Hi all,
A bit of background: I have always been a very independent person, have worked in several countries, have had many short and medium-term (2-3 years) relationships, love travelling, adventure, you name it.
Two years ago I met my current DP. He is the best person I have even known, mature, gentle, loving, hard-working... Everything I thought could never come together in a man. I am head-over-heels in love with him, and I believe he is with me too. We have bought a house together, and he has mentioned many times he wants to "see my hair go gray".
He is the prince charming many women wouldn't hesitate to marry, and in fact he is the first and only person I can see myself spending my life with.
By now you will be wondering, "well, what is the problem then?". The problem is, I am scared. I have been through so many relationships, I have been in love before and I know it does not last forever. It never bothered me before, as I knew if I stopped loving the other person, or something went wrong, I could always leave (and I did... I have always been the one to break up with my previous boyfriends). Now I am envisaging committing with my DP for the rest of my life. I imagine him asking me to marry him and my heart goes up in knots. If he is not the one for me, then the one just does not exist. I can't imagine being without him. But I am still scared... what if some big hurdle comes along in our relationship and I find myself trapped in it in the future? What if I break his heart? God knows he has been treated awfully in the past, and I dread the thought of hurting him myself.
I am very conscious that none of these thoughts are rational... I have taken many, many risks during my life, and have taken them gladly. I have never been the kind of person to be shy against a challenge. I have moved to the other side of the World on my own. And mostly, things have gone very, very well with my life. I can't understand why I am feeling like this with one of the decisions that could make me the happiest woman on earth!
Why can't I just enjoy my good luck? Is there anyone that feels this fear of commitment too? Anyone that was like me and managed to get over this stupid feeling? Anyone that can come in and slap me? Please bring some sense to me...
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Relationships
Scared of commitment... need some advice
aurynne · 12/09/2010 22:37
Its sounds like you think 'marrage' equals FOREVER, not matter what. and its great if it does. But really you can always get out of it. I know its very unlikely you're going to want to, but I think if you have a different perspective on marriage then it wont seem so scary.
I too have done a lot of travelling etc etc... and have noticed in the back of my mind there is always a 'get out clause' with everything. My jobs have been 'contracts', hence self employed, the house I bought, i rented out to tennants etc...
The is a good book called Getting to Commitment, that helps to deal with the fears and things that stop us commiting.
However I think what you're feeling is perfectly normal, and everyone has a fear of commitment to some degree. However, if you have a house and bank account with this guy then surely that is just as commited? 
aurynne Sorry, but you are making little sense to me.
Marriage seems to be some kind of holy grail to you.
The implicit message in your post is that anything other than marriage is some kind of halfway house in terms of commitment.
Are you seriously saying that a couple who have been together unwed for 30 years and have two children are uncommitted? 
.
To my mind this is nonsense (don't mean this as personal attack on you). Sorry but it is.
Do you honestly believe that getting married will change anything on an emotional level for you? Believe me, it won't.
The day after you marry (if you marry, that is) I am prepared to say that you will not feel any differently.
Be realistic here. Why should you? You're already living together as a couple, why on earth would getting wed change anything for you on an emotional level?
You'll have the novelty of being wed, but it wears off after a while.
What it will do, however, is change things on a legal/financial front.
Ask yourself this: Are you happy to be a cohabitee - a status which has no bearing in law.
Are you happy to be told that if your partner should die intestate that you, as a cohabitee, have no automatic rights over partner's estate.
If the answer is 'yes, don't care. Happy to be considered as a legal nothing in relation to my partner' (obviously JOINTLY owned property will be treated as two people who have bought a house-marriage won't matter when it comes to this) then don't get wed.
If it does matter, then consider getting married.
But please try to cut marriage down to size.
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Another angle on this.
Your relationship is not a fixed unchanging thing, but it will be influenced and changed by the decisions you take.
People who say that the making of a commitment (whether it is marriage, or just a serious chat between you in private in which you make a commitment of some sort) is irrelevant miss the point that the act of making the commitment changes the relationship, in my view for the better.
I think you will find that if you make some sort of commitment your relationship will grow deeper with that commitment - it will expand and grow to fit the commitment that you give it.
In my experience it is commitment that makes relationships strong and stops you worrying about the future - I am now so deeply bound up with my DH that I know that I will never want to leave him - it would be like trying to "leave" my mother, or my sister.
To people who say "how can you say that - you never know what the future holds", I think love is an action (which we decide to perform) as much as a feeling. Love isn't like the weather, an independent feeling over which we have no control or influence. People say "oh, I might not love him anymore" as if this is something over which the couple has no control.
Actually it is up to you as a couple to treat love as an action you DO rather than merely a feeling you FEEL, and to make sure that it keeps growing strong.
Its like nuturing a plant. You don't neglect it and then say "oh, look, fate has spoken, the plant has died!" Actually a great deal of whether the plant flourishes or not is down to you and the actions you take.
Commitment to a relationship is like feeding your plant the best mulchy organic bio-gro you can find!
As you were.
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