Weddingbee boards

Well said....

Keep your mind occupied and your hands busy.....things will unfold naturally.  I learned the hard way from a previous relationship that putting too much pressure on a guy does not always end well (for anyone).

Only one person can make you happy, and that person is you.

I respectfully disagree. Although I understand and do appreciate your post and the message, I personally get very frustrated with comments about loving yourself and being okay on your own and not needing anyone to make us happy. I think that is a very tall order and in many cases, in not acheivable. SO and I were just talking about this and we both agree, it's very natural to only feel loved, happy, and comfortable when you are with another person (emotionally, not physcially).

Humans are, first and foremost, their own worst critic. No one judges us as harshly as we judge ourselves. To say that we are the only people who can make us happy would mean fighting a very natural urge to critique ourselves and instead, only postively reaffirm ourselves. I'm not saying that someone who is self-depricating and horribly depressed will instantly find love and happiness in someone else....but the truth is we are happier when we're with someone.

Humans are also very social creatures. We do not thrive on our own. We are intended to mate and procreate and live in packs and we are most definitely meant to spend our time with another person. If we were meant to be alone, we would be happiest when we're alone. Some individuals are happier alone but the vast majority of humans need or want someone to spend their life with. I think for many, many humans they are only truly happy when they have someone to share their life with.

I'm not saying this to say that you're wrong and that we should totally all find men to make ourselves happy, but I do think that when you're waiting, it's okay to know that it's not only completely natural to feel frustration and anxiety, it's actually part of our evolution. We survived and multiplied based on our desire to be with someone and not to live on our own.

To all the waiting girls, I feel you. I'm waiting too and I am not always gracious about it. Whenever I'm feeling particularly angsty, I just tell myself, "this is totally normal. nothing you're feeling is weird or unheard of. everyone goes through this."

I just really want to spread the message that those angsty feelings during waiting are completely and totally natural and are 1000% valid. It seems like we often (women as a group) try to downplay our emotions by saying, "I'm just being silly." But the truth is you're not being silly. Being frustrated or sad, those feelings are totally justified and understandable. I think, for me personally, I just try to work through them by telling myself that it's normal and that I will be okay. Waiting for one of the biggest events of your life, an even that means you get to spend every day with the person you love more than anyone and that you can start a family with? It's totally an emotional time and I think we just have to embrace it!

I do agree that taking care of yourself is super important and am glad you're getting the message out there. I just really hope that waiting girls can embrace it and not feel like they have to shelve their feelings or anything like that!

I do appreciate the message of this post, and it is something ALL of us (not just waiting bees) need to hear. As someone who is waiting, though, I think a lot of people come on here to vent and get it all out. It's not that most of us are really sitting home crying all day every day because we're not engaged. It's that it gets to us and society still tells us to wait for the guy to make the moves, and wait until we're engaged to start any planning- even if we both, as a couple, have decided that's the next step. 

Maybe this message is better applied to individual posts than to blanket the waiting boards. I think most people are preoccupied with something in their life and aren't in a zen state appreciating every beautiful thing in the world. You could have phrased this post differently and addressed it to all the women (and men) out there planning their wedding right now. 

Personally, my happiness does not solely depend on my SO. But after being together for 3.5 years and being each other's best friends, our happiness is mutually intrenched. I am waiting for him to propose, but that is based off of promises he has made to me. I am filled with anticipation for what I know will come (sort of like Christmas morning). And I already do go on walks, enjoy books, cook and appreciate life. But I also look forward to, and "can't wait" for my SO to propose. 

@Statutory Grape: I absolutely appreciate the reminder for "self-care". I work at this every single day, whether I'm in a relationship or not. I'm going to elaborate on the emotional side of self-care for a moment...

I believe good self-care also includes feeling all of your feeligns in their entirety, even if they're nasty or uncomfortable.  Even if you feel that you "should" be feeling some other way (i.e. happy,independent, etc). Even if you feel silly becuase some special occasion day passed without a proposal and you're starting to be cranky about it. It happens.

My 2 cents is that if you do feel sad about not being engaged/married, *admit it*. Don't try to be tough, while it's eating at you inside. Take a bubble bath and cry cry cry it all out! Write in your journal.  If your best friends are tired of hearing it, be your own best friend, vent on the board here, etc. I think writing is really powerful. When we get it out on paper (or computer screen) we can reflect on what is going on, while at the same time venting it out of our system so we can let go of it.

The only way to get over an emotion is to go through it, feel it, question it, and then it can let go of you. Not push it to the back of your mind because you don't think you should be feeling that  way. Experience it. Then your attention can come back to fully being in the moment and "feeling the sunshine" as Statutory Grape so eloquently put it.  

Note: feeling and honoring your feelings does not mean beating your SO over the head with them all the time, it's OK to share, but in a non-blaming manner and always when you're not in an upset state. Upset/anger clouds communication.  

@2PeasinaPod: I certainly don't mean to say that all relationships and situations are the same, and there are definitely relationships which are unhealthy and in which people think they are very happy. I think I may have just watched a friend marry someone who is both wrong for her and not in love with her but went through with it because it was the 'right thing to do.' I of course do not think anyone should be so focused on a wedding that they enter into a marriage with someone wrong for them or whom they do not love.

