My fiance has been dragging his feet at every milestone in our multi-year relationship.
I was not diagnosed before I started dating him. I'm sure I had symptoms, looking back on it now, but with his own issues about commitment and how he has been hurt and abused in the past, it exacerbated those very intense feelings in me that pushed me into counseling for the first time in my life. For a whole year I was struggling with the text-book symptoms of depression and anxiety. I could check off all the boxes from the DSM5 except for actively planning my own suicide. Thankfully I never got to that. But on my worse days I would lay silent and still on my mattress and the tears would flow and I couldn't even hear someone in the same room as me. Moving in order to pull the chain on the light was a monumental task. For a whole year we were fighting and hurting over my anxiety and depressed thoughts.
I got counseling. We went to couples therapy. I finally got in to see my local public mental health facility and was given an Rx that I would never be able to afford on my own. Very low dose. No negative side effects that I can tell. It slowly, slowly helped. I started to have less horrible days. I started to react less extreme to my stressors. We were happy again in our relationship. Laughing and chit chatting and the fighting was reduced to only the strictly necessary disagreements that all normal couples have.
But in the back of my mind, like the dull hum of a refrigerator motor, I still always question why he is even with me, especially if I have to drag him across every relationship milestone crying and fighting. Doesn't he want me? Why am I never good enough? Why was the secret GF for so long? Why did he not want to introduce me to his friends and family? Why did it take him so long to tell me he loved me?
Nowadays these things are just common. Even RELISHED by both of us. He is always bragging to me that his mom loves me. I am so thankful that she likes me, and I actually feel it from her. His kids like me. Even his apathetic 11 year old boy that cares about nothing. Even he asks when I'm gonna be home and is frustrated that I work late into the evenings on most days. What was the fear? Why did he hesitate in bringing me into his world?
It was months after i said "I love you" before he said it back to me and only then it was after I finally broke down and questioned him about it. I was HURTING over it and couldn't give him any more time without going crazy. Why was it taking so long? Didn't he want me? I just want to be wanted! I wanted to feel like I was desired. Why can't he open up?
But after all of this time we got through all of those milestones. Yes, I initiated and it all felt forced, and I will NEVER have the time back... the time that is described as the "honeymoon stage" where we should feel euphoric and a little obsessed over each other. I was obsessing like a normal person and he... was not. I will never get that back. But we moved in together. He was just as willing as I was to work on "us" and couples' counseling helped immensely. We worked on a lot in such a short time. Funds prevented us from continuing but we were taught many coping tools that we still use at home. There is still work to be done but I have seen the willingness to progress so I am hopeful that we have a healthy relationship regardless.
Then I decided to propose. Marriage, for him, is nothing more then a piece of paper. It's more spiritual for me and since it's more important to me I decided to take it in my own hands. I am a female and said "screw societal expectations." He said yes. It was simple and quiet and there was very little fanfare but I liked it. We had talked about it beforehand and he said he would do it, despite his abusive ex and the trauma he went through because of her. It is important to me so he will do it. He stated he had no aversions to marriage in general.
But this is yet another threshold that I am finding difficult to cross with him. He is dragging his feet again. It's been months and he won't even choose between a wedding with guests or a courthouse thing. Let alone a date or anything else.
Today I brought it up again. He was hemming and hawing so I asked "Do you even want to get married? Do you actually want me?" and he said "I'll do it." I replied, "That's hardly the answer to my question." and he wouldn't talk to me about it.
I had to leave the room before embarrassing myself in front of him. I jumped in the shower so I could cry in peace. All the feelings of inadequacy came flooding and I felt just like I had when I sought out counseling. My fears of not being "good enough" are always there but now they were screaming at me that I will never be worthy.
Eventually he came into the bathroom as well and said, "The reason is because I am afraid that you will attack me with -Why are we even married- just so you can win arguments in your anger. I don't want to marry you unless you can promise me that you you won't say stuff like that."
I got pretty mad. It's what I do. "Mad" is the easiest emotion to express. I am afraid in my head and mad through my mouth. It's my biggest character flaw. I got mad. But I couldn't put into words the defensive emotions that were in me.
My whole day was ruined. I went to his mom's for thanksgiving but I had to work a bit later and they didn't have the food ready before I had to leave. My own family claimed they couldn't get everyone together at the same time so they weren't going to do a big get together. But I found out they DID. Anxiety or Depression (sometimes I can't separate the two) made me feel like they purposely cheated me out of the gathering because I wasn't wanted. I have long felt like I was not wanted, even though this is not true in actuality. But it has been easy to feel like the outsider in my own family. (This is why I am now sure that I have had depression/anxiety for a long time.)
I missed out on BOTH dinners, and my brain keeps telling me it's because I'm not important enough or wanted enough by others. That I'm a burden on all of them. I'm the disappointment out of my siblings and their families. I'm the oldest and the least successful. Maybe they just manipulated the situation to keep me from joining (and ruining) dinner. My brain is hurtful a lot these days.
Then I saw pictures of my fiance on Facebook with his family. Happy family. I wasn't tagged in them, I couldn't be there in them. I felt so alone. My day was "bad" since I woke up and fought with him about the wedding. I was cycling between numbness and crying while at work. Then I see pictures and I can't just look at them and smile. They make me hurt.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Submitted November 24, 2017 at 10:04AM by bckyltylr http://ift.tt/2BifKq7 depression
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