OT - Help With One Relationship Issue

soystud said...
"Soy, I'm a smart guy"

never for a minute have I thought otherwise

I am smart because I admit that I do not know A LOT. I have found it easier to throw everything out on the table, look at it from the distance, and see how to put together something positive from most situations.

There are certain things that other people have experienced that can lead them to quickly pointing out flawed thinking on my part in situations that are new to me. I used to regularly get this perspective from the neighbor of mine that just passed away yesterday.

No matter what the advice, I mull it over in my head before deciding if it is good or bad. However, I am never afraid to admit I am wrong. I just want to move forward, grow, have a good life.

you know how work can be either easy or hard ? a lot of good marriages require a lot of work - but it needs to be fun work - ask yourself if this relationship is easy or hard ?

does that make sense ?

I look back on the times in my life when I was the happiest - it was when I was working my ass off - but it was FUN work !

Thoreau, your last post explaining how you started to list your house and then your fiancee told you to keep it - you'd live there for a year and see how it went - that is what you should stick to. This is a great agreement to make at the start of a marriage and you should hold her to it (gently). I would not pressure her anymore about whether she's changed her mind, or quiz her about her level of fear, or talk to her dad about her driving, and how he feels - the decision was made, it was a good decision, you decided together, she and you will work it out together.

I would expect that she will express this fear about driving (and living far away from her parents) more and more as the wedding gets closer. It's normal to be nervous before your wedding. It's a big deal to settle down and become a grown up! Your support of her when she's nervous doesn't mean you have to renegotiate your decisions. You simply have to acknowledge her anxieties, hug her, tell her how important she is to you, assure her that you both will be able to figure this out together.

Thank you, Katie and Kazbern. I am coming to a good place with how I feel about this. I always feel like I'm being needy by posting something like this... but you have no idea how beneficial the right perspectives can be to me.

Thank you for your extra posts here on the second page. I will work to continue open communication, acceptance, support... and some good old fashioned getting my mind off the subject to look at the good.

Sincerely, thank you.

I have the clearest memories of my feelings the night before my wedding. I'm a person who covers up anxiety with a bunch of busy work, and there was a lot of that leading up to the wedding. But the night before, I was staying with my best friend, there was no more work to do, and I was overwhelmed with fear. What was I doing? Did I even really know this man I was marrying? He felt like a stranger to me at that moment. I lay in that bed listening to my friend sleep and and thought to myself - I wish I could talk to him right now, he'd understand. Then I knew - if he was the person I wanted to be with when I was afraid, he was the person I COULD be with in a marriage. I went to sleep calm and excited. That was 21+ years ago.

{{{{HUGS}}}} to you, Thoreau.

I agree totally with kazbem on this....you did make an agreement and it will be reviewed later. WEdding first, life together into some sort of "order"...then together plans for the future. it's a process.

What exactly causes her anxiety....could her vision be a bit of the problem? Does she have a vehicle that's reliable with good tires, headlights and handling?

Is she afraid of the isolation?

How far exactly is it out of the city? and are there other people in sort of a community?

I wouldn't like to live outside of the city unless it's within a short distance to "civilisation". I also wouldn't have wanted to be alone while my husband worked shifts overnight.

It's only fair to give it a go. She might love it after all....but influences from family and friends can be a huge thing subconsciously.

q

soystud said...
"But then she goes into panic mode, which I can only deduce comes from the over-protection she had growing up. I feel that by continuing the over-protection and leaving her in a bubble that I lose a lot in terms of what she has to offer as a person and individual."



hey t man - that statement doesn't exactly sound reassuring - can you accept this girl as she is ?


just curious - what do your friends think of your fiancée and the relationship the two of you have ? family often times have normal (?) but sometimes unreasonable agendas for each other, so they are not the best at being honest with their feelings - friends tend to be better judges of their peers situations -

Man, that's what we do with our spouses, we protect them. We protect by caring for them, we protect by providing for them, we protect by valuing their feelings.

If you dont hurt for her hurts and instead want her just to "get over it", move along.. and remember how it feels when she leaves you with a fever to get home early.. no so great to not have your needs put first, eh?

And you will win no points by saying "EVERYONE THINKS IM RIGHT! Ive asked ALL MY FRIENDS and the PEOPLE WHO LIVE WHERE I LIVE and they say she is unreasonable."

All that matters is what she feels and what you feel. If you guys cant come to a loving comprimise on that then why are you rushing to get married in 4 months? perhaps you should continue dating and both of you, developing who you are and who you are together.

iPoop said...
A phobia related to spiders, or driving down dark highways might seem completely ridiculous to you, I, and sometimes even the person who has it. However, to the person who has it it is very real and difficult to handle situations involving it. First rule is one cannot rationalise their way out of a phobia which in itself is an irrational thing; phobias are emotional. With repeated exposure to a phobia, overtime one will be better able to cope with the situation, and it will often become less intense and easier. So tell her to stick with it, encourage her. However don't coddle her when she's scared, don't reinforce, or validate her fear (it's counter productive and builds the fear) and certainly don't move to the city which would be you admitting her fear is real, a certain danger and you too must adhere because her irrational fear is real.

