On the night we got engaged, Brendan and I had sex for the first time in…I’m embarrassed to say how long. I’m like, this is the most expensive gift this man has ever gotten me — I should probably put out tonight. But it had been a hectic few weeks and this was the perfect time to get back into our groove.

The next morning I woke up and I had a text from Mike. It said, “Congratulations Reese. Why don’t you work remote this week?”

I guess Brendan had already spilled the beans to Mike, which is fine but weird considering we hadn’t even had a chance to tell our parents. And I always work wherever I want so it was weird that Mike was making it clear that he didn’t want to see me in the office.

Anywho! Despite the fact that I *felt* like my life had changed, I still had to get on with it. I wanted to stay in bed with my new fiancé and finally reveal my carefully curated and meticulously organized wedding Pinterest board, but I had to get up and get my child ready for school. And Brendan was apparently going on about his day as normal anyway.

I FaceTimed my mom from the car after dropping Winnie off to tell her that I was engaged. As usual, I had been actively avoiding my mom and screening her calls and texts so we hadn’t been speaking very much. Everything about her stresses me out these days and I’ve been trying to protect my peace.

“Oh, he finally asked you?” she said in a way that didn’t sound surprised in the slightest.

“Yes, finally,” I said back, snarkily.

“I’m glad! Let me see the ring?” she said.

I held up my hand and gave my mom a few seconds to check it out.

She said, “Gorgeous, isn’t it? Did Brendan tell you that he showed it to us back in June?”

Of course he hadn’t, but I guess I should have figured. I was slightly annoyed by her smugness, and of course she had to make this moment about herself.

“He didn’t, but I’m not surprised. He definitely wanted to make sure he had y’all’s approval,” I said.

“You know, Dad wasn’t so sure at first. He was not going to approve. I had to talk him into it.”

What the fuck was she on about? “Why?”

“Well because of Brendan’s history. Being a divorcee and all…”

Really?

“Who cares?” I screamed “And aren’t you the one who had an issue with that, not Dad?”

Since I had called her out she did what she does best — pivoted to the next inconsequential topic.

“When are you getting a manicure? The red doesn’t seem very bridal,” my mother said.

I rushed her off the phone after that. She’s so annoying! A day later, after inundating my phone with unsolicited links to Buzzfeed-style wedding planning lists, venues in various parts of the country and dresses I wouldn’t be caught dead in, she finally just ended up calling back.

“Dad and I are just so excited that we’ve decided to come and see you this weekend!”

I groaned out loud.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get a hotel, but I definitely want to see the new place!” she said.

“Okay,” I sighed.

“And I talked to Margot,” she went on. “We thought an early December engagement party would be perfect…before the holidays get crazy…” she went on.

“Uh, no. That is not going to work,” I said. Truthfully, I hadn’t even considered an engagement party yet, but I was annoyed that she was already trying to take over the planning.

We were going to have to discuss all of this later because now my main concern was the fact that my parents were coming in a few days and I had to deal with that. In my old age, I realized that my mom gives me anxiety and just being in her presence puts me at risk of having a panic attack. So I was not looking forward to their visit.

Since my parents were coming, it was quickly decided that we’d all have dinner out together on Saturday night: Brendan and myself, my parents, his parents and his sister, Danielle. Even though I was slightly annoyed/apprehensive about my parents coming, I was still riding the high from getting engaged so I was feeling good.

Luckily my parents weren’t arriving until Saturday morning so Brendan and I spent Friday night together. We hadn’t spent any significant time alone since we got engaged and I was looking forward to a quiet evening with my man!

So we sat at the counter eating our Thai takeout and just gabbing and Brendan said, “So I saw my sister yesterday and I told her we got engaged. And she cried.”

“Wait, what? Why did she cry?” I said back.

“I don’t really know. I think she was just caught off guard. She wasn’t expecting it. But I wanted to let you know in case she is kind of weird tomorrow,” he explained.

Im just like, dude what the fuck? As if she isn’t always weird with me? Just how bad was her reaction to the news? Why the fuck did he even tell me about this? Brendan always overshares the worst things. And hello, he didn’t tell his sister — who he is supposedly like best friends with — before he proposed that he planned on doing it? Initially I took her crying personally because I thought it was because of me — because I’m not Reagan — but once I thought about it, I could totally see where she was coming from. Especially after finding out that he’d told our parents months ago that he was going to do it eventually.

So then I started crying. How could anyone not be completely overjoyed by our impending union? I know Danielle has always been a hater, but it didn’t even occur to me that she would be unhappy about Brendan and I getting married.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to cry,” he said.

“I don’t even know why you told me that. I already know she doesn’t like me,” I said.

“She does like you though,” my clueless fiancé said.

