Hi, everyone. I'm in agony. Until a couple of weeks ago, I was in the most loving, wonderful relationship of my life. But one morning I woke up and, out of nowhere, all I could think was "get out, you're trapped, your life is ruined, get out, call it off." I'm so confused - there was no obvious trigger. My fiance' is kind, generous, loving, patient, extremely supportive, and thoughtful. He's wonderful to my crazy family and makes everything in my life easier and more fun. We were friends for seven years before he confessed his love to me and when I decided to give him a chance, we fell deeply in love. I've never been loved so unconditionally before. I never thought it would finally be my turn for happiness. But now I can't turn off this panicking voice, and I've begun to pull away from him. I can see how hurt and confused he is.
We've been engaged since September 2019, and I've been panicked about the wedding ever since he asked me. I thought it was because I have no desire for the traditional big wedding that my family wants. My fiance' and I have planned a really beautiful simple church ceremony with a dinner reception at a mountaintop villa with none of the modern American extras; no bridal party, no bouquet, no favors, no first dances, no bachelor/bachelorette parties, no showers, no rehearsal dinner. The venue is gorgeous and I was having fun looking for dresses, but the wedding still filled me with dread - especially the idea of walking down the aisle. I still loved being with him, though, and felt like the luckiest person in the world. But this new "get out" feeling is so strong and powerful that I'm now wondering if my reluctance to plan a wedding means that there is some huge flaw in the relationship that I've been ignoring, just like my past relationships.
I live with a lot of trauma - I was abused and gaslit as a child so I've never been able to trust my instincts. My self esteem was so poor that it led to a pattern of falling in love with men who didn't want me, and then getting into relationships with other men who wanted me but treated me badly. My family and I have also been embroiled in a horrible legal battle for the past six years against the man who stole my mother's inheritance; I've developed a terror of anything legal. Even signing a pay stub can make me break into a sweat. And of course, COVID has been so stressful for everyone - even though we were blissful in our lockdown bubble, we were living at his place while renovating my apartment for us to move into and because of COVID, renovations that were supposed to take 2 months ended up taking 6, and the bill was 10K over the estimate. I've been working overtime since the beginning of the year to pay for the renovations; I did it (!!!) but am extremely stressed. So there are definitely a lot of outside stressors - add to it, feeling as though I don't deserve the big wedding my family wants because I'm 40 years old, and that I don't want to get married in church at all (I'm not religious).
Every anxiety-ridden scenario I throw at him, my fiance' gives me a debt-free out: we can cancel the wedding because of COVID and no one can say anything, we can get married at the courthouse with just our parents, we can not get married at all and live together like Oprah and Stedman - anything I want, just as long as we're together. And I still don't know what to do. My desire to escape is so strong that I'm terrified. It's made me finally admit that I've been harboring a lot of resentment towards him for pushing me to renovate my apartment - it needed a lot of repairs, but I was nonetheless really attached to the family home I've lived in for the past 10 years and felt hurt by his assessment that it wasn't liveable. I also didn't feel financially ready to take on such a huge investment; I'd just started working a well-paying job after years of scrambling for money at terrible, low-paying jobs - this experience has admittedly made me more frugal than most. I agreed because he said he wouldn't feel comfortable moving in unless the repairs were done (there was black mold all over the walls, which were all cracked, and the last update to the floors in 2010 had been done haphazardly with the cheapest, ugliest materials), but I still felt so much pressure. It makes me wonder if he's controlling, like my dad and my first ex, or if he has other terrible issues that I ignored because I was just so happy to be loved, like with my second ex. He's so particular about cleanliness; sometimes I feel like I can't measure up to his standards. And he takes care of everything to the point where now I feel helpless, and I was so independent before. Once we were watching a movie where a girl was shouting at a guy and the guy slapped her, and my fiance' said, "Good! She deserved it!" Does that mean he'll beat me some day? And the more I think about it, the idea of being legally bound to someone makes me freak out.
But my biggest fear is that I don't love him after all. I think if I loved him I wouldn't care about getting married in church, spending all this money to renovate my apartment, living in this country or walking down the aisle. I know I have a hard time making attachments due to my trauma, but I just don't know what the matter is because I did feel attached to him before. My therapist says she is "certain" that it's my fear of intimacy and trauma PTSD acting up as we get closer to living together, but I don't know. I'm so scared and don't know what to do.
