Whether he gets down on bended knee
or blurts it out in front of the TV, when a man proposes, he's pretty confident
of the answer. But what if she says no? Three men share their tales with us
She said I wasn't her Mr. Right
Matthew, 32, works in advertising. He
proposed to his 29-year-old girlfriend, Rachel, two years ago after nine years
together. Although she initially said yes, she broke off the engagement a week
later.
‘Losing Rachel felt like a death - or at
least the process I went through after our break-up did. There was denial and
anger and grief, not just for her, but for the future I thought lay ahead -
everything from the kids to the camper van for weekends on the coast.
‘I'd grown up with Rachel. We'd met at
university at 18 and were friends before we became a couple. No one knew me
better. When she sat me down and said, "I'm so sorry, I can't do
this," the only thing I could say at first was, "Is this a joke?"
It felt like she had thrown a hand grenade into the middle of my life.
the
only thing I could say at first was, "Is this a joke?"
'At first I wouldn't accept it. I begged
and pleaded, and said I'd give her time. But she was adamant - my proposal had crystallized
the fact I wasn't her Mr. Right. When I finally realized that there was no
going back, that no amount of talking would help, I went off the rails. Facing
up to the fact I was heartbroken was too hard, so I channeled it into cold
fury. I slept with about ten women in quick succession. It was both a way of
seeking obliteration and an ego thing:
I desperately needed to know I was still
attractive. But every morning I'd wake up and look over at another girl who
wasn't Rachel and feel profound misery. I wanted to punish her, too. My pride
was hurt - one minute I was ringing my friends arranging celebration drinks,
the next I had to tell them it was all off. I wanted to lash out. I made some
terrible drunken phone calls and sent some emails designed to hurt her, which I
bitterly regret. It took me a long time to realize that she was hurting just as
much as I was.
`The real grieving part, when it came three
months later, was worse. Rachel was the only girl I'd ever loved and accepting
her feelings had changed was the hardest thing I've ever done. At one point, I
considered counseling, because I kept going over the same ground. It felt like
a form of madness.
It
took a good year for me to really move on, but that doesn't mean I'm over it
‘It took a good year for me to really move
on, but that doesn't mean I'm over it. I still can't see her, and I avoid any
events where I know she's going to be. For the past three months I've been in a
new relationship with a lovely girl, but I'm very wary. I do want to get
married and have a family, but when something like this happens, I think a bit
of you closes down. In that sense, getting over what happened is still a work
in progress
She wanted the relationship, but not marriage
Tom, 41, runs a building firm. He proposed
to his partner Siobhan, 31, four years ago and she turned him down. They remain
unmarried but live together and have an 18-month-old daughter, Izzy.
‘I did the full works when I proposed to
Siobhan: bought the ring, booked a weekend away, went down on one knee. I
wanted it to be perfect - but when I looked up all I could see in her eyes was
panic. She started shaking and said, "I can't. I just can't."
She
started shaking and said, "I can't. I just can't."
‘I couldn't believe what I was hearing.
We'd been together for three years and although I knew her first marriage had
ended in divorce and been quite traumatic, she'd been very young and she didn't
talk about it much. I had no sense that it was the elephant in the room.
Marriage just seemed like the obvious destination, so when she said no, it felt
like a physical body blow.
‘In fact, Siobhan still wanted the
relationship, but not marriage. Her view was that when you have stood at an
altar once and said "till death us do part", you can't say it a
second time and feel it's meaningful. We talked for hours, me saying what had
happened in her twenties shouldn't affect the rest of her life, but we always
arrived back in the same place. I do get it on a literal level, but I also felt
- and still feel – that she should be able to get beyond it. And the reality
was that however much I understood, it still felt like rejection, even though
we were still a couple, and for months it was a bit like a cancer gnawing away
at me.
‘I became obsessed with the fact that she
had made that commitment to someone else - someone who'd turned out to be an
arsehole, which made it even worse - but wouldn't do it for me. We'd agreed to
just get on with being us, but often, if we went for dinner, or even to the
pub, it would come up.
I
became obsessed with the fact that she had made that commitment to someone else
- someone who'd turned out to be an arsehole
‘I think there's something primeval about
it: if you love a woman, you want to make her yours. There was insecurity, too:
a little bit of me has always felt like I was punching above my weight with
Siobhan, and the fact she wouldn't become my wife played to that, this fear
that she won't say yes because she's holding out for someone better, whatever
her reassurances.
