Spreading the news
Why is it that deciding to get married is treated like the most amazing piece of news people could ever receive? If I told people 'hey, I really love this guy and I don't think we're going to break up', I can't see them caring much. People don't care about the state of each other's relationships (beyond gossip), so yesterday seemed slightly surreal for me.
After deciding to get married, Himself and I weren't really sure what to do or how to approach the actual practicalities of the rest of the journey. How should we tell our parents and families? Given that we had the rare occassion where both sets were going to be in the same place at the same time, that question was made a little easier. In a week Himself was finally graduating from uni, and we were having an early dinner at our fave cafe, Devour, with his mum, grandma, brother and my parents afterwards to celebrate. So yesterday I watched Himself get a certificate, then sat with butterflies in my stomach over a dinner, unsure of exactly how we were going to bring this up. I had been uncertain, right up to that night, of whether we would really do this. Saying you're going to get married is pretty easy, telling anyone besides yourselves is making it real.
When, mid meal, Himself said "So we're glad you're here together for another reason, too... Herself and I are thinking we should get married." I thought I would throw up. I'm not sure why I'd been so nervous about telling our families. There was no reason to think that anyone in our family would be upset - I get along great with Himself's family and sometimes I'm convinced my parents love him more than they love me. Even given that, I guess there was a part of me that was worried either of our families would think we were rushing into something, or that given we're so financially (and generally) irresponsible, that we weren't ready. If I'm going to be honest, there was also a part of me that was secretly worried that the look on Himself's family member's faces would show me that I was wrong and they weren't really that 'ok' with me, they were just putting up with their son/brother/grandson's partner. Even more honestly, after having gone through the experience once of telling my parents life-changing news they didn't react well to, I was terrified to tell them something they might not like again. The only thing worse than the disappointment on my parent's face when I told them I was pregnant at age 19 was losing the baby to a miscarriage.
This time my news was received a lot better: Himself's mum nearly spoke over the top of his little speech with "Good. When?" and Himself's brother was genuinely delighted, telling us both how great he thought it was. My parents were a little more of a puzzle. As I looked down the table towards them, my nerves were clanging and the butterflies had turned to nausea. It wasn't really helped by the look of surprise and trepedation on my Dad's face, or the shock on my Mum's. My Mum was the first to say anything, with a quick "Really?", and I'm not sure, but I think Dad asked "Are you serious?". When Himself and I kept nodding to confirm we weren't joking Mum looked at Dad and said "He's still waiting for the punch-line". I finally spoke and said "There's no punchline... we're serious". Mum came over to kiss and hug, and Dad leant over to kiss us. At that stage I was pretty scared that we hadn't just surprised them, but that they weren't happy. It didn't take long for Dad to get up and buy a bottle of champagne for us to share, and for me to see that Mum was happy, but I was still uneasy over their reaction.
While Himself left the table to call his Dad, who is living in the Middle East for work, I sat trying to be happy about the idea that this was now real. For the most part, I was still feeling like the whole day was unreal. This probably hadn't been helped by the fact that I didn't sleep the night before, but I think my own emotions over our own private agreement with each other being out in the open was starting to take over. Himself's sister-in-law soon arrived to join in our celebration, and after a drink with everyone and a few standard questions like when, where etc, everyone started to clear out to go back to work, baby bed-times, vet pick-ups and so on.
After everyone left Himself and I were alone, staring at each other accross an empty table. Himself seemed more excited by the whole affair than I was, and we took the quiet minute to call his sister, who had missed dinner as she was working. Her reaction was as expected, happy surprise, and with that all the obligatory family announcements had been made. While all of this had taken only an hour or so, it felt like a huge ordeal and part of me was still tied up in trying to decipher my parent's reactions. Wanting to put my own mind at ease, I decided to call them so I could get on with the rest of my night. I picked up the phone, and when Mum answered I asked "So have you recovered from your surprise yet?" We had a brief chat where I teased them about their reaction and Mum reiterated that they were just taken aback; they really hadn't seen it coming. While Mum repeated on "Dad says he's not sure if he managed to tell you properly, but he's really happy and passes on his congratulations", I started to ease my own mind. After hanging up I was reassured and felt ready to get on with what was due to be a long night.
When we collected our thoughts and ourselves, we went on to the next point for the night. Meeting up with the friend who introduced us (a happy co-incidence that we were set to see him again after his long absence in Sydney) at our fave local hangout in Northcote, Terra Firma. A quick drink with him where we shared our good news went as expected - he didn't really care and said the perfunctory congrats - then we moved on to the last stop of the night. The IsNot Magazine launch for their latest edition. By this stage, I think I was just operating on auto-pilot.
