Free Writing Friday: Love or Loathe February 14th?

I Ended My Engagement on Valentine’s Day

The dream day with a horror movie ending

Senior year in college. In a scene out of a teen romance movie, my boyfriend had dressed up in his best suit and tie, then asked my father for permission to marry me. For weeks, I excitedly showed everyone my sparkly cubic zirconia ring.

Valentine’s Day was going to be the pièce de résistance. My fiance had bought us tickets to the Valentine’s Ball at our school. I had never gone to a prom in high school. This was my last chance at a school dance, and I wanted to make the most of it.

As every girl knows, a crucial element of the school dance experience is finding the right dress. I knew exactly what I wanted mine to look like. A strapless sweetheart neckline, body-hugging jewel-toned satin gown, fishtail overskirt, and yards and yards of lace underskirt.

Unfortunately, it was the 80s. That look was so not trendy. But it was the dress I had dreamed of!

So, I decided to make it myself. I found a pattern, bought the fabric in a beautiful deep blue satin, and the yards and yards of blue-gray lace. I bought boning and ribbon to build the corset. I bought hooks, eyes, and zippers. And I started sewing.

Every day for weeks after classes, I laid out pattern pieces, cut pattern pieces, and sewed pattern pieces. I sewed and sewed and sewed.

On the night of the Valentine’s Ball, I was still sewing when my fiance came to pick me up. We were fashionably late to the dance because I was attaching the last flounces of lace to the dress.

Still, it was as beautiful as I had ever dreamed. He looked handsome in his suit, and I looked like an elegant movie star in my couture gown. I’m not certain, this many years after the fact, but I’m fairly certain there was a beautiful corsage. I may have had to insist upon it, rather than it being a spontaneous gesture. But I think we looked great upon arrival.

There was some strain showing, though. He was upset that he’d had to wait for me to finish sewing. Not that we’d missed the beginning of the dance, but that he could have used the time to study. He was extremely tense about getting into graduate school.

I’d had to skip two entire underlayers of the dress because I’d run out of time. I hated to fail at anything, and in my mind, I’d failed at the dress. Also, the boning quickly tore through the ribbons that were supposed to keep it in place. As a result, it was rubbing my skin raw as I danced. I tried to shove it further down into the dress, but then it didn’t hold up the bodice correctly.

As a result, instead of spending hours gazing upon the man I loved while we swayed in each other’s arms, I spent a good portion of the evening sitting down. And wishing I’d thought to bring Band-Aids in my evening bag.

Unlike many men, my fiance loved to dance. And he was good at it. So when a drunken woman in a miniskirt asked him to dance, he happily agreed. I could only take so much of her obvious flirting before I had to intervene.

My fiance and I began a slow dance. But drunken miniskirt woman wouldn’t leave him alone! She started solo-dancing directly in his line of sight, with shimmies and gyrations that would have been at home on a stripper’s pole.

She staggered against me, her stiletto heel puncturing my lace and tearing off a huge piece of it. My fiance immediately rushed to her side, helping her to regain vertical stability.

“You should be more careful,” he snapped at me. At me! Not the woman whose clumsiness had ruined the dress I had been slaving over for weeks.

That was it.

The engagement was over.

I left the dance and made it all the way back to my dorm before I started sobbing uncontrollably.

Did I break up with him because he snapped at me? No. I realized in that instant that he cared more about what the people around us thought than he did about me. And I couldn’t be married to someone for whom I wasn’t the #1 priority in the world.

It took me another 20 years, but I eventually found that person, and he was worth waiting for. He’s getting some very special pastries for the holiday, to show him how glad I am that we found each other. And to let him know he’s my #1, too.

Grab a couple of Kleenex and read Karen Schwartz’s story of how she and her partner celebrate every day together.

Or check out the original prompt posting.