After having saved the fool's life, shepherded his children thru an entire summer which found his mother in hospital and rehab center and having survived the tensions of conflict and breakups engineered to free him to rejoin his "buddies" for drug and alcohol parties on every holiday, he wanted to solidify his intention of marrying me.
That was August, a year after we met. He'd been making some noises about not to expect an engagement ring for the foregone Christmas, which wasn't in my thoughts or plans-he hadn't even asked me if I wanted to spend my life for his intentions-I agreed. I wanted a very specific styling, so we set out to find it.
Shopping around-I look at everything before I decide on anything-I found the right semi-mounts, four brilliant cut diamonds on each side, step set. My connections found the diamond, a nearly flawless oval Kimberlite diamond of nearly three carats. The merchant was stunned. Nobody puts an oval diamond in a setting of brilliant cuts. I asked him "But can you modify the setting to accept it?" He said yes. I asked for overnight to make the final decision. All agreed.
"Jackass" and I returned to finalize matters the next day. The man knew his stuff. He took the stone from it's solitaire mounting and expertly fit the setting to it. I was surprised he used glue in addition. "Not going to take any chances with this." was his reply. I was pleased. After a short set time, the piece was finished. My affianced couldn't turn over the cash fast enough. The jeweler came out with "Have you asked her if she'll marry you yet?" He hadn't. So that was done and agreed on the spot. The diamond was registered to me and the merchant told my prospective husband that the ring belonged to me, no matter what, and made it clear that was to be understood. I do have family in Europe, after all, though out of direct contact, there are some who know will see that things are right for me.We left hand in hand quite happy.
Not so happy were my friends and family stateside. Not one had anything good to say. My friends said something didn't feel right. One said a person I barely knew (why would she care about me?) said he was setting me up to get mugged. I decided I was among the wrong people. My family was very iffy about all of it. None of which detracted from the beauty of the ring. Other friends who became engaged copied my stylings, not only that one, but from the other ring or two which were my constants.
I was concerned and as in a normal relationship needed to speak to my soon-to-be closest person on Earth about it. My brother Harry had passed away two years before. He would have known exactly. What came out of the conversation started mee thinking "Where will I go, what will I do?"(a la "Gone with the Wind". Final analysis was he didn't give a _ _ _ _ really. My friends were right. He wanted someone to watch his kids and see what he could get (or get away with.)
In the overnight before the final diamond purchase decision was made, the jackass had gone to a local gold & silver trader and had the nerve to ask if she would pay the full appraisal price for my diamond in the event things didn't work out. And he kept saying "All that money." several times over. It seems from right after dinner on the day of engagement, the shennanigans began big time. There are some things I won't put up with. He stopped calling as he normally would have. He started showing up whenever he felt like it. He started planning absences concocted by his buddies. I wasn't sure which one of us they didn't like, seeing the main man in that had been abandoned by my prospective while his buddy had a seizure during Marine training. I'm surprised he wasn't court-martialed. Then he did the same thing to me one noight when my spine went out and I couldn't get out of bed. I'd asked him to get me a hot pack; he just walked out the door instead.
His parents had decided the only way to get out of the parental duties imposed by him was to buy another house and move out, leaving him at the residence with his kids and me. We were going to stay there most of the time, and I had begun to move my things in. The night his youngest wanted to go where ever I was going instead of home with him was the breaking point. Apparently he decided to put the kids under house arrest and force me to come to him. After a few hours of string-along, it was clear he wasn't going to budge or help me. I packed up what belongings of his were in my apartment, took off the ring, boxed up mine and the ring it came from, loaded my car and went to his place. I put his things on the curb and knocked on the door. He looked stunned. I handed him the key, the rings and his shoe polish box and said "I need my thing brought out to my car and yours are at the curb." He said "Oh, thank you." I'm not sure he knew what just happened. He was standing next to my car seemingly not knowing what to do next. I wasn't about to tell him. I said goodbye and drove away. My blood pressure had gone up so much I had to pull off the road because I couldn't see to drive. I called my doctor the next day. My blood pressure was 192/114. Stroke aversion time. I was issued medication and to return next day or hospital if no improvement and scheduled for follow-up in two days. The medicine worked.
