Getting Cold Feet

It is normal to be nervous about marrying, but your reaction seems to bordering the outer limits of normality. You say you still love your fiance and think he is the most wonderful man, so you need to ask yourself why you are working very hard to destroy a good thing.

My first thought was that you are trying to die by your own sword. You know that humans are terrified of being out of control over their lives. If, for example, you are afraid of the relationship ending at some point, you might try to end it yourself, so that you are in control of the dissolution. That's dying by your own sword. To see if I am right, ask yourself, 'Why did I become so scared right after the engagement? What terrified me about becoming engaged?' Keep asking questions, going deeper and deeper until you reach your emotional core.

I think you are going to find that the core of your fear is related to being afraid of formalizing your connection by marrying, which I suspect is very scary to your unconscious mind. To understand what is scary about making the connection official, ask yourself, 'Whay am I afraid to feel more attached to him?' Are you afraid to be more dependent on him, more vulnerable to him? Are you afraid that you will suffer all the more if and when the relationship ends through his leaving you through death or divorce?

If you answer yes to any of these last series of questions, then you are really dealing with a fear of abandonment. Such a fear surely originates in your childhood in which you were either abandoned or watched your parents abandon each other. Once you understand the origin of your fear, you need to see that you are afraid that the past is going to repeat itself and that the terrible wound you suffered as a child is going to happen again; this explains why you want to end the relationship, and die by your own sword before he has a chance to wound you the way you were wounded way back when. Next you need to remind yourself that your past doesn't equal your future.

What happened before need not occur again. Take a hard look at your fiance and point out to yourself the ways in which he differs from the person(s) who wounded you as a child. Is he faithful and true or is he another abandoner? If you see him as a carbon copy of those who hurt you, then you have a good reason for your fear. If you can now see that he differs from those who let you down as a kid, then you must keep reminding yourself each time that you feel afraid that he isn't like the people in your past.

The bottom line is you need to stop 'futurizing, ' that is living in the fear of what may happen down the line instead of living for today. You need to live in the now, which is all you or anyone else has. Treat each day as though it could be your last. Enjoy him and love him now. Take each day as it comes. If your feelings change in the future (or his change) deal with that when and if it happens. Remember that the things we brace for down the line never turn out to be the things that happen. It's always the unexpected, the thing we never saw coming that happens. So why brace for events that will probably never happen anyway?

If you still find yourself unable to take each day as it comes and can't stop futurizing and worrying about 'what ifs' you would do well to study Buddhism or similar teachings.