I've been with the same woman for 3 years now, living together for a while. I asked her to marry me, she said yes and we are planning an engagement party. She is great. We have a great relationship, she gets me, thinks my nerdiness is cute and is completely okay with me being a bit "hefty" while she is fit....(I'm going to try an lose 30lbs though). I love her. We fit...even when it comes to what jobs to do around the house. I'm saying all this to say...we don't have problems, just so you understand where I am coming from.
Recently I started having second thoughts, not about her as a person, but I'm scared were going to divorce years later. I even had nightmares about her leaving me.
I'm literally become scared that we aren't always going to be like this and that in 7-10 years something is going to happen and cause us to break up.
Or I'm going to lose my job and not be able to afford the mortgage.
Or were going to have kids and fight about how to raise them (we've had conversations about our parenting styles and so far so good).
Or something is going to happen...something that just splits us. I've even been scared our kids will come out with health problems.
Or she'll find a better looking/fit guy and wanna get with him.
I'm freaking out suddenly and I don't know why. Its like I'm worried we haven't talked enough or that maybe all our serious discussions weren't enough. We've missed something.
Things have been too easy the last couple of years and it scares me.
I've talked to her about my fears and she says she isn't going anywhere and that if something does happen we'll deal with it when it does.
Is this normal? Is it normal to lose your mind right before getting married?

Elian, the best thing in the world for you guys to do is to start committing now to solve all of your future problems together with a win-win solution. Don't ever expect either one of you to settle for a solution that you are not enthusiastic about. Instead, promise to keep brainstorming together for as long as it takes to find an enthusiastic solution in each situation.

Have you read through Dr. Harley's Basic Concepts with your fiance?

Basic Concepts

The Basic Concepts will introduce you to a method for resolving all of your problems together. This method sustains romantic love for a lifetime.

You are right to be worried about possible future problems. Only about 20% of marriages are happy for a lifetime - those are the ones that have learned to make both husband and wife happy with each decision.

Dr. Harley has a book for engaged couples that you might want to read together. It is called I Promise You. You can get it in hardcopy or for kindle:

http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0800718933

P.S., I'm a nerd, too. Do lose the weight, though, because after you guys learn the skills to maintain happiness in marriage for a lifetime, you are going to want to live a long time to enjoy it.

Dr Harley says fear of marriage is highly logical. There are few married couples who remain happy for life and there are tonnes of pitfalls! The fact that you are smart enough to see this simply puts you ahead of the game. As you've already been advised, speak about each concern with your fianc�e. How would you tackle these scenarios using POJA?

Here is the fear of marriage article:

www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8114_fear.html

The part I like is:


The fact you have been living together for quite a while does put you at somewhat of a disadvantage statistically. There are a number of studies that have studied the 'cohabitation effect' and Dr Harley has written about it extensively. If you use POJA (and you probably do, since there are no problems) you can recover any issues and become buyers on marriage.

One of the main problems with living together before marriage is a certainty is you are both still on 'interview behaviour' and not being radically honest. This can see all the effort put in pre marriage and a down grading of care - after marriage. The exact opposite of what you want. I'd recommend reading his article on that 'Living Together: Compatibility Test or Curse'.

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8110_cohabitation.html

IndieGirl,

I would like to point out one significant disclaimer regarding all of the studies i have read regarding cohabitation prior to marriage. I don't recall if this applies to the current posters situation, so it's mainly for perspective.

It states that if the couple is already engaged, then statistically, their rates of future marital dysfunction are similar or equal to those couples who cohabitated with no clear purpose of marriage in the plans.

LTL

Yes I've seen that disclaimer too on some studies.

Somebody wrote into the radio show about that in 2010.

I typed incorrectly.

Cohabitation after already committed and engaged does not suffer the same statistical marital dysfunction as just shacking up together first and then eventually getting married.

It is similar to getting married first prior to cohabitation.

Apologies for possibly being unclear.

Also, i prefer the getting married first route now, IF i were to ever even consider that again. I'm still too jaded from trusting my wife so completely in my current frame of mind to think that far down the road.

LTL

Are you 'madly in love' with her?

Yes I am in love with her. Madly? I hate to say it, but I got out of the madly in love phase about a year ago. I would say I am deeply in love with her. I see her faults and I'm not blind to them, but I happen to like her little quirks. When I think "madly" I think that the person is stupid and blind to who the other person really is and still in the hormonal chemical induced lust that clouds judgement.

We didn't lived together until after getting engaged. She didn't "officially" move in until Feb this year actually and we just got the last of her boxes she had packed in her parents house this past weekend.

I wanted her to move in because..well...I just love having her around and she was staying over for days at a time anyway, had a full chest of drawers in the bedroom and the other closet. It wasn't a conscious decision like we just wanted to play house, but we knew we were going to marry and I started missing her when she'd go home so one day I was just like "Move in."

I don't like to think us living together decreases our chances for staying together, because I don't feel like I'm being dishonest about who I am. She knows I don't close cabinets and that I leave my underwear on the floor. I know she has a habit of leaving her snack dishes on the coffee table and leaves her shoes out.
I'm not being something I'm not.
That being said...I'm still scared.

So the answer is to stop being scared and find out how to build a strong and loving marriage. It is a certain lifestyle that protects your marriage from affairs and maintains the romantic love. MB spells it all out for you.

It works...that is why there are so many of us here.

You should find out where this fear is comming from...

You mentioned your weight and looks...
Maybe your fiance does not have physical attraction on her emotional needs list and is cool with your looks.

But maybe YOU are not OK with it?
Change it if you don't like it.