An unpublished post from March

I've taken some time off from wedding planning & blogging because my life started to fall apart right before Christmas.

My FI and I had all our visa paperwork filled out, the engagement photo session was booked, I was in the process of selling my share of my business & I was happily planning my wedding for July 10, 2010. My FI was supposed to come stay for 2 weeks in Canada for the holidays to get to know my side of the family better. He applied for his passport & we waited. And waited. And waited. 1 week before he was supposed to fly out to see me & still no passport. It was weird to me, so I did some online snooping. With his SSN in hand, I went to the US Passport website to see the status of his application. To my shock & horror: It had arrived the first week of December.

I called him, upset & wanting answers, and then he rocked my world. He broke down. He cried. He was blubbering so hard I could barely understand him! He told me that he had lost his rental properties/income, he was being sued by a private student loan company (that he co-signed for his ex gf) & he could barely keep his head above water.

Apparently sh*t had hit the fan in SEPTEMBER, but he didn't know how to tell me. He didn't want to come for Christmas because he couldn't deal with all the people & all the wedding stuff. He ended our delightful conversation with these words: "Baby, I don't think now is a good time to file the paperwork." Then it was my turn to cry. And cry I did. What did this mean? Was it over? What the hell was going on???

So fast forward 3 months later. Our paperwork is still not filed. I have a venue, a photographer & almost all the details of our wedding planned out for July 10th, but sadly it's not going to happen. We've "postponed" the wedding, with no real date in mind.

Our relationship is now better, but it's taken 3+ months to get here. Since I initially heard the news I was filled with resentment towards him. I was so hurt that he hadn't told me what was going on and that he'd kept it from me. We're supposed to be in this together... how could he do this? He was also filled with self-hatred & anger. We were both volatile AND we were 3000 miles apart.

At the end of January, I made the decision to book the flight to visit him... without talking to him. Honestly it was so bad at that time, I had no idea if he'd even show up to pick me up from the airport! My dear WB buddy who lives 3 hours away even offered to pick me up in the event that he didn't show. Isn't that sweet? It was the most nerve-racking flight of my life! (One cool thing though, I got to fly in a private plane from the airport that all the country stars in Nashville fly from! Take that T-swizzle!) Luckily, he showed up & we started to repair the damage... It wasn't easy. It was the worst time of my life. What was supposed to be the happiest time of our relationship actually turned into the worst.

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Since that terrible trip in January/February, we've worked so hard to get back to where we were. We made promises about how we'd fix this & how we'd both try harder to get back to where we were: happy & in love. We agreed that the bickering & anger had to end. And thankfully, it did with the help of a few books (more on that later). We agreed to support each other in good times and bad before we even said our vows.

I am so thankful for this experience. It has brought us closer together & we've learned so much about our relationship and each other. When you're in an LDR you'll never know how you'll get on in day-to-day life until you're physically together for an extended period of time. I feel like this was a good cushion into real life. We've developed a variety of coping skills & we've learned to communicate much better. I've also got him on a monthly budget and we've worked together to figure out a way to deal with the financial issues regarding his ex's massive student loan. Another lesson to be learned: Never co-sign a loan. Ever.

So now we've filed our paperwork and our wedding has been re-scheduled for 10/10/10. We've taken on an entirely new theme & mood. I've dropped the DIY projects and the wonderful flight themed wedding. It was just too much. I realized that I needed to put the focus back on our marriage and relationship instead of just our wedding.

I couldn't post this for a long time because it was just too hard. Posting it would have made it real. At that time, I couldn't deal with any encouragement or virtual hugs. I was comfortable with my head in the sand at the time... For those of you bee's who knew, thank you all for your support during that not so joyous time. Looking back, it was definitely needed & I will be forever grateful.