What does being an engaged woman mean to you?

HairSprayDoll · August 2012

Why Hello Knotties!
I had the pleasure of accepting my dream man's proposal on our 8 year anniversary (July 28th!). And while starring at my ring (which i LOVE) my favorite question to ponder is what does it mean to be engaged? For instance Queen Elizabeth II was secretly engaged to Prince Phillip and when they made it known to her parents, her mother initially disapproved. For her it seemed an emotional, independent - almost defiant endeavour. It occurred to me everyone must have a different answer so i Google searched and and found a great little article:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_being_engaged_really_mean
After reading it i thought of how every woman has their own thoughts and feelings on the subject and I would really like to hear them. I'll start.
To me being engaged is a marked involvement in a tradition that spans centuries and involves a shift that involves both your emotions and your identity. It's running over to peoples houses with champagne and making announcements with gusto, and it's getting butterflies when you tease each other and say the word 'fiancee' while doing the dishes. It's mourning the loss of your soon to be axed maiden name, and celebrating the level of commitment, loyalty, fidelity, and journey two people are making together. It's the culmination of finding your soul mate.And this may be the 'honeymoon period' but i suddenly have better posture, fix my chipped nails, am overly polite, and bring out my stockpile of lingerie nightly. HA! So what say the women? What does it mean to you?

tiny speck · August 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_just-engaged-proposals_what-does-being-an-engaged-woman-mean-to-you?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:683Discussion:2230e9c8-4614-4c6a-b592-037c8f184913Post:0e1188d2-cc4f-48fc-b4d6-b0eee3c2285e">Re: What does being an engaged woman mean to you?</a>:
[QUOTE]It meant I was a woman who was planning to get married but had not done so yet.
Posted by StageManager14[/QUOTE]

Yep, ditto this.

There may once have been more 'significance' to being engaged, but that time, when many young women married around age 19-20 straight out of their parents' house, is long passed. I'm planning to get married. That's it.

GoodLuckBear14 · August 2012

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_just-engaged-proposals_what-does-being-an-engaged-woman-mean-to-you?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding BoardsForum:683Discussion:2230e9c8-4614-4c6a-b592-037c8f184913Post:69741837-fcfd-4177-8af3-9560fed4c7e4">What does being an engaged woman mean to you?</a>:
[QUOTE]Why Hello Knotties! I had the pleasure of accepting my dream man's proposal on our 8 year anniversary (July 28th!). And while starring at my ring (which i LOVE) my favorite question to ponder is what does it mean to be engaged? For instance Queen Elizabeth II was secretly engaged to Prince Phillip and when they made it known to her parents, her mother initially disapproved. For her it seemed an emotional, independent - almost defiant endeavour. It occurred to me everyone must have a different answer so i Google searched and and found a great little article: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_being_engaged_really_mean">http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_does_being_engaged_really_mean</a> After reading it i thought of how every woman has their own thoughts and feelings on the subject and I would really like to hear them. I'll start. To me being engaged is a marked involvement in a tradition that spans centuries and involves a shift that involves both your emotions and your identity. It's running over to peoples houses with champagne and making announcements with gusto, and it's getting butterflies when you tease each other and say the word 'fiancee' while doing the dishes. It's mourning the loss of your soon to be axed maiden name, and celebrating the level of commitment, loyalty, fidelity, and journey two people are making together. It's the culmination of finding your soul mate.And this may be the 'honeymoon period' but i suddenly have better posture, fix my chipped nails, am overly polite, and bring out my stockpile of lingerie nightly. HA! So what say the women? What does it mean to you?
Posted by HairSprayDoll[/QUOTE]

For me it meant we were formalizing a commitment that we had made long before. I've always tried to live life with gusto and did not need an e-ring to do this. I did not mourn the loss of my maiden name because I kept the name I was given at birth and the journey to find my soul mate culminated when I met him.

Maybe it is because I thought I lost him 09/11/2001 but I've never put stock in the whole "squeeeeeOMGI'mengaged!!!!!!!!!!" I have appreciated every day with him and try to make each one count because I know all too well what it felt like wondering if he was in one of those buildings (and know what it is like to be without him due to a breakup several years ago).

