Dear First name / friend,
A few years ago, 3-months before the wedding, a bride confessed that she wasn't madly in love with the person she was about to marry.
We were almost finished with our grande cups of coffee and before we got up to leave, she said:
Jen, I have one more thing to tell you.
I was almost done planning her bachelorette party and I thought she was going to share something she didn't want me to do. I took out my notebook and clicked my pen.
I don't know if I love Seth anymore.
People always ask me whether or not I can predict if a couple will get divorced. The real answer is no. Nobody truly can. I couldn't even predict that the bride was going to say that because, from the outside, it seemed like her and Seth really got a long.
As a hired bridesmaid, strangers like to confide in me because most people in their life might judge what they say or how they feel. I never do. I'm just inside a person's life for a short time. I don't know their past and I won't know their future.
I'm just a right-now kind of best friend.
So when news gurgles out of someone's mouth like that, I don't react.
I sit there silently and I nod.
Because those are the nonverbal cues a person needs when they are deciding if they should feel embarrassed for what they just said or if they should carry on.
She carried on, unabashedly.
She told me how she truly doesn't think she's ever been in love before and what she has with Seth is friendship. She sees herself growing old with Seth and feeling safe with him. But she doesn't feel madly in love. Her heart doesn't race and she doesn't view him as the love of her life. She believed that person was out there but was too exhausted to continue looking. She found Seth and she figured she'd just marry him.
Before I became a professional bridesmaid, I was 25 and perpetually single. I watched everyone around me find love and so I just thought it was this spark, this thing that shows up when you meet someone and grows around you like a big bubble. Mostly, I thought love had one meaning and when people found it, they found the exact same thing.
But that's not true. I've been in love myself. I've stood by the side of hundreds of people as they vowed to love the person in front of them forever. I've held onto secrets from people who described why they were marrying someone and sometimes they never mentioned the word love. Other times, they described their love in ways like this: "I love John because he supports me financially. I love Mo because I'm 39 and want to have a kid and he would be a good dad."
Look around you. There's people in love. But even if you try to pick it apart, you don't know why they stick. Usually, it's more than just because they love the other person.
Which is why I never judge or criticize another person's relationship, even if I don't understand it or if their love doesn't look like the version that I personally know.
So when the bride off-loaded how she felt, I asked her questions like this:
- Does Seth know you feel this way?
- Do you want Seth to know you feel this way?
- Are you okay with getting married and having these feelings, knowing they might never go away?
- What do you want to do about this?
- How can I help you with this?
Seth didn't know she felt like this because she kept up a strong front when she was around him. I imagine that was hard but also exhausting to do. She asked me if she could continue to unpack her feelings to me and I said yes, but I also suggested she see a licensed therapist, which she started doing secretly as well.
A month before the wedding, she finally sat down with Seth and confessed how she felt. I know this because a Friday, a month before the wedding, I was sitting at home on the couch watching Gossip Girl reruns when I heard a knock on my door.
I creeped closer toward the peep-hole and looked through it.
It wasn't the pizza delivery person or a neighbor asking to borrow a wine opener.
It was Seth.
…I'll tell you what happened in the next newsletter in December…
All my love,