At it's heart, a phobia is a self-protection mechanism run on auto-pilot. It doesn't surprise me she says one thing one day and acts differently on another. Rationally, she probably agrees with you that her fear is unfounded (lets live in the country, I don't want you to give up the house, living here makes the most financial sense) emotionally, it's scary and when exposed to her fear she acts differently (after her long drive home in the dark she's emotional, scared and goes into protection-mode lets live in the city, I changed my mind, etc.). In that situation let her cool down, and talk later once the fear has cooled down. Good luck, expect a bumpy ride with phobias, lots of good days and bad days.

I like your post, IP. I know her enough to know she isn't completely phobic, but it has admittedly been difficult to tell sometimes when the anxiety begins in her. Nothing within me is telling me to even consider leaving or anything remotely similar. It's just been important to me to distinguish what limitations the relationship may face in the future.

Her and I had a good talk today. I will elaborate in a further reply. Thank you for your help, sincerely. It's been great to iron out the different aspects of my life lately, and it feels very reassuring to realize I am successfully working through these things.

PathogenKiller said...

soystud said...
"But then she goes into panic mode, which I can only deduce comes from the over-protection she had growing up. I feel that by continuing the over-protection and leaving her in a bubble that I lose a lot in terms of what she has to offer as a person and individual."



hey t man - that statement doesn't exactly sound reassuring - can you accept this girl as she is ?


just curious - what do your friends think of your fiancée and the relationship the two of you have ? family often times have normal (?) but sometimes unreasonable agendas for each other, so they are not the best at being honest with their feelings - friends tend to be better judges of their peers situations -

Man, that's what we do with our spouses, we protect them. We protect by caring for them, we protect by providing for them, we protect by valuing their feelings.

If you dont hurt for her hurts and instead want her just to "get over it", move along.. and remember how it feels when she leaves you with a fever to get home early.. no so great to not have your needs put first, eh?

And you will win no points by saying "EVERYONE THINKS IM RIGHT! Ive asked ALL MY FRIENDS and the PEOPLE WHO LIVE WHERE I LIVE and they say she is unreasonable."

All that matters is what she feels and what you feel. If you guys cant come to a loving comprimise on that then why are you rushing to get married in 4 months? perhaps you should continue dating and both of you, developing who you are and who you are together.

Pathogen... first of all, thank you for your reply. I've needed all the input I can get on this, though I'm now realizing it is not as big of a deal as I had felt yesterday when I initially made the post.

To be sure you know, I was not at all playing the card that everyone thinks I'm right so I must be. Soy had been asking what my friends thought, so I explained it. In my mind my fiancee and I are a team. Not one other person is going to understand her as well as I do, and so I do not expect them to know the why's of her every decision.

Her hurts are my hurts, Pathogen. Believe me, I look after her and am there for her in extra special ways in the moments when she needs them the most, which all people do at times.

What it has boiled down to, or did yesterday at least, was that after hearing for months that we were going to try things out... she talked to me in a way where I felt that all rationality had been thrown out the window. It was frustrating to feel her anxieties yesterday because of the fact that I thought we'd made a plan and that there was a chance she would like it out where I live. Believe me, it is not what you want to see the woman you would give your life for expressing fears that you feel you are causing. But... I am rational enough to also at the very least want to pause in these moments... and ask the question "is driving in the dark the real issue, or are you just worn down lately and releasing frustration even though you don't mean it?". It is my responsibility, as much as I care for her, to also not become someone who doesn't carry his own meaning and needs in the relationship as well. This, thankfully, is not a sign that I do not care for her. It is a sign of self respect, and of desire for growth for the both of us.

This afternoon her and I talked about this more, and to my surprise it seemed like I had made a much bigger deal of this than she had this weekend. She said that she still felt that it is important that we try living out here. She wasn't sure what she had said to set me into this worry, but when I pointed out certain things she had mentioned she did see part of it at least. She told me that the biggest issue is that she gets very sleepy and gets worried about driving at night because of this. This is understandable. She needs like 10 hours of sleep a night, and mentally crashes early in the evenings. I told her that I am completely supportive of her needs with this. I told her I just wanted to make sure that we don't let any impulsive type fears limit our choices in life without really trying things out. She agreed in an almost "duh" way, and said that's why she'd been saying we should try living where I live.

Hey IAS, I hope you've been doing well. :)

I'm probably doing my fiance a bit of injustice somewhere along the lines with this thread. Is she immature? Not in the many many ways I've experienced with other women that scared me away from even dating them, or at least for dating them very long.

Are there things that come up that make me question how they will influence my life with her? Yes, absolutely. However... waiting for perfection in myself or her is not something I find to be intelligent. If I'm able to view our foundation together as sturdy, our communication as good or on its way to good, and our passion for each other as steady... then I'm seeing many decent reasons not to worry. I've gone through this a lot. I know a marriage is based on similar lifestyles, values, etc... If she were immature in a way that sorely effected things regularly then I would not be in this relationship. She has some growth ahead of her, as do I. I want to grow together as we grow ourselves.

I would love to answer more of your questions right now, but am in A LOT of pain from this tonsillectomy. I had the surgery 6 days ago so I thought perhaps I'd be on the mend pretty well by now. Maybe I am healing decently... but this pain is hard to handle. I have strong semi-defined pains running from my ears down to my throat, and a headache besides that. I'm taking Lortab, but it isn't doing well enough for me right now.

Lol... IP... you're right once again.