It took about two seconds after we arrived before Himself told our very good friends Jane, Tim and Richard. Given that I had convinced Tim that he couldn't go home after work, he had to come out that night as I had good news for him, they had been speculating before we got there as to what the news was. When we asked well, what do you think, Jane responded "Tim thinks you've changed the name of our company, or you're getting married." We looked at each other, laughed, and confirmed that we were getting married. Both Tim and Jane seemed shocked, but happy. Richard gave the very apt response "Well congratulations on being able to do something I can't!" (the proud gay lad he is). It took me about two seconds to apologise and tell him I didn't have the strength to follow in Brad and Ange's footsteps and refuse to get married until all people had the right to do so. Within about two seconds of that we had managed to tell the ever wonderful Penny, Tash and Mel from IsNot, which earned us some free champagne (thanks Tash!) and about five seconds later (or so it felt) the whole room knew.
While Himself took to the attention like a duck to water, I suddenly found myself overwhelmed and unable to respond to people's reactions. It took a lot for me to convince people that while we were going to get married it wasn't the big spectacular deal that it sounded. Friends and people we didn't really know that well had suddenly turned the spotlight on our relationship. Maybe it's because we are so different in public to the way we are privately, which is a product of the fact that our relationship (particularly around other people) is a combination of work and personal, or maybe we just hide how serious we are about each other, but it felt as if people were quite shocked.
On top of that, it wasn't something I was used to when Himself and I are so rarely a 'couple' in public - we're Him and Her from the magazine or the conference. I was also pretty overwhelmed by the assumptions that come with telling people you are going to Get Married. For us, it's a natural progression of where we are and what we want from our future, it's going to be a chance to have a very informal, personal gathering of the people who matter to us to make a committment to each other. Suddenly all those conversations between Himself and I where he told me he didn't see the point of everyone else being involved in what was, essentially, a very private committment between ourselves, made much more sense. I understood his feelings that our choice to get married really didn't require an audience. Unfortunately, it was a little late to come to that understanding in the middle of a room of people.
So now we're gradually getting around to telling the rest of our friends and family... A few of my oldest friends were away, so in this modern age it's email notification (which is better as people can't over-react). As for the rest of it, I'm not enjoying the 'announcement'...
After deciding to get married, Himself and I weren't really sure what to do or how to approach the actual practicalities of the rest of the journey. How should we tell our parents and families? Given that we had the rare occassion where both sets were going to be in the same place at the same time, that question was made a little easier. In a week Himself was finally graduating from uni, and we were having an early dinner at our fave cafe, Devour, with his mum, grandma, brother and my parents afterwards to celebrate. So yesterday I watched Himself get a certificate, then sat with butterflies in my stomach over a dinner, unsure of exactly how we were going to bring this up. I had been uncertain, right up to that night, of whether we would really do this. Saying you're going to get married is pretty easy, telling anyone besides yourselves is making it real.
When, mid meal, Himself said "So we're glad you're here together for another reason, too... Herself and I are thinking we should get married." I thought I would throw up. I'm not sure why I'd been so nervous about telling our families. There was no reason to think that anyone in our family would be upset - I get along great with Himself's family and sometimes I'm convinced my parents love him more than they love me. Even given that, I guess there was a part of me that was worried either of our families would think we were rushing into something, or that given we're so financially (and generally) irresponsible, that we weren't ready. If I'm going to be honest, there was also a part of me that was secretly worried that the look on Himself's family member's faces would show me that I was wrong and they weren't really that 'ok' with me, they were just putting up with their son/brother/grandson's partner. Even more honestly, after having gone through the experience once of telling my parents life-changing news they didn't react well to, I was terrified to tell them something they might not like again. The only thing worse than the disappointment on my parent's face when I told them I was pregnant at age 19 was losing the baby to a miscarriage.
This time my news was received a lot better: Himself's mum nearly spoke over the top of his little speech with "Good. When?" and Himself's brother was genuinely delighted, telling us both how great he thought it was. My parents were a little more of a puzzle. As I looked down the table towards them, my nerves were clanging and the butterflies had turned to nausea. It wasn't really helped by the look of surprise and trepedation on my Dad's face, or the shock on my Mum's. My Mum was the first to say anything, with a quick "Really?", and I'm not sure, but I think Dad asked "Are you serious?". When Himself and I kept nodding to confirm we weren't joking Mum looked at Dad and said "He's still waiting for the punch-line". I finally spoke and said "There's no punchline... we're serious". Mum came over to kiss and hug, and Dad leant over to kiss us. At that stage I was pretty scared that we hadn't just surprised them, but that they weren't happy. It didn't take long for Dad to get up and buy a bottle of champagne for us to share, and for me to see that Mum was happy, but I was still uneasy over their reaction.
