"You couldn't afford a ring anyways.... :)"

Was the message that I woke up to from AL this morning. Seems a bit of an assumption as to what I can or cannot afford. Also, it seems to be some sort of a tactic to put off any marriage talk that she had gone full gusto into a few weeks ago. She wavers a lot on the topic with me. In the same breath, she'll say that she is going to spend the rest of her life with me, but that she wants to hold off on marriage.

I can understand, we've both been divorced relatively recently. We've only just spent a lot of time with each other in this past month, hell, we haven't even lived together for a period of time yet. Why should marriage even be in the picture? It's strange though, she's telling everyone in her family that she wants to marry me. For instance this week, on her trip, she told her mother. She's told her brother and his fiancee, she's told her best friends, so why the hesitation?

It's like stepping into a pool of water. You're not sure how cold or hot it is, so you want to stick a toe out there to test it. She wants it, I want it, but we're both hesitant on the future. The thing is, is that you cannot predict it. You can't guarantee anything in the future.

My response to her for the above comment was: "Sounds like you don't want to be married." To which she responded: "I don't want you to go broke! :) Or more into debt". Hrm... interesting. To me, it seems that she's a bit financially oriented. Why should the size of the rock even matter if you truly love each other? To me, the ring is symbolic. Sure, I want her to be able to flash her ring, to get the Oohs and Aahs from her friends, to make her proud of something on her hand. But then again, that shouldn't be the factor that dictates whether or not she wants to marry me.

So instead of texting her this morning, I followed up with a call and spoke to her about it. I let her know that the ring to me is no real big deal... It's the symbol it represents. That she's bringing up the fact that money is tight right now as a way to delay any further progress towards us getting married eventually. So we hashed it out a bit, but still it left me with some thoughts to mull over.

Last night we were talking about ideas for the wedding, and she mentioned how her mother suggested Hawaii. Great... bigger ring, she wants to get married in Hawaii... am I noticing a trend? Granted, my parents live in Hawaii part of the year, so they won't have to fly in, but AL's family will. Still, that makes it a bit more expensive then just having it here local where some of her family is, and my parents tend to come through Portland a few times a year so we can time it with that. She also mentioned how her mother told her to bring a bathing suit with her on this trip because they were going to go down to Florida. So I told AL I wanted pictures of her in it... a nice 2 piece suit. She balked and said, "only if you take me to Hawaii". Why should the location matter? Why do I need to trade something for something? I confronted her on that one... it actually came down to the fact that she's modest. She doesn't want pictures of her around in a bathing suit. I guess I can understand that. But still, preceding it by saying that I would only get pictures of her in a bathing suit if I took her to Hawaii.... WTF.

She texted me with a follow up comment: "Part of me wants something bigger than my last, but I know that should have no bearing on us." I know where she's coming from. She obviously feels that our love is greater than her last, that our relationship has to super cede it and get the memories out of her head. But a ring won't do that. Curiosity got the better of me, so I asked her how big her ring was before.

0.43 Carats. Sad... That's easily topped.

These sorts of comments and behaviors are raising concerns with me... I really need to see my therapist and hash this out. See why I'm having these concerns... why she's making these comments.. what's at the root of the situation.