Is this cold feet or serious doubts? At a crossroads.

February 1, 2012 6:12 PM

Ever been engaged to someone and had a lot of fear and doubts about this decision? How did you find resolution/come to a decision about those fears?

I've been engaged for a few months after a short period of time dating. My fiance is in his early 40s and I in my late 30s. Neither of us have ever been married and have dated a lot of people and are both interested in settling down, however I'm trying to figure out if I'm settling and about to make a huge mistake. He asked me to marry him after about seven months of dating. While I knew I loved him, I still wasn't totally certain about everything but I said yes because I do love him and saw a future together. Now that we've been engaged for a few months, I've begun to have some serious doubts, concerns and have been overwhelmed by wedding planning stress (which evoked an enormous fight between my divorced parents who were going to split the expense of the wedding but resulted in a lot of ugliness, not to mention dredging up family of origin angst). We don't fight much, per se, its usually me expressing concerns and him just listening and trying to change or accomodate me (yes, I feel like I ask him to change a lot, its not good). He embodies a lot of what i've wanted, someone who is very health conscious, physically fit, spiritual to some degree, positive world outlook, kind and gentle and generous. I grew up with a demanding, yelling acoholic father and my fiance is like the opposite of that. He is kind and patient, and I love him for that very much. He has no ego, is fun loving and loves to dance (like I do). But I don't feel like I connect with him intellectually. And we are not always on the same wavelength. It really frustrates me. Sex is a problem because he struggles with ED and seems to have a lower sex drive than I do. Communication is a problem. My fiance is from a different country and english is not his first language which adds another component of stress, because we do not always communicate well. Little things that I should be more tolerant of bother me, like he is a little flighty, some times doesn't know the day of the week. No, these are not deal breakers, but they over time add to my frustrations. I'm not clear on whether it is me, my problem or if it is just plain incompatibility. there are a myriad of things we enjoy doing together and he has a heart of gold, a genuinely nice and good person. I do love him but sometimes my frustrations overwhelm me and I don't exactly feel that "in love" limerance a lot of people feel in this stage of a relationship. I am trying to find a therapist to sort through these issues but in the interim would like to hear others' experiences with feelings of fear and doubt and the stress that an engagement puts on what seemed to be a very fun, nice relationship (until the "forever" entered the picture). The other issue is that my fiance and I would like to get married and have a family, so living together isn't as appealing as it would be for some.

posted by BlueMartini7 to Grab Bag (13 answers total)

The other issue is that my fiance and I would like to get married and have a family, so living together isn't as appealing as it would be for some.

Do you mean "living together prior to marriage isn't as appealing ..."?

I don't really understand this. Living together for a while prior to marriage does not exclude getting married and having a family.
posted by jayder at 6:20 PM on February 1, 2012

Response by poster: sorry to clarify, we don't want to just live together (instead of marriage).
posted by BlueMartini7 at 6:31 PM on February 1, 2012

check out the video "sliding vs deciding" on youtube.

Think about how you would feel if your kid(s) turned out exactly like this guy.

What I'm concerned about is that you don't list any ways he really goes above and beyond for you. What do you appreciate about him.

As for answering your question about the engagement I had that I was doubtful about, most recently. The proposal was an over the top awkward thing for me (He asked me in front of a huge crowd, essentially using the jumbo-tron method, despite my specifically saying that would be a very bad idea when he first suggested it.) but I said yes even though the proposal itself was evidence that he didn't listen to me, or respect what I said made me uncomfortable.

It was all downhill from there over the course of a few months. This culminated in my needing to move out very very quickly, so my situation is different from yours in that we lived together and it sounds like you don't.

My take home for you is that even if you realize this wasn't the best decision for you, breaking an engagement is not the worst thing you can do.
posted by bilabial at 6:36 PM on February 1, 2012

Sounds like you aren't excited about getting married. So don't!
posted by oceanjesse at 6:39 PM on February 1, 2012 [4 favorites]

I don't think anyone here can tell you what you should do, but I can answer your direct question: yes, I was engaged to someone and had a bunch of fear and doubts about it. What I did was decide that my doubts probably weren't being fair to this very worthy and wonderful person. Which resulted in four years of quite a good marriage. And then six years after that that weren't so great, until we decided that a divorce was probably the best thing for us both. I don't regret my marriage (though I'm glad there were not kids involved in the divorce), but I can say that the seeds for the split were there from the beginning.
posted by transient at 7:01 PM on February 1, 2012

Yes, I felt similarly before getting married to my ex-husband. He's also a genuinely good guy and we both cared for each other very much (and are still friends), but at the end of the day we really weren't meant to be married, and in retrospect my gut was trying to tell me that.
posted by scody at 7:17 PM on February 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

I've noticed that there is a stage in most relationships where a lot of issues need to be hashed out. It usually hits somewhere between 6 months to a year in - you are past the wonderful "oh I just love them so much everything they do is perfect" stage and moving into the "I'm comfortably in love with this awesome person who totally gets me" stage. Moving from one stage to the other can be a process - it's when the two of you actually have to start communicating and cooperating in the relationship. "I like it when we do things this way/I wish you wouldn't do that/how often should I call" - all the little things that make up your day-to-day life need to be tweaked to accommodate the both of you. Once you have all that sorted out, it's very satisfying, but the things you need to do to get there can be uncomfortable - it feels like you're nagging all the time, and being nagged at. The thing is, it has to be done - it's how you learn to communicate with your partner. It sounds like you are going through that stage at the same time that you are all of a sudden planning a marriage. Not only is that going to be stupid stressful, but it's going to skew the way the two of you are learning to be a pair. It might be a really good idea to put the wedding plans on hold for a year - you can say that you want to dust to settle from your family's blowout - and go back to being a couple. You get some breathing space to really figure out if he's right for you without rejecting him and hurting his feelings.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 8:06 PM on February 1, 2012 [7 favorites]

Are you looking for someone to tell you it's okay to call off engagement? It's okay to call it off if you're not ready. It's okay to take a step back and wait awhile on the wedding without breaking up.

