got hit first, in the morning and then me later in the morning. I knew it was coming and he was blindsided.

He took it hard but I was told that was expected (for a guy to take it worse than a girl). I tried to be positive and help him see that it wasn't that big of a deal. Between the two of us, if we worked together, we would have plenty of money to make ends meet. I tried to get him to take a short cheap mid-week trip to Vegas to forget our troubles for a couple of days but he WANTED to be negative and upset instead.

I maintained my positive attitude (ala "The Secret" and advice from Joel Osteen) as difficult as it was; lying even to myself at times. Having him around made it more difficult for me to maintain my positivity but I felt that needed my help here. I tried and tried but I finally had to ask him to give me some space to allow myself to cope through positive thinking and being proactive in my job search.

I began treating every day as a "work" day. I started the job search at 8am and didn't stop until 5. I went to visit my parents and stayed with them for a month and a half and I "worked" from 8-3 looking for a job and then I made dinner for them. They got so spoiled by this that they called me to tell me they were on their way home and to have dinner ready after I left and went back home :)

After three months of begging him to get his act together (he didn't even have his resume ready after 2), I finally decided I needed to help him regardless of his protests and arguments around this. I invited him to attend a career fair with me. I asked him if he needed my help and he said no. Apparently he did because when I went to pick him up his clothes were wrinkled, he was wearing tennis shoes, he didn't have resumes printed and anyone who has done a career fair knows that none of these things are acceptable. AND he smelled bad! Nice.

He made me finally realize I couldn't count on him to take care of me. Not that I need it; but just in case I ever do. Maybe I am behind the times but my expectation of a man is to provide for his family.

Just when I really needed him to man up and be my partner and be stong and positive for me was when he fell apart and couldn't even function. He would wear mis-matched clothes to dinner and didn't look like he showered. The negativity he spoke was like poison. I begged him to see a counselor and he refused. I pleaded with him to apply to jobs and he ignored me. I explained to him that I felt like I was working alone and needed his help - he didn't care that I was suffering and even less that he was. That started to concern me.

He cared so little about himself, even less about me, what about our children? Is this an attitude I would want them to see? Are his actions the actions I want my children to emulate? Thus began the consideration of the most difficult decision I have made to date.

My engagement ring was a beautiful ring, I loved it and what it represented. I loved that it meant I would be spending my life with this man whom I had so much in common with. Had so many fun adventures with. This man I would have more adventures with. He spent months picking out this perfect ring and I loved that about it also.

That was the day I took my ring off....and cried.