I was stabilizing when the idiot called ten days later asling if he could come see me, could we talk. I said "I don't know what you want to talk about now, but o.k." He showed up as I later said "with the wrong thing in his hand." He'd brought his overnight bag, and proceeded as though none of the other things had transpired. He asked if I'd made the reservations for the wedding. Of course he claimed he was tired and wanted to go to bed. I told him go ahead. For the first time since we'd begun to stay together, I didn't go with him. Asked if I was coming, I answered not yet. I was going to wait til he was good and asleep and I was done seething at his arrogant arrival. If there was to be a "we", that night would have been the time to bring flowers and ring and apologies and remorse in hand. Not what happened. I kicked him out of bed to go to work the next day, needing the bed to myself as with the multiple injuries in my spine, any stress sends it into excruciating immobility. I was still then trying to delay any use of the major pain medication I actually needed. I heard from him a few days later.
I answered the phone with "What?" He said "Are we o.k.?" My reply was "I don't know. I'm fine, I don't know about you and there is no we.? O.K.?" This was three weeks post break up. He mumbled some things about what he'd been doing and feeling miserable and other contrivances and added "I was waiting for you to cool down." He really didn't get it. I had to tell him "There is no we. There is no cool down. This is over. You had asked me if there was anything that might make me take that ring off my hand. I said "Only one thing. And that one thing has happened. It is over. Now do you understand?"
That afternnon his father called. He said "Don't worry, we'll have him crawling back to you in no time." We both were crying. The family and I had formed a very close bond of respect and love and aprreciation for each other, something which had escaped him. All he had felt was jealousy and begrudingness. There is no place for that when all else that had transpired was forged from love. His father and I consoled and apologized. He said "We know our son. We don't hold you accountable for anything, and don't blame you for not wanting him back. We don't expect anyone to put up with him. We had hope waht you had done for him would last. He has never been as good as in this past year with you." I could only tell him I was sorry to hear that. My heart and head were in a spin of overwhelming sympathy for all of them. I asked if they were going to be o.k. He said they'd gotten used to him over the years. We went on to discuss some other things which would impact lives in the future and were in agreement on all. We had all lost a lot, and the left the avenue open in the event of the kids or the jackassess' parents needing me for anything. His father said "He's our responsibility. We'll try not to burden you." That was where I said ,"No, you're wrong. He is his own responsibility. I think that in being as good parents as you have been to him, he's made himself and his kids your responsibility when they are all his. At least he keeps on about the kids being his. Time he acted like it." His father's reply was "You know you're absolutley right. I never looked at it like that. Thank you. Thank you so much." Huh. Their priest should have told them that years back. Not from the time I left the home of my ersatz parents would I have ever dreamed up that ploy; making them responsible for me, not even when I couldn't get out of bed because of injuries or deathly ill in the hospital. It seems my "generation", those frowned-upon "flower children", were all too willing to stand up and stand on our own feet even if our feet wouldn't hold us up anymore. We would have made great soldiers were we not so anti-killing, anti-war, especially that one and of that nature.
The Bible (and the Dylan song) say "There is a time.....for every purpose under heaven." My purpose has always been to better the lives of all humankind. "Better" is not the same in all nations. There are many things here which people call "Better lives." But in my experience, no, it isn't better, it's economically efficient. It was the fact that jackass had made "alternative economic arrangements" with regards to my engagement ring that made me decide that he and Iwere a gross mis-match. I could and maybe should have kept the ring, it was by all documents, mine. My friends all said I should have kept it. I told them I didn't because as long as I had that ring, he would have a connection to me and I did not want to him to think he had any means of recourse or claim to me or my life. He finally go the message, but not without months of questions to my "kleinbruder" and comments to my physician. I finally had to tell her that if it was grave enough to end it, it was grave enough to not go back. And did he ask for his own sake or mine? My "Kleinbruder" being ga-ordered on matters relating to me and my doctor "Hmm." on the situation, I heard nothing further until the jackass had a crisis. That he isn't in jail and retains parental rights is stunning. He had been getting drugs in the mail from the V.A., prescriptions from my physician and what he could get on the street. The street dried up and what happens to people in that situation apparently did. That he somehow has a dirver's license again is also another mystery.
But now when I tell people who want to get close to me that if they're into alcohol or drugs, stay away from me, they finally listen. Of course there were one or two attempts to trangress my rights on the matter, but they ended very quickly. Sure, I miss my diamond, but then again, I have given away two diamond rings I owned anyway. It's not the stone, it's what it comes with. I never understood all the commotion about diamonds, but it seems to me, they are a girl's best friend in the clarity that they bring. They seem to really bring out the meaning of a relationship. I don't want a placemarker instead of man to hold me. And the diamonds will tell it by what's present and absent around it. The people have to equal the diamonds, not the other way.
Only love and committment should place an engagement diamond on one's hand. And love and committment should be what keeps it there.
Prinzessin Regine "Pegi" Hohenzoller, 8 years after