I guess it was time Brendan and I discussed his sister and the way she makes me feel. I’ve literally never talked to Brendan about Danielle and my’s mostly non-existent relationship and with good reason because as I started explaining myself, I realized I sounded like a petty crybaby bitch. It’s not like she’s outright rude to me (at least not anymore), but she’s not overly nice either. And eventually I was just talking in circles that no longer had any point so finally I just had to say it. 

“And I don’t know, to me it seems like maybe she wishes you were still with your ex-wife and she will never accept me because of that.”

“I can assure you that’s not the case,” Brendan said calmly. I don’t know why, but I expected him to freak about me saying that. “Danielle likes you, I swear.”

And I truly trust Brendan when he tells me things so I had no choice but to believe him. And then things got awkward because he asked me if I like her and I couldn’t say the truth — that I feel the same about her as she feels about me — so I had to assure him that I like her too.

Anywho, my parents arrived the next morning and the first thing my mother wanted to do was take me to get my nails done. She’s infuriating, but I actually did need a manicure. I just listened and drowned her out while she told me all the ideas she had for my wedding, none of which I was interested in in the slightest. And maybe I was just sensitive because of the conversation Brendan and I had the night before, but it occurred to me that she hadn’t once asked how I felt, how Brendan felt, how our relationship was going, if we were ready or anything like that — she just wanted to talk about the wedding. That annoyed me. But after the way she interfered in my last relationship, I probably wouldn’t have told her anything anyway.

That night, the four of us headed to the restaurant together to meet Brendan’s dad, his stepmom and Danielle. We all greeted each other and Danielle actually walked up to me and hugged me.

“Congratulations!” she said, with probably the most enthusiasm I’ve ever heard from her. “So happy for you.”

“Thanks!” I said, taken aback.

“I got you something. You can open it later,” she said as she dangled a gift bag in front of me. So maybe between our conversation the night before and now, Brendan had said something to her because she is never that nice to me and she wasn’t weird at all!

Danielle was on her best behavior, but I can’t say the same for my mother. I’ve been keeping her at an arm’s length for the past several months/years and it’s been working well as far as I’m concerned. And anytime she’s been around Brendan and his family, she’s been tame and understated, but I guess now that I’d secured the ring she felt like she could finally be herself. And by “be herself” I do mean drink like a fish and cross every boundary she could think of. 

Brendan’s dad ordered a bottle of champagne for the table and everything started off normally. Brendan’s dad stood up and gave a toast which I thought was really cute and then Margot gave one of her own. One thing I love about Brendan’s family is how much they clearly all love each other. It sounds weird because obviously I love my family too, but I don’t go out of my way to be around them all the time. Brendan’s family is just so perfectly normal. Like they don’t have to worry about embarrassing each other ever. Meanwhile, my mother was at the end of the table saying, “We all thought Reese would already be married, but Brady just refused to give her a ring. He thought of every excuse not to—”

“Mom!” I exclaimed. She’s so out of line.

“Sorry,” she said, half-heartedly. And then added, “I guess that was no issue for Brendan because once you’ve already done it once, you can easily do it again!”

Luckily, no one was *really* paying any attention to her. Brendan and I told a lot of stories about our friendship (leaving out all of the details about our obvious sexual tension when we were both with other people, oops) and the funny things that have happened at work. Ugh, I just love him so much.

“So once Reese has another baby, she’ll probably want to stay home with the kids. Can y’all afford that?” my mom asked.

“Uh, I didn’t say I wanted to do that,” I said back. I mean, not recently, but still. She just wanted to know about our finances!

Then my mom and Margot wanted to talk about the actual wedding and throw out their ideas for when and where. No one bothered to ask me what ideas I have even though I’ve been planning my wedding since 2003, but whatever.

“So where was your last wedding?” my mom asked Brendan, still not letting him forget that this isn’t his first rodeo.

“Here in the city,” he said back, taking it all in stride.

“So we won’t do it here. That would be odd, wouldn’t it? We don’t want a repeat of your first wedding,” she pretended to laugh. No one else laughed.

“Obviously, Mom!” I said. She had a point, but still. 

“Just making sure! What about a destination wedding? Mexico or Europe—”

We all continued tuning her out.

At the end of the night, Margot had a server take a picture of our group — because she thinks ahead — and later on, she posted the picture to her Instagram feed with a caption saying something like, “Please join me in congratulating Brendan and Reese on their engagement…” I thought that was so sweet and precious! And I don’t know why this surprised me, but dozens of comments rolled in: “Congratulations to these two beautiful people!” “Mazel!” etc. People who don’t even know me! I’m like, wait Margot, post me more, I’m loving the attention. Obviously I could post myself on my own page more, but I’m leaning more into mystery these days.

