"Our Song"

When my husband and I first met and began dating, the song 'Head Over Feet' seemed to express perfectly everything I felt for him and our relationship:  I had never wanted to get involved with anyone while in college and I certainly never had any intention of getting married.  Yet, suddenly I was acting and thinking in ways that I never expected to and this song seemed to express exactly why I had made such a turnaround in thought:

"I had no choice but to hear you"...

 

"You treat me like a princess

I'm not used to liking that

You ask how my day was"...

 

"You're my best friend

Best friend with benefits

What took me so long"

 

"You've already won me over in spite of me"....

 

"I couldn't help it

It's all your fault."

 

So, in my mind, this could be our song – the song that described how we came to be a “we.” I shared this thought with my then fiancé and he agreed and even bought the CD so we would have it to listen to at our wedding.

THEN, shortly after we were married, or perhaps it was a month before, he handed me a tape of music (I can no longer remember the title).  It was a song that we had never shared together and that I particularly never liked, but that he wanted to be “our song.”

I remember bringing up ‘Head Over Feet’ and how he had stated that he liked it as our song as much as I since he too thought of me as his "best friend."  He didn't argue, he just said that he liked his tape more as it meant more to him.  I remember compromising: “Head Over Feet’ would be my song to express how I felt about our relationship and this other would be our song since the words express two viewpoints better (his sudden issue with 'Head Over Feet').

I should have seen this little issue for what it was – the first of many compromises...a forewarning of days to come and of our divorce.

The sad part?  

Not the end of our marriage - that certainly was necessary given the vast fundamental differences in personality it turned out there were between us.

The sad part is that when the day came to discuss marriage counseling, separation, or divorce, he had the audacity to ask me if he was the one I had imagined that I would someday find and be with.  I'm certain gentle readers you know who I mean:  that mythical prince charming that the girl is supposed to dream of and one day discover; her one...you know, the one that looks a certain way or acts a certain way. 

Had he simply thought back...to the lyrics of this song...he would have realized and remembered that 'no' he wasn't my prince charming (I was never searching for one), but that he was my best friend and that I didn't marry him because I had been waiting for him to come sweep me off of my feet, but because he convinced me that in a world where I wasn't searching nor ever thought there would be a one and only, he became that person.

When I answered him with this truth - the idea that I chose him when, in my youth, I never wanted anyone, loved him when I never thought I could love, and wanted to be with him and work to improve our marriage when I had always wanted independence - he failed to hear me just as he failed to hear me about our song.