For the most part, I do agree with the OP that it's important to find happiness in other things. I was single for many years and truthfully, i was never completely, 100% happy with it. I have a close friend who has always been single and loves it. She's really not looking for anything or anyone and truly prefers to be alone. We're so different, but I just accept that as each person's unique character. I think, for me, and my character, I would not find happiness in solitude. Obviously I don't expect everyone to be just like me though, although I do think it is more common than prefering solitude. 

The main point I wanted to make was simply that I feel that co-dependency often gets a bad wrap. I am of course not in favor of girls clinging to men for attention or a false sense of security. But really, all relationships and marriage especially does involve a certain amount of dependency on that other person. I depend on my SO to listen to me, to kiss me, drive me to the store, etc. He depends on me to listen to him, to make dinner, and to figure out our social schedule. We don't do these things because we order one another to, but just because it's how our lives progress. Together.

I just don't want girls to think it's silly or strange or wrong of them to feel anxious, even upset or obsessed once and a while with the idea of marrying the person they love. And it does often seem like advice is given to 'take your mind off it' and the girl needing advice responds with, 'that's not helpful.' I think instead we should just let our emotions and our feelings take their course. If I'm obsessed about weddings this week, I'm obsessed about weddings. It's fine. When I need to calm myself down, I just think about the man that I love and why I love him so much.

I think maybe I'm just too exposed to self-help books that tell you to 'love yourself' and 'embrace being single' and while those things are fine, they're not always the right advice for everyone. I think those messages are promoted very well and sometimes, too well. Am I a bad feminist if I desperately want to marry the love of my life? I don't think so, but others may disagree. I think women should just embrace what they're feeling at the moment and go with it. Don't let anyone make you feel like your feelings are silly or unhealthy. Just feel them and try to understand where they're coming from and accept them. For me, personally, it makes finding a bit of inner peace a little easier. It may not for everyone, but definitely does for me. :)

@artichokey: I appreciate your point of view that people do need each other, dependency isn't a "bad" thing.

@smith2be: I wanted to comment that sometimes what comes up on these boards is "intense"....I'm a pscyhology nut so this makes me think of Freud and the concept of "the return of the repressed": whatever is taboo gets repressed and then it shows up again in unhealthy/symptomatic ways.

I guess my point is that we're all programmed to be so "independent" nowadays, and not "needing" a husband, we can all "take care of ourselves", "embrace the single life" (and by the way "relax, you'll meet the right guy when you're not looking"..AAARGG don't even get me started on that one) that it creates a sort of dysfunction. 

Mating/partnering is one of the oldest ingrained human instincts, and we are social animals. We've demonized codependency so much that as a culture we've swung way too far into the other direction, isolating ourselves.  During most times of my life, if I were to have said "I want to get married", most of my friends would have looked at me like I was insane!!! Some still do. They say "Why?", I need to explain myself. When I think about it, I see the absurdity of having to defend a basic human need.

So the reason this becomes such a touchy subject, is that these boards may be the only place (or the first place) that some women feel safe in expressing this desire. And by that point, all the cultural B.S. has built up....that there's some craziness that comes out too.

Speaking of cultural B.S., allow me to rant about what our MEN have been fed by media, etc. In fact, one of my customers at work was just making this observation, in response to a guy who was making comments about how marriage is viewed in different cultures. She said:

"american men seem to have this culture of saying how awful marriage is, how they feel sorry for their friends who are married, it's perceived as a 'trap' etc.  Most of you guys don't realize that studies show married men are happier than unmarried men. The studies also show that women are not happier married vs unmarried"  Very interesting! I should mention she's a lesbian, and very scientific. She also commented on how straight women say such awful things about men, she would never say those things. There's a culture of women complaining about men all the time too, that's the other side of the coin. She said: "I think I like straight men more than most straight women, if you listen to them talk".

Yes, this should be a happy thing. Wanting to get married. But it does not exist in a vacuum, there are a lot of influences involved.

I personally don't sit at home being sad and upset because my boyfriend hasn't proposed yet. I love every second of the time we spend together, even if it is just us sitting on the couch watching tv!

That said, the reason I love the waiting boards is that it is a place where you can go and share your frustrations at times. I am not on here every day creating new posts saying "he hasnt proposed yet!!" but every now and then something will happen (good or bad) and I would rather share it with women who understand those frustrations because they are experiencing themselves.

So I guess sometimes to those not in that situation anymore it may seem like we are a bunch of women sitting around complaining over a lack of a ring.

But let's keep it in perspective: this is maybe an hour at most out of my day that I am on here, and most days I am happy and more interested to see if anyone's relationships are moving on or not.

I certainly appreciate that we ALL need to live to make ourselves happy and do the things we love and I think it certainly doesn't just apply to us waiting bees - so many other women (married or not) are guilty of putting their happiness in another's hands. I just think that 99% of the time I am happy with my life and that it is all going in the right direction. But we ALL have that week where 5 people you know get engaged (when they've been together a shorter amount of time!) and you can't help but wonder why you are still waiting and you need some support from other people to tell you that your feelings are valid and your turn will be soon.