OP here, made a new account just to respond. Been on this site for years and this is my first submission so at least I'm batting 1.000 on FMLs huh? Clarifications: The idea stemmed from a party I hosted the year prior as a post Halloween party. Didn't even realize it was Daylights Savings and when it was in full swing we realized we had a whole extra hour. We referred to it as the "Critical Hit" of party hosting. We had been together for 2+ years before the break up and it was HER that was trying to push for marriage after the first year. Like, in retrospect some really manipulative stuff about how she shouldn't have to jump through hoops and prove herself to me if I really loved her, and that she KNEW I was the one. I wanted to take my time and live together first, but I was head over heels for this girl. Finally around the two year mark I felt that I knew her well enough and felt like I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. Clearly I was misguided. She broke up with me about 3 weeks before my proposal plan. Had to get my money back I had put down on an engagement ring ($1000 on $10K). That trip to the Jewelry store was not fun, but the workers there were super super gracious. I blamed myself for the longest time for driving her away and was an absolute mess for over a year. I'm.... a bit better now. I found out much later after the break up that she had cheated on me (that's a whole other crazy story), and that she lied to me about some CRITICALLY IMPORTANT information. And that she was already seeing someone else when we hooked back up about 4 months after our breakup. Her absolute lack of care for fidelity really got me when I found out she cheated on some other guy with me without my knowing. I actually like the interactions with OPs on this site so I'll try to be as open as possible.