Update 48

A week after we got engaged, we were planning to go to the Bahamas with his mom, his sister and his niece. The day before we were supposed to leave we decided to take his 14 year old lab to the vet because she was drooling a lot and breathing heavy. The vet said that it was an abscess tooth and that he would need to pull it so we left her there to have it pulled. The vet called him an hour later and told him that when they put her under to pull the tooth they noticed a growth in her mouth which was cancer. He almost fell to the floor. He burst into tears and I just hugged him. His dogs mean the entire world to him. The whole reason he is in Florida in the winters is so that his dogs can swim and not slip on ice. He was a mess. He went to go sit outside for a bit by himslef, then I joined him and just let him cry. It broke my heart to see him like that. We decided that his mom and sister and niece should still go to the Bahamas and that we would stay home with the dogs. I am glad that we did that. I think having everyone at the house would have been a disaster while he was in that state. We picked her up the next morning and he just hugged her and cried more. Watching him with her made me cry too. I told him to just stay with her and not to worry about anything else. I cleaned up the kitchen, the garage, the porch and the bedroom. I didn't know what else to do with my self. Every time she yelped in pain he would feel so terrible for her that I told him to go hang out outside while I sat with her and gave her pain pills or tried to get her to eat etc. He just couldn't bare to hear her in pain and I couldn't bare to see him in pain. He said that he didn't care how much it would cost, he was going to make sure she got better. He researched on line and called dog oncologist etc. I let him be crazy for a few days as I don't know how I would react if anything happened to my dog. Then after she was feeling a bit better and he had stopped crying I felt that I needed to talk to him about the reality of curing a 14 and a half year old dog of cancer. I was very gentle and he admitted he knew that it wasn't very realistic. He went to the oncologist and it turns out that they can treat her and they said that she would be cancer free for at least a year, which would take her way past her life expectancy. He was so thrilled with this news and so was I. The only difficult thing for me is that he was supposed to come home but now has to stay in Florida an extra month for her treatment. That means that I have started to plan the wedding alone. I really wish that he could be here to help but I am happy that his dog will be okay. I pray that she lives as long as she can with out suffering or being in any pain. I do worry about what might happen if she passes away near our wedding and if he will be able to celebrate. But like I have learned so many times before, you plan and G-d laughs, so what ever is meant to be will be.

I am having fun wedding dress shopping and a bit stressed out trying to find a venue. I can't wait until he comes home in a few weeks so that we can finally live in the same city and start our life together.

Update 47

My ex found out that I was engaged. He wrote me an email. It actually put a downer on my high. I was feeling so bad for him after reading his sad depressing email. Then I got super angry that I had wasted even a minute of time worrying about how he was feeling when I was supposed to be spending every second celebrating with my fiance.

This was his email:

Its been seven weeks and fifteen months since we went our different ways.
I know you're not there to confide in, but why should I still try to
stay strong?
All my trying to do what's best for me, for you, for happiness, for what?
I keep hearing Sinead O'Connor singing that 'nothing compares to you' song.

I've a bad head, that weighs fear in my decisions.
I make choices with my mind and watch my heart bleed.
I shouldn't say this, but its been seven weeks and fifteen months.
I don't think you know how bad it hurts and it won't recede.

I want to grow old with someone
I want to know that they will never leave me
I want them to know we are in it together, no matter what.
I want to love them so much it hurts and in the end smile

But baby, I'm not smiling through these tears
I don't know how to put my pieces back together now that you're gone
---

Maybe this can end on a happy note. I loved what we had, I don't know
if I will find anything like it again and the fear tears me up still
sometimes.
one day maybe

And then I wrote an angry email back but decided not to even bother sending it:

I have re-read this email many times. Not sure what to write back. So I will just start to write and see what comes out.

Originally when I read this I felt sad. I pictured you in a dark sad place and wanted to rescue you. But that is not my role in your life. I can not spend one more minute thinking about how you are feeling when I am supposed to be celebrating with someone else.

