someone else selected.
Someone can want equality while also believing that the person issuing an invitation should communicate clearly about costs.
Those positions can coexist.
Her refusal therefore did not answer the question he thought he was asking.
It answered another question entirely.
Would she accept a significant expense after being given no opportunity to participate in the decision?
Her answer was no.
That answer may actually have demonstrated something valuable.
She was willing to establish a boundary even when doing so created tension.
Marriage requires that ability too.
Partners need to be able to say no to each other.
They need to question spending decisions.
They need to disagree without assuming the relationship itself is threatened.
A marriage where one partner cannot refuse without “failing” is not an equal partnership.
It is a performance.
The Valentine’s dinner did not give her the proposal she imagined.
Instead, it gave her
