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You write about the different stages that you went through afterward. What was that like?
It's absolutely grief. In fact, I think it's worse than if someone had died, because this person chose to leave you. I mean, that's as big a rejection as can be. He did not want to marry me, and I thought, "I must be some kind of horrible person to have someone do this." I'd never heard of this happening to anybody, you know? It was just a complete depression.
What made it worse for me was a lot like what Melissa is going through, because I was on television. I was the 5:00 anchor at our ABC affiliate, and I was on television every day. When I left that day, the whole town knew I was getting married. It was so embarrassing. It was in the gossip column by Monday morning in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. It was on the radio — these were all my friends in radio who were letting my fiancé have it. But I couldn't help thinking at the time that this is exposing a whole lot more people to my story than I would have liked. It was really humiliating, and I'm sure it was for my family.
Did you talk to Lew at that point at all?
He never called me to check on me or see how I was. Never.
How long ago was that?
It will be 12 years in April. And I know people might think, "Oh, lady, get over it." But I think you need a long time to process something like this, to really think about it, to be able to forgive, to forgive yourself.
Look, let me make this point. Nobody should go through with a wedding they don't feel right about. Nobody. I am extremely thankful that he did not say, "I can't hurt her feelings. I'm obligated to her. Everybody will hate me." I am so thankful that he ended it when he did. I really am. I can't be angry about that.
How long was it before you completely got over that?
Several years. Every time I'd start to date again, I'd compare everybody to him — the good parts, not the bad parts. So nobody ever lived up to that level of happiness that I had felt with him, which was so unfair because there were obviously aspects of him that I wouldn't want to have in a mate. The book is filled with other women's stories of rejection as well. I interviewed a lot of single women, and I kept hearing the same story. "Oh, we were dating three months, six months, a year. Everything was going great. I met his family, he loved my friends, I thought we were going to get married. And then he just ended it. For no reason he just ended it." I heard that over and over, and I thought, We need to find out why that happens. So I interviewed a bunch of men, and they explained. (Watch TIME's dating-advice video.)
And what did they say?
I think men are just wired differently than we are. They don't engage in relationships as quickly as we do. We can go on dates for three days and plan a wedding. For them, I think it takes them a whole lot longer to get invested in a relationship. So therefore, when they finally realize this isn't the one, we are so invested in it by that point, and they're ready to move on and find the one that's the right fit for them.
The reason I wanted women to know that is, I don't want women to have these feelings of rejection, like, "What's wrong with me? Why doesn't he like me? Was I not pretty enough or smart enough or sexy enough?" I don't want women to feel that way. He just wants a good fit for him. And I think that's what we're all trying to do. They're trying to find the same thing we are: lasting relationships. They just come at it differently than we do.
Have you gotten married since then?
No. Not for lack of trying. I'm looking. But the great thing about coming to this place in my life and coming through this whole journey is that my life is so happy and good now, and so many great things came out of it, that if I find a husband now — and I hope I do — it's just going to be icing on the cake.