#no i have to contemplate and reevaluate my entire life & every decision i ever made
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i wish i could just turn off my thoughts like a light switch
#i have a day off why can't my brain just let me relax in peace#no i have to contemplate and reevaluate my entire life & every decision i ever made#i'm laying here thinking about how i let my childhood self down how empty my life is how i went to uni in vain etc#instead of just enjoying my day off 😭😭😭 i really wish there was a turn off switch for my brain it needs to be unplugged!!!#this is a mentally ill thing right bc i feel like healthy people don't question their entire lives just bc they have a day off??#they actually enjoy their down time & pursue hobbies or meet up with people & are productive instead of spending the whole day in bed#i was such a lively creative excited kid.. where did it all go wrong 😔#i need to stop entertaining these thoughts but ultimately i'm unhappy with my life & it's my responsibility to change it#but i'm barely getting by i don't have the energy to uproot my entire life#and at the end of the day we still live in a capitalist society that doesn't let you thrive unless you're already rich#god.... where's the turn off switch???? 😭😭😭😭😭#☁️
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Dear Bearogenes: Help. He wants to marry me!
So I’ve been with my partner for a very long time now and our relationship, that at one time just was sex, soon blossomed into something else’s entirely. I love him and he loves me too and I’ve lately come to realize how domestic our life is now. He works, comes home to dinner and we watch TV for a while and go to bed. We talked and he said he wants a life with me. to marry me and have a kid, but I’m afraid. afraid one day he’ll wake up and realize he made a mistake. what can I do?
I’d like to start my answer to this by saying that you've asked the wrong question. What you said was “one day he will wake up and realize he made a mistake” when what you meant to say was “I feel like he’s making a mistake by choosing to have a life with me and one day he’ll realize how much of a mistake that was”. That’s what’s behind those words because the rest of what you tell me presents and entirely different story.
You two met a long time ago now , be that months or years, as a hook up but that one time became more frequent until you moved in with him. These days most people call that ‘dating’ I think. I could be wrong. The last time I did that was 13 years ago and he’s still here, my best ‘mistake’. But I digress, back to your point.
You two have since built what I would call a ‘normal’ life together. Some shudder at the idea of domesticity and ‘regularity’ but there is a comfort and safety in it that they miss out on. This kind of relationship develops out of a stable long term relationship over time and is, in fact, a good sign IF the movements of your life together are not only comfortable but comforting. If you feel forced or pressured into this kind of situation, consider that the only warning I need give you that you need to step back and reevaluate.
He has taken the ‘next step’ and said “We’re doing this anyway, lets just put it on paper and build from there“. As far as I’m concerned, this is just a statement of commitment from him, an expression of his value for your presence in his life. That shouldn't be a bad thing, or even a cause for concern unless there is reservation on your part.
This is where I keep coming back to as I contemplate your question: The problem isn't so much that he will think he made a mistake but that you already feel like you’re a mistake. So I ask, why is that? What makes you so certain you’re a mistake that you’d consider rejecting the future offered because of that feeling like he might one day not want you anymore?
That also brings me to another question to consider: Why me? Why would he choose me? We've been together a long time but that doesn't mean we should be married…When in fact you've already been living your life together as if you were. The only difference between before and after this is that there is protection for you both should something happen to the other and that with you he has said he wishes to raise a family.
That alone can be frightening, the idea of ‘parenthood’, but especially to someone who never before considered that a possibility in their lives. It’s a huge step from just being ‘married’ to having a ‘family’ together. In some ways, to the truly responsible parent’ it’s a commitment to far more than just your partner but to also to the new life you’d be sharing with someone special: your child.
There is a hell of a lot of commitment being asked for from you by this question but it also says even more about how he feels. He’s asking for your considered and informed decision about the future together. You both now know what life will be like going forward because you've already passed the ‘hard part’ of learning to live together and you've spent time learning about who the other truly is without anyone else around. Many relationships falter at that phase, but you have not. This is a good thing. A really good thing in fact.