Speaking of which! At some point last year, my Gen Z work friends convinced me to make my Instagram profile private. I used to be more of a wide open profile kinda girl — I’m cute and funny so why not — but they talked me into closing it off. I can’t remember their exact reasoning, but I’m like, these girlies are more in tune with social media and technology than me these days so I’ll listen to them.

The morning after our impromptu engagement dinner with our families and Margot posting about us, I woke up with a new Instagram follower request. And it was from Reagan, Brendan’s ex-wife. I thought: wow, that seems bold. What does she want to follow me for? I mean, obviously I know what for, but can’t she at least pretend that she’s not trying to snoop? And as a reminder, one of her friends, Henderson, followed me after we met once so couldn’t she just have him do her dirty work? Or make a Finsta like a normal person?! I didn’t immediately take action on the request in case she wanted to rethink and remove it.

But then later that night I checked and the request to follow was still there. Fine, if she was insistent on seeing what we were up to then I’d let her. It’s not like I post a ton anymore anyway. And I wanted to acknowledge her so that she knows I know she is spying! I’m kind of annoyed about it though. Obviously I don’t love that Brendan used to be married, but I understand he has a past and so do I. But a part of what helps me get over it is the fact that he and Reagan don’t have any kids or dependents together so they have literally no reason to still be in each other’s lives. They don’t even follow each other anymore! So the fact that she went out of her way to follow me so she could keep tabs on our life is irritating to me.

Another irritating thing to me — I obviously texted Kendra to share my exciting news.

“I’m engaged!” I said and included a picture of my ring because it’s truly too good not to show off.

“WHHAAAT,” she texted back. And then in a separate message, “TO WHO??” And in another message, “BRADY!?

Genuinely, what the fuck? She pays so little attention to me and my life that she doesn’t realize that Brady and I broke up years ago. And she doesn’t even know about Brendan?? I couldn’t even reply. God!!

Speaking of Brady. I figured baby girl Winnie would tell him all about the engagement (especially her part in it), but if he knew about it, he didn’t mention it. Not that we talk regularly, but if he did know and didn’t reach out at all, that would be kind of rude, no?

So for Halloween, Winnie’s class was having a costume party and apparently she begged both Brady and I to come. I thought she just asked me because I’m her favorite, but when I got there, Brady texted me to ask if I would be there because he was on his way. Great. Winnie went super unique with her costume and dressed up as a Barbie cowgirl. She’s so freaking cute. She dragged me around the party so I could see all of her favorite things in the classroom and talk to her friends.

“Look at Olivia’s hanitizer,” she said. “I want one.”

Olivia did, in fact, have one of those cute, pink Touchland hand sanitizers that is completely unnecessary for a five year old. But what baby wants, baby gets and Winnie and I went home that night and ordered her a 5-pack from Amazon.

Eventually Brady showed up. Since it was the middle of the day, he was in work clothes and claimed he couldn’t stay long.

“Okay, well you didn’t have to come,” I said, starting things off bitchily.

He ignored me and said, “I should’ve worn my pink cowboy outfit too!”

Winnie thought that was absolutely hilarious — who knew Brady could be so funny — and I decided that I’d keep my snarky comments to myself. We hung out for a bit and I waited for Brady to notice my ring. He’d barely even looked at me so I wasn’t surprised that he didn’t seem to notice or care.

At one point, Winnie walked away and I turned right to Brady so we were face to face.

“I don’t know if you heard, but Brendan and I got engaged a couple of weeks ago,” I blurted out. And then I held my hand up so he could see my ring, just in case I wasn’t clear.

“Oh wow,” Brady said, stoic. He doesn’t typically have big reactions about anything so I guess I’m not surprised. “Congrats.”

“Thanks,” I said back. “Just wanted to let you know.”

“Were you expecting it or were you surprised?” he wanted to know.

“I mean, we talk about marriage a lot so I expected it at some point. Sometimes bullying works,” I said.

Brady actually laughed. “I’m happy for you, if this is what you want. I know marriage is important to you so hopefully it works out.”

“It’ll work out, you don’t have to worry about that,” I assured him.

“Okay.”

I turned back away from him since the conversation seemed to be over, but then Brady said something like, “You’re like a different person now.”

“Excuse me?” I said, ready to tussle.

“Not in a bad way,” he backtracked. “You just seem a lot more level headed. If you were always like this then maybe we—”

I cut him off before he could blame all of our relationship problems on me. “Being in a healthy relationship makes a really big difference. I’m sure you get that.”

“I do,” he said. “I really am happy for you though. I don’t know anything about Brendan, but Winnie has nothing but positive things to say about him.”

“Thanks,” I said again. I wanted to point out that he could get to know Brendan if he wasn’t such an asshole anytime they’ve seen each other, but that was a conversation for another day!

Bye for now!