Ashley and I had yet another talk. I feel like things are going too fast. We have only known each other for a little over a month. It's too early to say "I love you." How can you possibly know you love someone in that amount of time? She doesn't like the fact that I seem reserved in my verbal affections. She wants me to tell her that I love her, that I want to spend my life with her, that I want to be the father her girls never had. She wants me to tell her those things because she wants those things. And I refuse to say those things, because those kinds of words carry a weight unexpected. I'm not at that point yet. I don't know if I want to spend the rest of my life with her. I don't know if I want to be the father her girls never had, though I believe they deserve a wonderful father.
I told her that I've been down this road before. I've been told things that I cherished, only to have them come back around and cause me enormous pain. I've been told things that shouldn't have been said, that should be reserved for a different level of commitment. When you love someone and they speak to that love, and when you believe the things they say, and when they turn their back on that love, it makes you question everything. I don't want to say anything to her I don't know 100%, and I don't want her to say things just because she "feels" them. Talk is cheap, and often meaningless.
She told Chloe, "Anthony is an answer to our prayers." I hated the fact that she said that. Mandy told me that multiple times. I believed it. If Ashley believes it, and if Chloe believes it, and this turns out not to work, then such words become cutting and even damning. God will be blamed for what could amount to nothing more than a common occurrence in the minefields of dating. Juxtaposing God on top of it all, as we Christians are so keen to do, sets the stage for much praise or disappointment. Dating's already hard enough, the risks are already scary; why bring God into it and make it that much harder?
I'm writing this and seeing just how different I've become since Mandy. Yes, some things are better; other things, not so much. I am terrified of even considering love. I don't want her to tell me she loves me. I don't want her to tell me she thinks I'd be a great father for her children. I don't want her to think long-term. Long-term is scary, it's risky, and I've talked like that before, I've believed like that before, and I've seen what it can do. Thoughtless words and the risk they pose shouldn't be taken lightly. There's always a price to pay. There's no guarantee that things with Ashley will work, and it terrifies me that she wants a guarantee. I can't give her that guarantee. I won't be like the Wisconsinite, who praised me and her love for me, who spoke of Our Future as if it were a given thing, and then in the next minute reiterated, "There's no guarantees." If there aren't any guarantees, she shouldn't have said so much. Mandy was right: there are no guarantees. And I'm not going to bleed Ashley's heart by telling her what she wants to hear in one breath and then throwing a question mark over it in the next.
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