This is where your view of your own value has come into conflict with what is being asked of you by this person who seems to hold you in high regard. He seems to hold no such opinion of you, nor think you a mistake, because I know of no one willing to embark on such commitment to someone they feel that way about. To me that says this question isn't really about him, but about getting over your fear.
You worry that ‘somewhere down the line’ he’ll wake one day, roll over as he has every day for years and think “why the hell did I marry that’” and that hurts to read. You have someone who has judged you worthy and important to them but part of you can’t accept it because you don’t think you’re worth it. To this point I can only say: It’s not your place to make that evaluation of your value to them. You can’t make them love you, that comes from within them, and you can’t direct how that grows for them. The only thing you can do is learn to either accept that he feels that way or continue as you are.
To the former point, talk to him. Explain your fear, and be honest about why. Don’t put it out there like a ‘break up’ if that’s not your intention; consider and measure your words carefully and truthfully. Make them about how you feel, your concerns and your feelings about the idea and the life you two have together. If you value him, now is the time to say so. If you value your life with him, make that clear. Communication and honesty are critical components of a truly stable long term relationship but especially so of one that might move into that kind of relationship where a child may be involved.
Now, at last, to your fear about him thinking you a mistake. You asked me what can you do? Beyond the talking points above, you can ask yourself one question when you are alone:
Is today enough?
Without realizing it you face that fear every day because the odds are just as good tomorrow as ten years from now that he might think you and your life together a mistake. Did he say that this morning? No? Do you reasonably expect him to tomorrow? Probably not. So what you are wrestling with is a potential that has an equally opposite potential with just as much chance of happening:
Ever After.
The stories always end with ‘happily ever after” but neglect to mention that it is THAT moment, once the challenge is won, that real life begins. You’re on the cusp of that beginning and since no story ever writes that part out, you've no guide for what happens next. The truth is that everything happens next. Thousands of I love yous, mornings of creaking bones and shuffling feet to make coffee that cannot be counted, hardships and heartbreaks, but at the end of it all, what matters isn't how the last line is written.
What makes it ‘happily ever after’ isn't the absence of challenge or struggle because those things can serve to strengthen a relationship more than the ‘good times’ if they come in proportion to the wealth of companionship and affection you should be sharing at this ‘stage of the game’.
Don’t make every day about what is going to happen tomorrow. There’s no promise of that. All this could end without warning, so you cannot ‘live’ in the future tense. Instead you have the opportunity to take these moments, polish the rough bits and truly commit yourself to the endeavor of love.
Consider the opposite and it’s consequences. If you were to refuse, and something were to happen that took him from you tomorrow, what then do the days after look like? Regret, loneliness, and darkness, because you would look back and think yourself a fool for wasting those precious moments you could have shared.
The other potential is that he may look on you as a mistake, but again, you must consider how much time you wasted worrying about it that you could have spent being happy together. If, as you say, your afraid that somewhere down the line he’d see you that way, what about all the days between now and then?
Does the end invalidate the journey?
I don’t think so. It may make it bittersweet, but no matter how the story ends it cannot strip it of what was truly good in the days before the last lines of that story were written. We really don’t get to choose how those last few pages develop so we should instead concern ourselves with making sure that it’s a good story from now until whenever ‘then’ should be.
Love isn't risking pain. It’s a guarantee of it but the weight of love in such scales invalidates the pain that someday must be paid. We make that choice gladly, willingly, because we know that every moment will be worth more than the debt that comes due eventually. We aren't promised one second of time, no guarantee of a long and happy life, so why then do we struggle against ourselves so hard when it comes to make the most of the moment we do have: right now.
You've come a long way from just sex to domesticity. Respect the strength that represents and what it says about your feelings for the life you two have together. This fear has, I suspect, infiltrated your day to day life as you've struggled more with it since he brought this up and that’s where it has crossed a line to me. The fear of tomorrow has begun making it happen by corrupting today and your ability to share freely with each other. Time to put the fear in it’s place.
Consider this final thought in closing and with it go my best wishes for you both:
He has done more than deem you ‘worthy’, he’s decided you are essential.
My best, as always,
- Bearogenes
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