It wasn't a mistake. Of that much he was sure. It was live or leave, right? Hadn't he heard that somewhere? And it was always better to live, right? He had told her that he loved her because he really loved her. It wasn't because she was threatening to leave him because he – he, Will Schuester, of all people – couldn't commit, and it wasn't because he was afraid that she would walk away without looking back, and he certainly hadn't said it because he thought it would be the one thing that made her stay.
But it was.
He thought that he did love her. He thought that maybe if he said it enough, it would come true. He did care for her, he did, honest to God he did, but when he got down on one knee and asked her to marry him, somewhere in the back of his mind he thought maybe he was making a mistake. But before he knew it there was caterers and receptions and church reservations and suddenly she was standing before him and he was saying 'I do' and she was lifting her veil and he thought that maybe he could make this work.
But he can't.
He smiles and he's happy with her, of course he's happy with her, and she tells him she loves him and he replies with the same words back, but he can't bring himself to mean them. He wonders when she became such a stranger to him, when she stopped being Shelby and started being his wife. He tries to keep it inside, he tries to push away those feelings that tell him that this was a mistake, but one day it just slips out. He whispers in the dead of night, 'who are you?' And she hears, and she turns over and asks him to repeat himself, and he knows he should lie to her and say something that will placate her.
But he doesn't.
Suddenly, things are in a whirlwind, and he's searching for a new place to stay and she's demanding that they see a counselor and everyone is shocked, because they expected her to be the first one to run away, not him. Suddenly, their conversations are reduced to how she's stopped doing the things she loved for him and he's reverted back to drinking his problems away and one day she gets so angry she throws his Dancing in the Rain DVD at him and he ducks just in time but it hits the wall and it smashes, and he wishes that none of this had happened.
But it did.
And maybe it's a good thing, right? Because he lived instead of left? Something good had to have come out of it, but honestly he can't think of a single thing that came out of this other than his second failed marriage and a new Dancing in the Rain DVD. He lays in his bed in his new apartment, staring at the ceiling and wondering if he should miss her. He does, he thinks, honestly he does, but he misses the Shelby he knew before he told her he loved her, the Shelby that he was best friends with, not the Shelby who was his wife, the Shelby who was a stranger in his bed. He closes his eyes and drapes his arm over his face, wishing that he would miss her like he should.
But he doesn't.