And then she asked me

I got my hair cut last night, and as my awesome stylist settled me into the chair, she said, “Since you were last here, I got engaged — ”

A congratulatory squeal was halfway out of my mouth when she cut me off.

” — and I broke it off.”

Oh!

She told me how her reluctance to commit had been growing without her noticing, how she didn’t miss her boyfriend when she went away for work, and how she felt like she had to say yes when he proposed a few weeks later because they’d been together for seven years. But then she felt like a liar wearing the ring, and she wasn’t excited about thinking or talking about a wedding. Her boyfriend has a 5-year-old son, and up until recently, she had been fine with the idea of getting married and having an instant family, but all of a sudden — “like a switch went off in me,” she said — she didn’t know what she wanted any more. She gave the ring back, and now they’re alternating living in the townhouse they own until they figure out what to do with everything.

She sounded practiced, as though she had grown accustomed to her story, and I wasn’t sure what compelled her to tell me. Our normal chitchat consists of reporting back vacations, commiserating about family holiday gatherings, and commenting on fun shoes (mine) and cool outfits (hers). I was not prepared for the plunge into actual personal conversation, but there we were.

I asked her how she was feeling about her decision, and she sounded relieved and fairly confident, considering everything that was changing for her. She planned to take a road trip in California with her mom at the end of the month, and she said she was ready for a new chapter in her life. It was scary, she admitted, but she knew she made the right decision.

And then she asked me, “Did you ever have doubts before you got married?”

Huh.

My immediate reaction was that I honestly can’t remember because it was so long ago. JG and I got engaged almost five years ago! We were still in school! Neither of us had a job! (What the heck were we thinking?) I was so crazed with finishing my classes, finding a job, and planning a wedding that I almost didn’t have room to wonder if we were doing the right thing. All the same, I was confident of it in a deep, eerie way that was very unlike me.

We had our low points. There was a whole tiff about JG’s quasi-bachelor-party-actually-a-rock-climbing-trip. There was the tearful discussion about vows and how he didn’t want to say “until death do us part,” but I couldn’t imagine not saying it (we ended up saying “for as long as we both shall live”). There was that first dreadful marriage counseling session when I looked JG straight in the eye and realized that we were not speaking the same language, no, not even close, and I had a flash of fear that this lack of comprehension would characterize the rest of my life.

When I think about doubt during our engagement, the conflict arose from me feeling as though I were failing in some aspect of our relationship: I wasn’t considerate enough (rock climbing trip), I wasn’t flexible enough (vows), and I wasn’t communicating enough (counseling). Some of that self-flagellation was unwarranted, but regardless, I never had a crisis point where I thought I shouldn’t marry JG. That was the given. The real question was how I was going to handle being married to him.

Since being married, though, I’ve had my fair share of doubt. Between that first phase of figuring out the practicalities of building a household amid the mythical newlywed bliss, the struggle of finding and buying a house, and learning how to navigate being part of an in-law family, there was plenty that caused me to question. Late at night, when the worst moments of panic tend to arise, I wonder if I have limited myself by becoming a Mrs. so early in life. Is that why I haven’t gone to graduate school? Is that why I never backpacked across Europe?

No. Even if I hadn’t gotten married, if I chose to go straight into the workforce as I did when I first graduated, I would have had quite the problem finding the time and money to backpack across Europe, much less go to graduate school. To blame my marriage for whatever perceived lack of life experience I have is short-sighted and unconstructive, but I’m not exactly foresighted or practical when anxiety takes hold.

In those dark moments, I never truly doubt marrying JG. Our marriage is bedrock beneath me: supportive when I need it, but painful when I fall short. When I can breathe quietly and start to try to sleep again, I reach my hand out and rest it on the small of JG’s back. He’s still here, and so am I.

Unfortunately, I could not come up with anything nearly as articulate as I sat in that salon. I nattered on about not knowing what to expect about living together and relying on the fact that JG and I were on the same page about life, but I’m afraid I may have come off as falsely confident. What I really wanted to convey, dear stylist, is that even though I never doubted getting married, I doubted myself all the time.