Tom Rodriguez admits he had anxiety, fear of future before proposing to Carla Abellana

Tom Rodriguez has admitted that he had anxiety and fears of the future before proposing to his longtime partner Carla Abellana.

In an interview with GMA News Online during a pocket press conference Tuesday, Tom said “this has really been a long time coming. I’ve wanted to propose years back.”

However, the actor admitted that what stopped him were “fears and anxieties of the future.”

“It wasn’t that I was unsure of the two of us. It was like our state, ’yung kalagayan (our situation). Will I be able to provide this, provide that?” he said.

Tom said the anxiety and fear of the mind “stops you sometimes from doing the things that you want to do that you feel your intuition wants you to do.”

He said his fear got to him even pre-pandemic. “I already had intention to propose and it would always get cut short because of my fears and the anxiety of what’s going on in the world.”

He added that his other fears were “if I was ready financially” and “if I was set up for building a family.”

But he realized “since now there’s a resurgence again of the cases, we decided na wala pala eh (there’s nothing we can do). The lesson was if you try to wait time [always], it might never come. What is the right time if it’s not something you feel inherently? It’s your intuition [really] will tell you.”

Tom said he was with his family in the United States to welcome 2020 when he finally thought of proposing.

“I was with my family [in the] States. I told my family [that] I was gonna propose during Carla’s birthday [hopefully] last June 12,” he said.

When Tom flew back home to the Philippines, the pandemic happened. That’s when his “anxiety and fear-driven mind” acted up again, “overthinking it, stopping you from what you want to do,” he said.

Tom, who never imagined he would propose in the middle of a pandemic, said one day he woke up “and then the sun was just shining on her just right and she looked so immaculate and inside I just had this knowing like there was no fear, like there was nothing, it’s as if I resigned to Him all my fears because there was nothing. I just knew.”

He said “every fiber of my being just knew that it was time and when I felt that and there was no fear I jumped on it right away.”

Mom’s blessing

While Tom, Carla, and her family were on a trip in Tali, Batangas, he asked for her mom’s blessing.

“It’s weird how the synchronicities of the world really work out,” he said, adding he realized the concept of “right time” was real “and maybe that stuff [that got delayed before] was really meant to happen.”

He added: “Because when I told Tita, [she too] has been getting similar signs of premonitions. It has been on her mind [too] … she really helped me plan it all out.”

Tom said he had extravagant ideas for the proposal but Carla’s mom gave her the “good idea” to make it intimate.

“She offered her house for the setting, then boom, like a lightbulb, it’s all perfect. That’s even better, that’s us in our most real [selves],” he said.

“We’re just there with our family. When we’re there together, when we’re there we’re just being ourselves,” he added.

Tom said he could not have chosen a better setup than at Carla’s mom’s house.

“We’re just sharing everyone’s company, we’re just [maybe] vulnerable in a way because we’re not pretentious. We’re not trying to put something on. [It was really] at our most honest,” he said.

He said he and Carla frequented her mom’s place for dinners. “I felt that it was perfect,” he said, so if Carla had an inkling, since “usually she can read me like a book … the hardest part was hiding it from her.”

However, Tom did a great job because Carla had “no idea, whatsoever.”

“I didn’t know what he put together. It really was to me something [just] like an ordinary family dinner [because] during the pandemic we would have regular family dinners,” she said.

“We would come over and sometimes we would even stay there,” Carla said, so she didn’t expect that the place would be “styled with flowers and candles, then there were photographers, videographers, they were all complete, our personal assistants were there. So no idea [really] that Tom was gonna propose that night.”

Carla and Tom, who have been together for over six years, got engaged on Oct. 18, 2020, but the Kapuso couple made it public only last Sunday.

She said announcing it made them feel the excitement and emotions they felt in October when Tom popped the question.

“Now that we are free to announce it to the world, to the public, parang nag-balik ’yung excitement and ’yung emotions ng proposal itself back in October,” Carla said.

Tom said he liked that they first had an intimate engagement.

“Parang ang sarap pala nung sinavour niyo muna intimately as a family (it’s good that we savored it first as a family),” he said.

“Because we [went] through the roller coaster … the highs, and [now] there’s a resurgence, so [it’s like] there’s two proposals. Now that we made it public, it feels new again.”

According to the couple, they are planning a traditional church wedding by the end of the year once the country’s current situation gets better.

Carla and Tom met through their GMA-7 teleserye “My Husband’s Lover” in 2013. – RC, GMA News