While Himself left the table to call his Dad, who is living in the Middle East for work, I sat trying to be happy about the idea that this was now real. For the most part, I was still feeling like the whole day was unreal. This probably hadn't been helped by the fact that I didn't sleep the night before, but I think my own emotions over our own private agreement with each other being out in the open was starting to take over. Himself's sister-in-law soon arrived to join in our celebration, and after a drink with everyone and a few standard questions like when, where etc, everyone started to clear out to go back to work, baby bed-times, vet pick-ups and so on.
After everyone left Himself and I were alone, staring at each other accross an empty table. Himself seemed more excited by the whole affair than I was, and we took the quiet minute to call his sister, who had missed dinner as she was working. Her reaction was as expected, happy surprise, and with that all the obligatory family announcements had been made. While all of this had taken only an hour or so, it felt like a huge ordeal and part of me was still tied up in trying to decipher my parent's reactions. Wanting to put my own mind at ease, I decided to call them so I could get on with the rest of my night. I picked up the phone, and when Mum answered I asked "So have you recovered from your surprise yet?" We had a brief chat where I teased them about their reaction and Mum reiterated that they were just taken aback; they really hadn't seen it coming. While Mum repeated on "Dad says he's not sure if he managed to tell you properly, but he's really happy and passes on his congratulations", I started to ease my own mind. After hanging up I was reassured and felt ready to get on with what was due to be a long night.
When we collected our thoughts and ourselves, we went on to the next point for the night. Meeting up with the friend who introduced us (a happy co-incidence that we were set to see him again after his long absence in Sydney) at our fave local hangout in Northcote, Terra Firma. A quick drink with him where we shared our good news went as expected - he didn't really care and said the perfunctory congrats - then we moved on to the last stop of the night. The IsNot Magazine launch for their latest edition. By this stage, I think I was just operating on auto-pilot.
It took about two seconds after we arrived before Himself told our very good friends Jane, Tim and Richard. Given that I had convinced Tim that he couldn't go home after work, he had to come out that night as I had good news for him, they had been speculating before we got there as to what the news was. When we asked well, what do you think, Jane responded "Tim thinks you've changed the name of our company, or you're getting married." We looked at each other, laughed, and confirmed that we were getting married. Both Tim and Jane seemed shocked, but happy. Richard gave the very apt response "Well congratulations on being able to do something I can't!" (the proud gay lad he is). It took me about two seconds to apologise and tell him I didn't have the strength to follow in Brad and Ange's footsteps and refuse to get married until all people had the right to do so. Within about two seconds of that we had managed to tell the ever wonderful Penny, Tash and Mel from IsNot, which earned us some free champagne (thanks Tash!) and about five seconds later (or so it felt) the whole room knew.
While Himself took to the attention like a duck to water, I suddenly found myself overwhelmed and unable to respond to people's reactions. It took a lot for me to convince people that while we were going to get married it wasn't the big spectacular deal that it sounded. Friends and people we didn't really know that well had suddenly turned the spotlight on our relationship. Maybe it's because we are so different in public to the way we are privately, which is a product of the fact that our relationship (particularly around other people) is a combination of work and personal, or maybe we just hide how serious we are about each other, but it felt as if people were quite shocked.
On top of that, it wasn't something I was used to when Himself and I are so rarely a 'couple' in public - we're Him and Her from the magazine or the conference. I was also pretty overwhelmed by the assumptions that come with telling people you are going to Get Married. For us, it's a natural progression of where we are and what we want from our future, it's going to be a chance to have a very informal, personal gathering of the people who matter to us to make a committment to each other. Suddenly all those conversations between Himself and I where he told me he didn't see the point of everyone else being involved in what was, essentially, a very private committment between ourselves, made much more sense. I understood his feelings that our choice to get married really didn't require an audience. Unfortunately, it was a little late to come to that understanding in the middle of a room of people.
So now we're gradually getting around to telling the rest of our friends and family... A few of my oldest friends were away, so in this modern age it's email notification (which is better as people can't over-react). As for the rest of it, I'm not enjoying the 'announcement'...
posted by made in melbourne | 8:07 PM
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