{"id":1195,"date":"2025-08-26T13:00:32","date_gmt":"2025-08-26T13:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cncurc.org\/?p=1195"},"modified":"2025-08-28T15:16:18","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T15:16:18","slug":"i-got-engaged-but-i-felt-like-i-was-doing-it-all-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.cncurc.org\/index.php\/2025\/08\/26\/i-got-engaged-but-i-felt-like-i-was-doing-it-all-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"I Got Engaged \u2014 But I Felt Like I Was Doing It All Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"
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<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018Keep enjoying the love bubble!,\u2019 messaged one friend.<\/p>\n

\u2018Enjoy this time post engagement<\/a>, it\u2019s so special to be in a little happy bubble,\u2019 said another.<\/p>\n

WhatsApps like this kept rolling in \u2014\u00a0and, while I deeply appreciated the abundance of love ebbing out of every message, each one gently tightened the subtle knot in my chest. I\u2019d just got engaged; and while I was \u2014\u00a0and am! \u2014 thrilled to be getting married, I somehow felt like I was \u2018doing the engagement\u2019 all wrong<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I really couldn\u2019t have been happier when my boyfriend went down on one knee a couple of weeks ago. We were on a staycation in England; the beach was empty and, despite the bad weather warning, miraculously rain-free. He picked the perfect moment and I\u2019ve never experienced a bigger surge of joy than in those few seconds when I realized what he was doing.<\/p>\n

We went to a pub, had some champagne and giddily FaceTimed our parents. I was walking on air; I kept looking at the ring on my finger and the words \u2018married\u2019, \u2018wife\u2019 and \u2018wedding\u2019 kept jolting through me, little paroxysms of happiness.<\/p>\n

When we got back to our accommodations, though, I started feeling small, inexplicable twinges of anxiety. We were both exhausted and we had a celebratory dinner booked that night, so my fianc\u00e9 had a nap while I ran a bath.<\/p>\n

As I was running the water, the anxiety continued to build \u2014 and I couldn\u2019t understand it. There was no part of me that didn\u2019t want to be engaged to my partner; I love him more than anything and I can\u2019t wait to be married<\/a>. But the waves of uneasiness kept rolling over me; and, as I stared at the water flowing from the faucet into the bath, I suddenly felt incredibly young. It was a bizarre feeling \u2014 I was weirdly homesick for my parents\u2019 house, low-key panicky, and overwhelmingly tired.<\/p>\n

But I couldn\u2019t figure out what was wrong with me. \u2018Shouldn\u2019t I be over the moon non-stop?\u2019, I worried.<\/p>\n

We had a wonderful evening that night and a lovely lunch with his parents the next day \u2014 but even though the anxiety had gone, the feeling of \u2018doing it wrong\u2019 continued. We had a five-hour drive back to London and I thought we should surely be talking about the engagement and the wedding all the way home. But we were exhausted from all the emotion, and we ended up listening to several episodes of Desert Island Discs<\/em>. It was just what we needed \u2014 and I know that now \u2014 but at the time, I kept thinking: \u2018Shouldn\u2019t we be in full \u2018engagement mode?\u2019.<\/p>\n

We got home that Sunday night and went straight to work on the Monday morning. I taught an 8 a.m. Pilates class <\/a>and then did a 9-6 desk shift. We had dinner with my family that night, which was great \u2014 showing my ring to my mom was incredibly special \u2014 but I was hyper aware of the mountain of work I had to do the next day.<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t shake the feeling that I was still doing it all \u2018wrong\u2019, and that we should be celebrating more. Messages from my friends were flooding in and I was grateful for them, but every time someone mentioned the word \u2018bubble\u2019, I\u2019d think: \u2018What bubble?\u2019. I was still unbelievably happy, but I didn\u2019t feel cocooned in some sort of post-engagement love nest. We were both just alternating between working and scrubbing grease stains off roasting pans.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure where I got the idea that we had to mark our engagement with a week-long (at least) celebration. No one had said we should be spending the specific seven days following the proposal commemorating the happy event; I think I\u2019d just seen so many friends spending the days immediately following their engagements luxuriating in their new realities and I latched on to the idea of the \u2018post-engagement week\u2019 as a set period of time that would never happen again. And I couldn\u2019t stop worrying that, by spending the week glued to my laptop, this (totally imaginary) set period of time was slowly slipping out from under my feet.<\/p>\n

