Six years. That’s how long Tyler and I had been together when I finally asked him, over dinner, whether he ever planned to propose.
He put his fork down and smiled, like he’d been waiting for me to ask. “Of course I do, babe. When you stop being so difficult.”
I asked him what that meant. He listed things. I “always” wanted to talk about money. I “made faces” when he went out with his friends on weeknights. I’d asked him to stop leaving his dishes in the sink. I’d “made a scene” when he forgot my birthday, which I hadn’t. I’d cried quietly in the bathroom.
“Just be easier,” he said. “And I’ll put a ring on it.”
I didn’t sleep that night. I lay there and did the math. I was thirty-one. I’d spent six years trying to be easier. Quieter. Smaller. And he was still holding a ring over my head like a treat.
Three days later, his mother called me. Linda. We’d always gotten along, politely. She sounded excited.
“Don’t tell Tyler I called,” she said. “But I’m helping him with something special. What’s your ring size, sweetheart?”
I almost said “six and a half.” Instead, I said, “Linda, can I come over? There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
I sat at her kitchen table for two hours. I told her everything. The “when you stop being difficult.” The birthday. The way he talked about me to his friends, which I’d overheard more than once. The way I’d started checking his mood before I said anything at all.
I expected her to defend him. He’s her only son.
Instead, she got up, poured two glasses of wine, sat back down and said, “His father used to say the exact same thing to me. Almost word for word. ‘I’ll be nicer when you stop being so sensitive.’ I stayed married to him for twenty-two years waiting to become easy enough.”
She looked at me for a long time. “I raised Tyler to be better than that. I guess I didn’t do a very good job.”
Then she asked me what I wanted to do.
I told her the truth. I wanted to leave. But I’d spent six years being told I was too much, and part of me wanted Tyler to know, for once, exactly how it felt to plan your whole future around someone else’s approval.
Linda smiled. It wasn’t a mean smile. It was the smile of a woman who’d waited a long time to see something happen. “Then let me help him plan it,” she said. “And you tell me exactly what you’re going to say.”
So she did. For six weeks, Linda helped Tyler plan the perfect proposal. The restaurant where we had our first date. A string quartet. Both our families at a long table in the back room. His friends. A photographer. He bought a ring with Linda’s help. Two carats. He was very proud of it.
Meanwhile, I packed. Slowly. A box at a time, into my sister’s garage. I signed a lease on a one-bedroom across town. I opened my own bank account.
On the night of the proposal, Tyler stood up in front of twenty-two people, got down on one knee and opened the box. He made a speech about how far I’d come. How I’d “really grown up this year.” How I’d “finally learned to relax.” Everyone was smiling.
“So,” he said, beaming, “will you marry me?”
I took a breath. I’d practiced this in Linda’s kitchen.
“No,” I said. “Six years ago, I would have said yes in a heartbeat. But you told me you’d marry me when I stopped being difficult. I’ve realized I’m not difficult. I’m just a person with needs, and you’ve spent six years making me ashamed of them. I don’t want to marry someone who sees my feelings as a problem to be fixed. I’ve already moved out. My things are at my sister’s. I’m sorry you had to find out like this. But you made sure there was never a good time to tell you anything.”
The room went completely silent. Tyler stayed on one knee, holding the open box, staring at me.
Then he turned to the table. “Mom! Say something!”
Linda stood up. She walked over to me, put her arm around my shoulders and said, “I did, honey. I helped her plan it.”
I left the restaurant with my sister and Linda. We got ice cream. Linda paid.
Tyler returned the ring the next week. He called me a lot at first, then less, then not at all. His friends told me he’s “working on himself.” I hope it’s true. I really do.
Linda and I still have lunch once a month. Last month she told me she’d finally signed up for a pottery class, something she’d wanted to do for thirty years and never did because Tyler’s father always said it was “a waste of money.”
She brought me the first thing she made. A lopsided little bowl, glazed bright blue. On the bottom, she’d carved two words: “Not difficult.”
I keep my keys in it.
