A Very Long Engagement

Boyfriend and I are engaged and have been since 2010. I still call him boyfriend even though we live together, have two daughters together and there's a ring on my finger but fiancé seems odd and he's not my husband so besides using his name (which I do in real life, he just doesn't like it online too much as he's a complete technophobe) it just seems apt.

We keep talking about marriage and are both agreed that it's going to happen but how, when and where are different matters entirely and we just can't quite agree. We'll stay together even if we never get married and I'm quite happy to throw on a Lindy Bop or Lady V Vintage white dress and do it just us few in a registry office before heading out for a meal and an evening of dancing but there's the princess side of me that screams PEONIES, LONG SWEEPING BRIDESMAIDS DRESSES AND WHITE EVERYTHING that makes my bank balance die a little inside and boyfriend switch off. To him, none of that matters. To me, it doesn't matter a lot but it's there.

Not very many people know this but I was married in 2009 for a whole six months. I made a bad decision with a man I hardly knew and it backfired on me when we were living in a tiny flat with my six month old daughter who biologically is my boyfriend's while he was off finding himself and now - well, now I'm a divorcee. Marriage is something that's important to me legally and I didn't get the big white wedding I wanted with my ex-husband. It was a blur of silk flowers and purple evening dresses and I didn't feel the way I expected to feel. I didn't feel like I was committing to a person - more like I was resigning myself to a life. Of course, my ex-husband wasn't a bad person and I was all the bad in that relationship changing my mind almost instantly when boyfriend and I met on a night out. I was twenty. I was wrong.

Now it all seems surreal to be thinking of another wedding not five years after my first. I didn't want to be that person at all but I became her and I've done my best to distance myself from that period of my life now we're all settled and happy in our own relationships (my ex-husband is engaged to my boyfriend ex-girlfriend - a total wife swap and I like to use the word 'serendipity').

Boyfriend is both the best and worst man I have ever met but I love him for who he is, not who I want him to be. We've both had one foot out of the door but closed it, came back and worked it out and that's why I'm not scared of this. I love this. Four and a half years down all I want is to be with him and so when we decide to do it in whatever fashion suits us the best at that moment I will be happy.

But I'm still dreaming of those peonies.