‘It took a year to get back to where we
were before, and even then there were flashpoints. Whenever one of our friends
got married there was always tension - mates would rib me about it and I'd
laugh it off in front of them, then go home and pick an argument over something
minor to vent my frustration.
‘Then Siobhan found out she was pregnant
two years ago. It wasn't planned, given things were a bit rocky, but it was the
making of us. I won't lie - after the initial delight I thought, "She'll
definitely want to get married now," but she still feels the same way.
It's helped me feel much more grounded though: having Izzy is more of a
commitment than any ring, and I do feel like we're a family. Even so, I can't
say I'm fully reconciled to not making Siobhan my wife. One day, I still hope
she will share my surname.'
She knew that marriage would not make me happy
Paul, 33, a solicitor, proposed to his
girlfriend of four years, Georgia, three years ago. She turned him down because
she had guessed he was not being honest with himself about a personal secret.
‘In my early twenties, I'd been pretty
promiscuous - lots of one-night stands, very much Jack the Lad. I like women,
found - still find - them attractive, but more to the point I couldn't
countenance the fact I might be gay. I'd grown up in a very traditional
household and been raised to expect the wife and two kids, the normal stuff. It
was what I wanted, too - or thought I did. I was incredibly close to Mum and
Dad and ticked all the conservative boxes - school cricket captain, good
university, law degree.
‘I met Georgia when I was 26 and something
just clicked. We were like best friends really, although we did have a sex
life. I loved her, so it wasn't a hardship. I did struggle with attraction to
other men, but I told myself this was what I wanted, that the overall package
was bigger than the occasional stab of longing I would feel.
‘I had no idea that Georgia harboured
suspicions. I only found this out when I proposed. It was a spontaneous thing.
We were making dinner and I said, "We should get married." I thought
she'd be delighted, but she just looked away. Then she broke down and said she
wasn't sure marriage would make me happy. It took hours before she finally
admitted what she thought: that I was in denial about my sexuality.
"We
should get married." I thought she'd be delighted, but she just looked
away
‘It's difficult to explain how I felt -
repressing this had been a lifetime's work, and the thought that the person
closest to me could think that was devastating. But there was a flicker of
relief, too, a hint of freedom, although I wasn't ready to confront it. I
denied it, shouted, asked her why she was behaving like this - anything but
face up to it. I wanted so much to have the normal narrative, and it felt like
she was sabotaging it. All I could think was, "How can I explain this to
everyone?" It was like my worst nightmare.
‘By the next day we had agreed I would move
out. I went into retreat for a long time. I wouldn't speak to her, wouldn't
talk to anyone about it. There were even other girlfriends.
‘I'm not sure I would ever have come out if
my parents hadn't died within a few months of each other two years later. I was
devastated, and when I inherited money from the sale of their home I went
travelling to get away from it all. During that time, I finally faced up to who
I am. It was a long road, and when I got home two years later the first person
I saw was Georgia. I wanted to tell her how sorry I was. I know it took a lot
of courage to say what she did.
Grand gestures with happy endings
These grooms-to-be all thought big when it
came to their proposals, many of which went viral More than 45,000 YouTube
viewers have watched a man named Logan propose to his girlfriend, Jenna, in
Central Park (right), after arranging for a flash mob of dancers to perform in
front of her.
a
man named Logan propose to his girlfriend, Jenna, in Central Park (right),
after arranging for a flash mob of dancers to perform in front of her
Lucy Rogers' daily commute from London last
July started normally enough - until several fellow passengers started singing
Bill Withers’ Lovely Day. It wasn't till her boyfriend, Adam King, appeared and
dropped to one knee that she realised it was for her benefit.
When Ginny Joiner took her seat in her
local cinema, she had no idea that, among the previews, there would be a short
film made by her boyfriend, Matt Stiller, as a novel way of proposing.
Neil Chandler and Kaajal Barot were
shopping in Sainsbury's in 2008 when Neil suddenly burst into song. Soon a full
a capella choir joined him and, when he pulled out a ring, Kaajal accepted.
But big gestures can mean big rejection...
Proposing to your girlfriend in public is
all well and good - unless she says no. When an unidentified man proposed using
the big screen at a major basketball game earlier this year and she said no, it
made worldwide news.
