Perspective: They’re engaged and committed to each other, but one of them has a tough history and a nagging fear that the marriage won’t last.
I know my fiance is committed and emotionally healthy, but I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. Sometimes I keep this to myself, and sometimes it leaks into planning. For example, I may take on a lucrative side gig that would let us pay off our new home in less than 10 years. My brain leaps to: “What if we get a divorce and I put so much more money into our home.
The difference between what you’re thinking and what I’m thinking is the attribution. To live in suspense over the dropping of the other shoe by the person you’re about! to! marry! is unhealthy for you and unfair to a “wonderful partner.” But if you can look at it as being prepared for whatmight throw at you, so you can feel free to stop worrying about the future and immerse yourself in the present and your people, then you’ll be on one of the healthier paths there is.
And to continue to force your rational mind to “focus more on the positives” is one of the ways people get into and stay in exploitative relationships: They make themselves ignore warnings and fear, and treat only the good stuff as real. But also tend to your emotional assets, please, and make as full a commitment to healing from your past relationships as you have to protecting your cash. Define “healed” as when you trust yourself again to get through it if something goes wrong.It’s okay to be communicating with an old boyfriend, right? Husband is unnerved by it, but there is no way old boyfriend and I are getting back together. We are just having fun catching up, seeing where our lives landed after so many years.