It sounds like you haven't been together a year yet. Can you take a break from wedding planning (which totally sucks, btw) and try just being in the relationship?

You might like the site A Practical Wedding. It's a lot about wedding planning, yes, (in a not crazy way!) but there are also a lot of personal essays about relationships, and people's struggles with them, and doubts, stuff like that. I think you might find it a good read.
posted by min at 4:38 AM on February 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yes, I had serious doubts before I got married. I wasn't sure at all. There were moments were I definitely did not want to. But we'd started planning the wedding, I'd gone along or given in to him every step of the way, and a lot of money had been spent. I convinced myself that everyone had cold feet and this was normal.

Two years later we were divorced.

I would never marry someone again unless I was sure I wanted to. I don't think I'll find the perfect person, I don't think I'll find anyone who doesn't have issues and things that might be better if, maybe, they were different, but I'm sure I could find a person, issues and all, who I really do want to marry.

You don't have to break up with him yet but I don't know why you would marry him if you weren't absolutely sure. There's not much to gain from it and so much to lose. Divorces are hard. Especially with children involved.
posted by Polychrome at 6:29 AM on February 2, 2012

Best answer: Let's start with agreeing that nobody should do anything they don't really want to do, certainly not at this getting-married/having-a-baby level.

I'm in the 'no one can tell you what you should do' camp. I think millions have had a lot of fear and doubts before getting married. In some cases, the fears were unfounded. In some, the marriages ended in divorce. In some of those cases, it was because the fear-er was right. In others, it was because the fear-er wasn't ready for marriage.

Your problem might be a you-and-him problem. It might be a him problem. Or a you problem. There's a line, individual to all of us, where the bullshit starts outweighing the benefits. Sometimes the other person is on the wrong side of that line because they're toxic. Other times, our line might be really ambitious, and we could go through spouses like water in an attempt to find someone who could meet those standards.

You seem aware that he's not the only one with let's call them 'quirks' in the relationship. If you can stay mindful of that, and if you're not going in with some bullshit Hollywood idea of marriage that 99 percent of us never see outside of a theater, you can feel comfortable with whatever decision you make, I think, which again is of course personal. I don't think I could ever marry someone ideologically opposed to me, but others make it work. Consider the things that frustrate you, realize that EVERY man would frustrate you in some ways or other -- some more than your fiancee, some less -- and make your decision about where your line is.
posted by troywestfield at 6:34 AM on February 2, 2012 [2 favorites]

I was engaged to someone. I had a lot of fears and doubts. I married him anyway. We divorced 13 months later.
posted by srrh at 8:00 AM on February 2, 2012

Best answer: Sorry for not including this before: In case where I'm coming from is worth anything to you, I married at 32, wife was 30, 13 months after meeting. I didn't have crippling fears or doubts, but obviously I wondered what the hell I was doing. In the nine years since then, my wife and I have gotten fed up with either other multiple times. It is clear we 'jumped in' and didn't know each other as well as we probably hoped, but then again, a 10-year engagement wasn't on the table. We have not yet talked *seriously* seriously about divorce. Most days, we love each other very much. All this likely explains my thoughts above. Other couples would have divorced by now. And other other couples have stayed together through issues we wouldn't work past. (Cheating would be a good example.) That's why scody is right; even a marriage counselor (or whatever) couldn't say in your case what would be best for you. It's kind of unknowable. Maybe that can help you feel confident in making your decision; there's honestly no wrong answer.
posted by troywestfield at 8:46 AM on February 2, 2012

Best answer: It is so much easier to not get married than it is to get divorced.

Multiple divorcing people have told me lately that they wish that people had made them stop and think as hard about getting married as the obstacles to divorce make you do. Someone should have asked them, "Are you really sure? Do you know what you're getting into?"

My answer was that engaged people are always really sure - or, at least, there's little that could come from an outside party that would actually change their course.

But here you are. So, are you really sure? If it ended in divorce, would you look back and say, "It's too bad it didn't last forever, but I was right to take the leap and bet on love." Or would you say, "I wish I'd listened harder to my doubts?"

Finally - marriage *can* be undone. Children cannot. If you have children with him you will be tied to him directly for at least 18-21 years, and indirectly for the rest of your child's life.

I feel that even if you decide to marry him, the decision to marry and the marriage itself probably won't erase all of your doubts, and you should give yourself time to decide whether you're really sure about wanting him to be your co-parent forever. And for that reason and *because* divorce is hard in all kinds of ways, I wonder whether it makes sense to give yourself that time before marrying, and possibly to reconsider moving in with each other.

That said, all of this is generic 'advice', and I deeply deeply agree with troywestfield and scody. You are the one who will live with your decision so it has to be deeply deeply your decision.
posted by Salamandrous at 11:42 AM on February 2, 2012 [1 favorite]