And in case you are wondering, nothing was different after we got married either except we got ito introduce eachother as 'My husband" and "my wife".

emeejeeayen · August 2012

My fiance and I broke up for about 6 months after living together for 3 years. The engagement ended our, uh?, trial separation. It signified, to me at least, that we'd both done a lot of growing and had come to the realization that we had it right all along. Being engaged encourages me to include him in all of my decision making, and vice versa.

I think one of the weirdest moments has been when I was offered the option of a promotion should I choose to stay in CA rather than move to DC to be with my fiance. My boss said to me, "Take some time and talk about it with your fiance." When we were just dating, even though we were living together (and had been for years) my bosses never suggested I discuss any work decisions with him even though they would affect him just as much.

In fact, now that I'm thinking about it, when we would work late (it was OFTEN that I would work past 10pm with most of my office doing the same), the other girls would shoo the married girls home saying, "We need to let her get home, she has a husband!" That's a weird concept to me. That some how being engaged, being married, signifies to the world that your relationship matters. Living together, sharing financial responsibilities, etc, don't seem to matter. And I've ony ever lived in SF and NY where you'd think things would be more progressive in that regard.

bgrjourney · August 2012

Our engagement came after a pretty bad breakup one in which I decided to move 700 miles away. I think engagement for me meant that finally.... FINALLY my FI and I had grown up enough to realize that our relationship wasn't something we could throw away and it wasn't something we could walk away from. We love each other through light and dark, good or bad and that's not going away.

jessica121212 · August 2012

I think it just means that we are taking that final step towards marraige, becoming one, and commiting ourselves to eachother for the rest of our lives...it really feels no different from when we were dating, but this is one experience you will remember for the rest of your life!

anssett · August 2012

Some women are really into the engagement thing and it really changes how they think about their relationship. Other gals, myself included, don't. Many years ago a 20something me got engaged to a great guy who I thought would be my life partner. I thought things would feel different when we were engaged. They didn't. I thought they'd feel different when we were married. They didn't. By the time we got divorced I figured out that we are amazing friends and our relationship will evolve, but I'm going to be me no matter what. I'm going to feel like me no matter what. Years pass and I've now spent time falling in love with the man I'm considerably more confident will be my life partner and since we're going to start trying to concieve soon he'll be at the very least the father of my children. That's not to say I don't feel giddy. I make squeeing noises and giggle when I look at my engagement band. I bawled when I was proposing to him (and again a week later when he counter proposed to me). I'm giddy as a school girl, but our relationship won't fundamentally change because we got engaged. I've been living on my own since 17. I'm now 32 and have multiple graduate degrees. I'm keeping my name, in fact he's taking mine, because this isn't about tradition for us. It's about us celebrating us in the way we want.

If getting engaged changes the meaning of your relationship or involves mourning the loss of your name, cool. But it's ok if you don't really see any changes because hopefully you really are two complete people joining your lives, not completing each other.

dat5053 · August 2012

I am not engaged yet, but I was thinking about this today as I am (very) soon to be enaged. Honestly it doesn't mean anything different for my relationship, but it means alot for me. Over the past 4 years I have become increasingly more unhappy as life has continued to rain hell on me. I have also been surrounded with unpleasant situations and miserable people, all of which have made it so much harder for me to see happiness in my life. However today as I was looking at old pictures of myself and my SO I began to think. This man wants to marry me, he wants to marry me because of what I was in these pictures. A beautiful carefree woman who loves herself and others around her. Someone who can be happy with what little they have even though life has thrown so much crap at her. So what being engaged will mean to me is throwing away all the bad in my life. Cutting out everyone negative and for those who I cannot cut out of my life, I will not let them continue to bring me down with them anymore. I will be happy and change myself back into who I was before and I will be happy for what I have rather than be sad for what I don't. Being engaged means to me finding my old self again, the one who the man who wants to marry me fell in love with and deserves.

What does being an engaged woman mean to you?

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