My runaway bride story.

On the night before my wedding, at the rehearsal, I started feeling faint. I walked outside the church and hid. I knew that I was making a mistep by getting married...no, a monumental, huge mistake.

I was young. Very young. 18, to be precise.

Evidently, the wedding party missed me during the rehearsal, and they searched for me. I was sitting on the curb behind the church. I was crying...I knew that it was wrong to proceed, but how could I call off the wedding with so many people "counting on me?" Like I said, I was young.

One of the groom's mother's friends found me, and told me this long, ridiculous story about how, the night before her wedding, she was so frightened that she "could have kicked out a plate-glass window." She assured me that it was just "cold-feet," and that everything would be ok. Evidently, she naively thought that what I was experiencing was pre-sex jitters--afraid of wedding night sex. Ha! Little did she know that her suspicion could not have been further from the truth.

I think if my mother or father would have found me before this woman, I would have called off the wedding. They would have listened and told me that it was ok to call it off. My eighteen-year-old brain was more ashamed to return gifts than to think of what would happen in the future--we were a terribly mismatched couple.

The next day, I went through with the wedding. Six months later, I went through with the divorce.

but at least you didn't run off the Vegas and scare the crap out of your family and have have the nation looking for you. I hope you are happy now

I went through much sadness before I found happiness. I'm very happy and content now. I discovered something when I was about 30...that happiness can only be found inside one's self, never through relationships.

Yes, you are right about the runaway bride in the news right now. It was truly heartless for her to put her family and friends through the uncertainty of even knowing if she was still alive.

ontil we know who we are how can we possibly know what we want.:applause: :thumbsup:

But thankfully you were only married for 6 months. Instead of doing the same thing you did the night before the wedding, feeling ashamed and going through with something you didn't feel was right, you ended it early (though I'm sure in your hindsight, not early enough). It would have been so much worse if you continued to stay married for years.

thank you for sharing this story.

:)

but when someone else reads it, I never know...so I apologize or warn in advance. :)

It has taken me almost 17 years, including the last 8 since it ended for me to finally realize I should have NEVER gotten married the second time.

Advice for young people unsure about tieing the knot: You don't HAVE to marry them just because the Sex is good.

My number one memory of my wedding is looking at the door and thinking, I could run out right now. Unfortunately, I didn't.

I look back now and wish I would have known then what I know now. I don't beat up myself about it anymore, though. I just consider it one of those "life's learning experiences." :(

they are there for a reason

I have heard a few stories like this -- a wrenching gut feeling that one is making a serious mistake. Honey, I am sure you too WANTED to believe everything was going to be okay, and that your gut was lying to you, and you were probably relieved to have someone "talk sense to you." You learned a hard lesson in the Wisdom of the Gut Feeling, and the idiocy of not wanting to make waves at any cost.

I know of people who knew they had made a serious mistake after the wedding -- one during the reception (hubbie's only job for wedding was to provide music for reception, and he failed to, and his failure to do bother to achieve anything was a theme of their marriage, along with the hidden abuse) and one after the honeymoon (within 4 days of marriage, hubbie realized wife had serious mental illness). Both said they drove their insights out of their minds, but for the rest of their tragic marriages were painfully reminded at how right they had been. The one case where the guy realized his new wife was mentally ill, but did nothing about it, had serious consequences over many decades, I am sorry to say.... The other -- hubby refused to work for 12 years, ran up many tens of thousands of dollars in absurd debt, ended up abusing her, and her child, later, which pushed her to confront him at LONG last.

Psychosis and abuse don't necessarily enter our lives clearly identified and marked, and with us knowing exactly what to do about it in a way that will deal with it painlessly. A lot of people manage to get through life by living functionally in some or even many respects, while hiding serious problems. That's when we get into the frog-in-boiling-water metaphor -- people acclimatize themselves to madness. People with serious problems can live like parasites on a tolerant partner who chooses not to realistically deal with their serious issues. Sometimes the partners doesn't even have to be "an enabler" but just a nice person willing to give people the benefit of the doubt -- over and over and over and over....

But that's YOUR story. It is highly unlikely it is Jennifer's story, who seems to be the major player in this family madness, and who appears to be operating out of motivations which are very far removed from your own decent character.

Don't sell yourself short for having given in.

Redstone