On the Wednesday, my partner went out to celebrate with some friends while I was teaching a class at home. I was done by 8:00 p.m., and spent the rest of the evening sitting at home on my own. \u2018This is not right,\u2019 I thought. It wasn\u2019t that I thought my partner should be at home with me \u2014\u00a0I\u2019d encouraged him to go out with his friends \u2014 but I realized I should have organized something for myself, too.<\/p>\n

When my fianc\u00e9 got home, I tried to tell him how I was feeling \u2014\u00a0that I was worried we should be doing more to mark this one-of-a-kind week \u2014\u00a0but mixed in with all the feelings of \u2018doing it wrong\u2019 were feelings of guilt. I wasn\u2019t sure I should even be telling him any of this. I emphasised how grateful I was to him for organizing such a perfect proposal; I knew he\u2019d put many hours into arranging the weekend and I wouldn\u2019t have wanted anything to have been any different. I tried to make clear that I was worried I personally was letting the post-engagement haze slip through my fingers; that it wasn\u2019t anything he was doing wrong.<\/p>\n

I still feel a general version of this guilt now, while I\u2019m typing this. I went to wedding after wedding when I was single and hoped beyond hope that I\u2019d have my own wedding one day; but at the time, that possibility seemed impossibly distant. If I\u2019d read an article like this back then, I\u2019d have felt resentful and frustrated at having to scroll through a negative stream of consciousness from someone who didn\u2019t know how lucky she was.<\/p>\n

But, in a way, it was precisely because I had wanted this for so long that I was determined to make the most of it.<\/p>\n

My partner heard me out. He (correctly) said he thought I was focusing too much on doing the engagement in one specific way, when actually it\u2019s different for everyone \u2014 but he was more than happy to build in more celebratory time.<\/p>\n

The next night, we lit candles at home and started writing out an initial guest list in our new \u2018wedding\u2019 notebook. Already, this felt different from an average evening at home, which was all I\u2019d really been craving anyway. I just wanted things to feel different from\u00a0the norm. The night after, we went for dinner at our favorite restaurant and splurged on champagne; and we spent the rest of the weekend celebrating with friends.<\/p>\n

Now, it\u2019s obvious where those wobbly feelings on the night of our engagement came from. It was the first day of my period \u2014\u00a0when I\u2019m usually curled up at home with a heating pad feeling like the world is ending \u2014\u00a0combined with waves of adrenaline from the proposal and the alcohol we\u2019d had earlier. I don\u2019t do well with any one of those things at the best of times, let alone when they\u2019re all mixed in together. It wasn\u2019t surprising that I felt wobbly. Now, I feel silly for having stressed so much. <\/p>\n

Ultimately, I was thrilled to be engaged and that was all that mattered; we can celebrate any time we want. We didn\u2019t need to spend the week immediately after the proposal soaked in champagne, beaming and holding hands non-stop and talking about nothing but wedding color schemes.<\/p>\n

But equally, I\u2019m glad I took stock, was honest with my partner and made a point of really, truly living in the moment. We may have had to construct the scaffolding for the \u2018engagement bubble\u2019 ourselves, building it around a busy work week \u2014 but I\u2019m grateful that we did.<\/p>\n

After all, that post-engagement week does only happen once.<\/p>\n

Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I Got Engaged & Went On A Romantic Getaway \u2014 Alone<\/a><\/p>\n

We Called Off Our Engagements \u2014 & Celebrated It<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u2018Keep enjoying the love bubble!,\u2019 messaged one friend. \u2018Enjoy this time post engagement, it\u2019s so special to be in a little happy bubble,\u2019 said another. WhatsApps like this kept rolling in \u2014\u00a0and, while I deeply appreciated the abundance of love ebbing out of every message, each one gently tightened the subtle knot in my chest. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1197,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ecotech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cncurc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cncurc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cncurc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cncurc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cncurc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1195"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.cncurc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1198,"href":"http:\/\/www.cncurc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1195\/revisions\/1198"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cncurc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.cncurc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cncurc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.cncurc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}