aibarr

Long post approaching... This just resonates so strongly with me that I think my story might help you.

When I was a freshman in college, I met a guy who completely swept me off my feet. We were enamored with each other, and within two months of our first date, he'd told me that he wanted to marry me. (We didn't get publicly engaged, though… Both of our parents have been through nasty divorces, and we've both been very careful about knowing for certain that we wanted to get married before we did any announcing of anything…)

Well… We're ecstatic newlyweds now, but there's seven years in the middle there that are a little more complicated.

We dated all through college, and when I was a junior, stresses started to increase for both of us due to family and school and extracurriculars and uncertainty about the future. Things got very bad and our relationship hit rock bottom. I was in counseling dealing with family issues at the time, and we actually both came in to the counselor's office and had a couples session… Sounds doomed, I know, two students who are just dating trying to "fix" their relationship when it's barely two years old and completely nonpermanent… But we knew we had something good going on, and every time that one of us got so fed up with the relationship that we felt sure that we were going to break up with the other one, we just. couldn't. do it. Senior year came and went, and we got into different grad schools… I ended up at Illinois and he ended up at LSU, both the best things for our careers. Imposed hiatus. Still dated, just had to do the long-distance thing.

Something odd and amazing happened. Because of our long-distance relationship, and because it was rocky when we first moved away from one another, we decided-- we made a *conscious decision and effort*-- to work on our relationship and really talk things out. We had a bunch of long IM and phone conversations where we'd both be absolutely emotionally drained, but we decided that if we were going to hold back grudges and frustrations and not say exactly what we were feeling when the other one would do something obnoxious, then we were going to kill something great. That's not to say that we'd completely let loose and rail on the other one… All our heavy fights we would do over IM or the phone, and they would go incredibly slowly. One of us would carefully phrase something like (to use a light and fictional example) "It makes me feel really frustrated when you come in after work and leave your socks in the middle of the floor when I've just tried to clean everything up," and the other would think about that for a while and react and carefully phrase, "I don't want you to feel frustrated. I've usually just had a hard day and my feet are overheated and I just want to take off my socks." and then the other would say something like, "I'm sorry that you've had a hard day, and I'm glad that you understand that it frustrates me, so can we find a compromise?" It would start out with stupid and pedantic-sounding arguments about socks and toilet seats, but then we'd figure out what was really bothering us and we'd slowly... GLACIALLY slowly... talk it out. One sentence. Two minutes of silence. Other person speaks one sentence. Repeat. It was grueling, but I was living in the middle of a cornfield with just my grad work and he was living in the middle of a swamp with just his grad work and we were miserable anyhow, so… we cleaned the slate. Eventually, out came everything that we were worried about and dealing with. Our conversations got a little quicker, but we still thought carefully about what we were going to say when we wanted to criticize how the other person handled something... And we learned how to fight without letting things become unhealthy.

After we learned how to let the other one know what was bothering us, we each started making efforts to be kinder to the other person. I would mail him legos and stuffed puppies and he would mail me cards and send me virtual flowers. I learned that sometimes he just wanted me to not try to ferret out whatever was wrong with him and to just leave him alone, so I would ask him if he wanted to be left alone or if he wanted a hug when he was upset. If he wanted to be left alone, I would go in the other room and read for a while until he came in and sat next to me, then I'd rub his shoulders for a while and he'd rant about how some idiot had done something really irritating, and then he'd thank me for not trying to bug him while he fumed silently in a corner for a while. He learned that when I get over-tired and hungry that I become an unconsolable, weepy, b!tchy mess, and when I came home like that he learned to hand me a Kleenex box, sit me at the dining room table, and act like he was listening to me rant and cry while he would calmly cut up and apple and some cheese and crackers or a granola bar and then hand them to me and back away slowly… And then I'd apologize for being a mess and thank him for taking care of me. And we fell back in love, but this time it was a lot stronger, because we could talk about anything, even painful things, and we knew so much about one another.

Six years after we started dating, we got *really* engaged… (at Disneyland… next to Sleeping Beauty's castle, on a little bridge overlooking the swan moat, underneath a willow tree… adorable story...) and a year after that, this past January, we got married. During the engagement and planning, it was hysterical… We had a Catholic wedding so we had to go through the marriage prep with my husband's deacon and the deacon's wife, who had us take the FOCCUS test. We didn't agree on everything, but whenever the deacon would say, "Now, you had differing answers on this particular question," we would be like, "Oh, well, yes. That's because she thinks this and I think this, and we know that's going to be an issue, but here's how we've resolved it in the past..."

Things are great right now. They can get bad, and we know that they'll get bad again and they'll get good again, but we know how to deal with them now.

You say you love her, and you say she's really dependent upon you. Have you told her that you're worried about how dependent she seems to be on you? Get to talking. And slow things down… there's no need to be engaged yet. Get her opinion on how things are going and talk with her. Say you love her a lot, but that you have concerns about how quickly things are going and how you're not sure that either of you is enjoying your time together and that if you're going to stay together, you both need to learn to handle stress together… And that maybe you should temporarily put the wedding plans on ice while you two figure out how to work out the problems that seem to be bothering you. And tell your families to lay off for a while and give you guys some space. They need to not be pressuring you one way or another right now.

What you said reminds me so strongly of me and my husband. It *is* possible to work this out. If you think there's something special there, then there probably is. I'm a hopeless romantic (so is he), so I'll always err on the side of hoping that things work out… Maybe they won't work out for you guys, but this is the part they're talking about where relationships are DIFFICULT TO MAINTAIN! If you two are truly, truly committed to one another and to this relationship, though, you'll put in the effort and the talking and the honesty and the soul-baring that you need to in order to get through this rock-bottom period.

Best of luck to you.

TheGFG

My high school boyfriend was a wonderful guy. His parents very much approved of me and my parents very much approved of him. So everyone was happy. But halfway through college I decided that I did not think he was the person I wanted to marry. There was nothing substantial I could point to as a reason--just a general sense that he wasn't who I wanted for a husbsand. When I broke up with him, it was pretty tough on both of us for a while. Our parents were upset too.

After some years had passed, he got engaged. I was grief-stricken even though I was already happily married. Why? Well, I came to realize that part of what had attracted me to him years ago was the promise of having a big, happy family that would love and support me. You see, he had the kind of nuclear family I wished I had had and I really wanted to be part of it. For one thing, his parents had liked me and approved of me much more than my own parents did. The grief I felt was not the loss of him, but the loss of a dream that was never to be.

My advice to you is to separate out whatever thoughts, feelings and issues relate to her family and yours because these can confuse you.

je_ne_sais_quoi

Your poor head must be swimming with all the advice you are hearing. I have a somewhat different idea to propose.

I assume your fiancee does not like the stress and fighting any more than you. May I humbly suggest that together you find a counselor to help you work through this? Any counselor worth their salt will help you both come to a decision you can live with. You will either resolve your problems and head to the altar, or together you will realize you have loved each other very much but not all loves lead to marriage.

If you suggest counseling, your girlfriend will probably assume right off the bat that you are breaking up with her. If you come from a place of "I really want to figure out a way for things to be better between us....." you might have more success.

Should you decide to go this route, do it with an open mind, willing to accept any outcome. If you are SURE you want to break the engagement, you received some wonderful advice in the prior posts.

Best of luck to you. I admire your courage and sensitivity.