I’ve mentioned before that I was kindova slut in high school? I was. Actually, not kind of a slut. A full-on, having full sexual intercourse at the age of fourteen, slutty slut. Now, I didn’t sleep around, mind you, I was in love, but the fact remains that no fourteen year old has any business doing the dance with no pants. Even responsible, mature fourteen year olds such as I was. Ahem.

(In a side story, if I had gotten my slutty self knocked up Juno style? My kid would be starting college this year. Makes my work at Freshmen Orientation interesting to contemplate.)

Anywho.

I was a serial monogamist for many years. I would have a boyfriend, date him for a year or two, and then the relationship would inevitably deteriorate. Usually this was because I was dating a man who I never should have been dating in the first damned place, and it just took me a while to work around to dumping him.

You see, I was a saver.

I didn’t necessarily have a “type”– I dated tall guys, short ones, chubby ones, skinny ones. But I usually got involved with boys I could save. I worked and worked my little teenage heart out to help them sort out their issues, and then at some point, a year or two later, I would find myself completely un-met in the relationship. This guy would be dependent upon me for everything, and I never got the chance to be the one who needed support. They were usually so grateful that I was there that they let me say or do anything I wanted. And that’s a bad recipe for relationship equality with someone who’s bossy (me.)

Or there was the one time where the guy I was dating was just really dumb. I mean really really dumb. In my defense, though, he was crazy cute. Soccer player. Great ass. Ended up cheating on me and knocking her up. Dumb.

Once I decided that I was, like, so over Current Boy, I would start to look around for an alternative. While I was still with my boyfriend. (I’m not proud, but it is what it is, right?) I usually had Next Boy lined up when I dumped Current Boy. The pain of losing Current Boy was therefore alleviated by the excitement of New Boy. I was hardly ever single. (Getting boobs at the age of eleven will do that for you.)

Unfortunately, sometimes things progressed pretty far before I realized that Current Boy and I had no future. Which is how I found myself engaged to be married three times by the age of 22, with a couple of more proposals looming at various points. Boys were always trying to marry me. Maybe it’s because I was always saving them. Maybe it’s because I was so mature and wonderful and awesome. More likely, it was because I was willing to put out and possessed certain talents in the boudoir (I was a ballet dancer for 17 years. Bendy.)

I always said yes then they asked me to marry them because I was just so touched that they would ask me. (Me! Whom I did not believe was actually worthy of loving! Much less marrying!) And I did “love them,” of course, so why not? Lots of girls in my high school got married right away. And lots of girls I knew left college to be wives. I was lucky, I thought, to find someone who would actually want to marry me.

Fortunately, at some point in the process I would muster the intelligence to realize that actually going through with getting married would be a Bad Idea. Each of those engagements ended badly.

I had a lot of growing up to do before I was ready for the ring I wear today. And the first step was getting dumped for the first time at the age of 24. I had never been dumped before that. And it knocked the wind right out of me. I was the Dumper! Not the Dumpee! And I didn’t have anything else lined up!

Though I had dates here and there after that, I stayed single until Hubs and I started making out almost a year later.

Two years after that, I was not surprised when Hubs actually popped the question. After all, we’d been shacking up at that point for six months, and I told him when he moved in (unemployed) to my apartment that we could not live together unless this was “heading somewhere.” (Ah, I’m so subtle.) I knew he would ask, and though I wasn’t sure exactly when it was going to come, I had a vague idea.

Even so, when he got down on one knee outside our apartment, I was so surprised I said yes without thinking. I was giddy and happy and shocked, even though I knew it was going to happen. He surprised me with a huge engagement party (that’s why he proposed in the parking lot outside our apartment) and everything was so happy and so quick.

I never told him this, but I started to have my fears about it the very next day.

I was so scared that I had gotten engaged again for the wrong reasons. Even though I felt fully met by Hubs, and was happy and fulfilled in our relationship, I had my misgivings about being worthy of him. I am a pain to be with, and I was sincerely concerned that we would not make it as a couple because of me. My parents warned him as much when he asked them for my hand. I just knew that no matter how much I loved this man, it was a Bad Idea.

I even contemplated breaking it off. I was just so sure that at some point, he would figure out that I was just more trouble than I was worth, and it would be over.

I married him anyway. It’s probably a good thing we had a short engagement, so I didn’t have enough time to chicken out.

But for probably the first five years we were married, I was convinced that it could not last. He made me so freaking angry, and was sometimes so insensitive and self-centered. I was picky and bitchy and mean. We went to bed angry, we fought dirty and wounded each other carelessly. One time I threw a shoe at him. We forgot sometimes that we are each other’s best ally, each other’s teammate, and each other’s heart.

We still forget, sometimes.

But I never think anymore about us not making it. Maybe this came with time, or the steady realization that this man had already seen the worst I could dish up, and was still there. That I had already weathered his most heartless comments and darkest days, and I stayed. That we were both staying, worthy of each other and meant to love one another until the end. And that even though it is sometimes very hard to be married, it always worth it.

It took me a while to mean the “yes” I gave him six years ago when he asked me to be his wife. But I can safely say today that it was absolutely the right answer.