How I Proposed to My Husband (or Got Him to Propose to Me)

Although it seems rather gauche, women have been proposing to men since the beginning of time, and I don’t see any change in the situation. My son’s girlfriend proposed to him. I’m a little leery of a couple of twenty-somethings getting married before either has a college degree. If one or both had a full time job, that might sway me. However, I’ve been a daughter-in-law before, and I can tell you from experience that the man’s mother should not say a word. So I’m not talking.

The girlfriend’s mother is here in San Francisco. She flew all the way from Japan to meet my son and see his recital. The girlfriend’s mother doesn’t speak much English, but I got a lot of information out of her anyway. She thinks the marriage is a bad idea. She wants her daughter to go home after graduation. I doubt that’s going to happen.

I started thinking about how Mr. Demonic and I got together. I asked him out in the beginning. I insinuated myself into his life soon after. (Not unlike Mr. D Jr.’s girlfriend.) The difference was that after the first month of dating, Mr. Demonic moved 750 miles away from me. Despite the distance problem, we managed to maintain a long distance relationship for two and a half years. I’m not saying it was easy; there were times where I thought we might not make it, but in the end, love prevailed.

At first, we would take turns flying to the other’s city. He was a big shot, I was making good money at the federal agency, and plane tickets were under $160 round trip back then.

After a year of this, I decided to make a move. It was obvious that he never was going to do it. I didn’t pop the question, per se. Instead, I took the roundabout approach. During each visit to his Rust Belt city, I would make appointments for interviews with the local offices of my federal agency. I was looking for a transfer.

Transferring wasn’t going to happen. My ex-federal agency was hard to transfer around in. You’d think that they’d want to keep the natives happy, but it was a matter of the union. Going on job interviews gave me something to do when he was working. Mr. Demonic didn’t know this. He thought I was serious. (I was only partially serious.)

This caused the first major rift in our budding relationship. He told me not to make plans to move. I was adamant. He told me I’d have to find my own place. I said fine. I wasn’t fine though. I was pissed off.

After that, there was a cooling of ardor. I decided to concentrate on my own life in my own section of the Tundra, and took a couple of steps back. My new life consisted of going to parties and hanging out with friends, male and female. Oh, I still deeply loved Mr. Demonic, but I was done with the pursuit.

I applied for airline positions. I decided to enroll in a travel agent class. (HA! That would have been a bad move. Now everyone is their own travel agent!) I quit my federal agency job and got one working for the university. One cold January day, I was running late for work. There was an ice storm and my alarm didn’t go off because we had a power outage. I disembarked from the university bus, and began to run in the crosswalk toward my building.

I never made it. I was wearing clogs (a bad choice for winter in the Tundra) and fell down in the street. (Yes, I’m very uncoordinated.) I couldn’t get up. Students were passing me by, and I couldn’t get up. Eventually, after a few light cycles, a police car pulled up and threw me into the back seat. They took me to the hospital where I learned I had broken my leg.

Mr. Demonic found out, and had me discharged and sent for me. Thus began the long plane trip with my broken leg in a cast up to my hip. He wanted to take care of me. I thought, “Isn’t that sweet?” but also thought it was nuts to go 750 miles to be taken care of.

Sometime after I had arrived and was safely dispatched to his apartment, loaded down painkillers, he told me we were going to get married.

And we did. About six months later.