I vividly remember standing near the pulpit and looking back at the church full of my family and friends. It should have been one of the happiest days of my life, but it wasn’t. My palms were sweaty in my pockets and my throat was dry. I was about to get married and something inside me was screaming a warning. A part of me (a significant part) wanted to turn around and tell everyone that the wedding was off. “It’s all a big mistake,” he wanted to say. “It just feels bad. Sorry to bother everyone, but could you go home?”
Of course, I didn’t say anything like that. I convinced myself that it was just pre-wedding nerves. “Everyone has them,” I told myself. “It’s perfectly normal. There’s nothing to worry about.” And I did, I took my vows, I got married. That night, when I had time to stop and reflect on the whole thing, I knew that I had just made the biggest mistake of my life. But I’m a bit stubborn, and having just gotten engaged, I was determined to make the marriage work. It didn’t work out, far from it, and three miserable years later, my wife and I were finally divorced. Those wedding nerves had been trying to tell me something. Something important. They told me: “She This she is not the right woman for you.” If I had listened, it could have saved me a lot of pain.
Since that experience, I look at wedding ceremonies with a very different eye. I watch the bride and groom closely. I watch the palms of the sweaty hands and the nervous spasms. I don’t just assume they are happy to be there. I have seen many friends and relatives say their wedding vows since then. Some of them have nervousness and some don’t. Of course, if they don’t have them, things can still go wrong; it is not necessarily a sign that things are perfect. But when they DO have nervousness, it’s almost always a sign of bad things to come. One of my cousins had the nerves. A year later, his marriage collapsed and his lovely girlfriend forced him to BUY her ring (a family heirloom that had belonged to my grandmother). Really. I should have listened to his nerves.
Unfortunately, many insecure brides and grooms are held hostage to a sense of commitment to their guests. They feel like they’re in too deep at the moment that they hit the nerves. They are afraid of disappointing everyone. After all, friends and family often come from hundreds of miles away. They bought plane tickets and filled a table with gifts and checks. Sometimes the parents of the bride and groom have contributed tens of thousands of dollars that could be lost if there is a last-minute cancellation, not to mention all the time and money the soon-to-be-married couple has invested. But regardless of financial considerations, if you’ve been blessed with the gift of clarity before the ceremony, if you’ve realized that you really aren’t meant to be with this person, the only rational decision is to leave. while you can. Trust me, you don’t want to waste years of your life in a bad marriage. it’s not worth it. People will forgive you, and life is too short.
Five years ago, I remarried. This time, there was no nervousness, no sweaty palms, no dry throat. This time, I really enjoyed the ceremony. It really was one of the happiest days of my life. Why? He had found the right person. It’s that easy. If you’ve found the right person and you know it, there’s no reason for apprehension or fear. In that case, you really are embarking on an adventure, and it is one of the greatest and most rewarding adventures you can experience in your life. So listen to your heart. Sometimes it is more insightful than your brain. It will tell you what to do. And when it does happen, when that message starts ringing in your ears, you better listen to it, no matter how inconvenient it may seem at the time. If that voice starts screaming inside you, don’t drown it out, don’t cover it with a pillow. If you do, you’re just asking for trouble.