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Engagement Blues..


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Hi everyone

 

I'm newly engaged to my partner of 2 years, S. We are madly in love and I am thrilled to be getting married. S and I have been living together for over a year. I had been so excited about getting engaged, planning our future, marriage, and eventually creating a little family together.

 

The problem is that a day or so after our engagement I had this crushing overwhelming feeling that I still can't shake. I am so scared, like I doubt my own judgement for saying yes, or that this is the right thing to do. All my life I have been so sure of myself and now I am faced with a part of my life that I can't just 'fix' if it is wrong. For some reason I have lost all my excitement. I feel as though reality has finally caught up with me, and now I have to change.... (disclaimer: having said this, i know in my HEAD that nothing has changed, S has not changed, we are just as in love and just as happy as we were pre-engagement...)

 

PLEASE don't think that this is because S is the wrong guy - it is not like that at all. He is so good to me, an amazing person, the man i want to spend the rest of my life with.

 

My question to you is, why am I feeling like this, and what can I do to get that amazing feeling back?

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Hi Allissa,

 

First thing is - don't worry so much about this that the worry compounds everything. It's normal for engaged people to worry about whether they made the right decisions and to feel anxious about what it will mean.

 

Getting married is a massive thing. It is very important. It will define much of your life, one way or another. So it's natural - and normal - and even important to be thinking about (and as an unfortunate but natural consequence, feeling anxious and worried) that what we are getting into is something we are going to be able to handle.

 

Because you can't see clearly what marriage is actually going to involve (oh yes, you know in general terms ... but you dont know exactly what its going to be like) its even easier to worry and stress about it.

 

Just know that its normal and when you feel that way - write down a list of all the reasons you want to marry him. What you admire about him, what you love about him, what you respect about him etc.

 

Write down what your fears are. Assess how strong those fears are. Evaluate how realistic those fears are.

 

Think about what it would feel like if you didnt have him anymore.

 

But most of all - know that what you are feeling is normal.

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Do you feel anxiety that he may change? You may change? If you get a divorce are you afraid it will disappoint your family? His family? Him? Yourself?

Are you afraid you haven't lived a full life and you feel like marriage may restrict you from growing as an individual?

 

There are so many questions to ask yourself but if you are sure that this is the man you want to marry then your anxiety is probably just the same as the standard cold feet that many other people experience and it will pass!

Enjoy your time with him. You're not married yet and you still have time to think it over. I'm sure everything will turn out fine. Good luck to you both!

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You've got 'buyer's remorse', that's all. It's very common when you make a big commitment to get scared afterwards and wonder if you should really be doing this.

 

You look at the good first, then the bad, as in, wait a minute, i'll never date anyone else, and what if we get divorced, or what if i don't like being married etc.

 

So if it's right, you'll feel this way for a bit, but it will pass. So i wouldn't worry about it, it is just a normal response to making an enormous commitment.

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Hi there, sorry to hear you are feeling this way but I think it's normal. I am newly engaged too As soon as he asked I was planning the wedding and getting all excited about it and our future together. Now everything has kind of plateaued and we are back to how we were before the engagement, just living our lives together happily. I think when you get engaged you get a surge of excitement, and everyone is saying congratulations and things and you get kinda sucked into it all for a bit. Nothing bad about that, it's fun! Then you start to go back to normal life. We are having a long engagement so I can't really plan anything just now.

 

I like Indigo's advice about writing things down, I think that would really help you. It's normal to think about things more when you get engaged, like if you are right together etc. This is you thinking about the future. Before you got engaged you were living in the present, enjoying your boyfriend etc. Now you are questioning the future. Maybe you need to get back into the present again and live life happily like you were before

 

If you need to question things though then do, think about things and whether you are happy. But it sounds like you are really happy and just over analysing

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Hi there, sorry to hear you are feeling this way but I think it's normal. I am newly engaged too As soon as he asked I was planning the wedding and getting all excited about it and our future together. Now everything has kind of plateaued and we are back to how we were before the engagement, just living our lives together happily. I think when you get engaged you get a surge of excitement, and everyone is saying congratulations and things and you get kinda sucked into it all for a bit. Nothing bad about that, it's fun! Then you start to go back to normal life. We are having a long engagement so I can't really plan anything just now.

 

I like Indigo's advice about writing things down, I think that would really help you. It's normal to think about things more when you get engaged, like if you are right together etc. This is you thinking about the future. Before you got engaged you were living in the present, enjoying your boyfriend etc. Now you are questioning the future. Maybe you need to get back into the present again and live life happily like you were before

 

If you need to question things though then do, think about things and whether you are happy. But it sounds like you are really happy and just over analysing

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