Then after two days my sad turned into mad. I even felt like calling and yelling at you.
The amount of times you tried to push me away, the amount of times I cried over you. I had one thing that was making my decision a living hell and it was conversion. You said you wouldn't do it. Your arrogance and ego allowed you to allow me to go date 50 other men thinking I was going to come back. In fact you were not even sad. You dated and slept with women and flirted and had a ball. Then you contact me on my birthday and got my feelings back to the surface and then ripped my heart out again one more time the following day. It was not until you deceitfully read my blog and found out that I was with D for two months and happy that you decided to contact me and try to mess me up all over again. And still I held you high enough that I decided to try a friendship with you despite possible ramifications with my relationship. And now, NOW that you find out its for real and I am engaged, you decide to wake up and feel sad?!?!?! You are only sad cause you are lonely and I am not and you are the most competitive person I know. If you had someone you would not even realize I was gone. If you love someone and want to be with them you compromise and do whatever it takes to be with them. No games, no chances, no risks. You let fear govern your decisions for most of our relationship and I thought that was normal but its not. I now know what I am willing to do for the person that I am going to marry and that is anything and everything in the whole wide world to make his life easier and better while trusting that he would do the same. After eight days, without fear of rejection or fear of scaring me off, he said he loved me. After 8 months, he bought a ring to make sure I would be his forever, without fear of judgement that it is "too soon". Without hesitation I agreed to move to Florida with him knowing that it is not my ideal situation but that it is so important for him to make sure his old dogs do not suffer through the winter. When you find the right girl you will do anything to be with her and you will never take the chance of willingly letting her go. I was obviously not your "the one" or none of this would have happened and we would still be together, which means, she is still out there somewhere. And ever though I don't even feel like saying this next sentence or saying anything positive to you I still will because at one point you meant the world to me. Get the F out of bed, out of your dark head and into the world. Go do something, anything. Start loving yourself again like you did when I knew you and then you will attract an awesome girl. Take the lessons that you need from our relationship, don't copy your mistakes, and then you will able to move on in no time at all.

I still haven't responded and have no idea what to say to him. Its been 11 days since he wrote back and he probably thinks I am ignoring him. I'm not I just have no clue what to write. I shared both emails with my fiance. I don't want to feel like I am hiding anything or being disrespectful to him. He said that he felt bad for my ex but he is happy that we didn't work out so that he could have me :)

Update 46

My bf was not able to come in for passover so I decided to go visit him in Florida after the seders. My flight was Saturday night but it got delayed, obviously. So I had to go to an airport that was an hour and a half away from his house and I only arrived at midnight. He was so sweet, he picked me up with a bouquet of pink roses. We drove back to his house and he told me that he had a surprise for me in the back yard. He asked me to wait inside for a few minutes. We had talked about putting a pond in the side yard but decided that it was not a good idea since we have dogs and eventually kids. Last time I saw the yard it was just a pile of mud. He brought me outside and I saw that he had landscaped the entire yard. He put grass, planted palm trees, built a low wall out of stone and planted every single pink plant and flower he could find. He put a fountain and benches and made it into a beautiful serene garden for me. He told me that he did everything himself and made it so that I would feel more like his house was my house and wanted me to have my very own special area. He had lit candles all over the garden and brought out a bottle of wine and two glasses. I had complained that he never wrote me a love letter, so of course he handed me one. It was such a nice note that I almost started to cry.

He had been preparing me that he was designing a ring for me that would look like a roller coaster. Every time he described it to me I had a mini panic attack. I didn't want him to think that I cared too much about a ring but the ring he described sounded terrible. So he pulls out a small pink box from his pocket and told me that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. He opened the box and inside was the ugliest ring I had ever seen. I gave him a huge hug and said that I wanted to marry him too and that I love him so much. I tried not to look at the ring too much. He told me that he put an inscription in the ring and that it was the most importnat part. I tried to read it but it was too dark. He went inside to get me a flashlight. While he was inside I stared at the ring and wondered how I could break the news to him that it was not my taste and that I really didn't like it. With the flashlight I read the inside of the ring. It said "JJ". Which is something I always say which stands for "Just Joking". I looked back up at him and he had the most amazingly beautiful ring in a big box. He handed it to me and said "Did you honestly think I wanted my girl walking around with an ugly ring like that??" I jumped into his arms and hugged and kissed him. He told me that as of now I need to trust him and his taste! He also said that the ugly ring was the best 37 dollars plus shipping and handling that he had ever spent and it was worth every sleepless night it caused me to be able to give me the real ring and have me love it and not ever doubt him again. By this point it was already 3 am and we celebrated all night long :) It was the most thoughtful and wonderful proposal. I could not have asked for a better proposal, ring or man.

I couldn't sleep! I was so excited! I waited up until 9 am Sunday morning so that I could call and tell my parents. My mom was so excited she called every single person she knows. My dad said that she was on the phone all day calling all over the world. My entire family was so excited and happy for me. We spent the next few days in pure bliss and in love like teenagers! It was so wonderful. I am so in love with him. I feel like the luckiest woman in the world! We adore each other and we are such a great supportive loving couple.