You can’t sleep.
You can’t eat.
You smile, but inside you want to die.
This is supposed to be the most amazing time of your life. You’re finally engaged! Engaged!
Your single friends are looking at you with envy.
Your mother is happy that it’s finally happening.
Your fiancé looks as if he’s just won a prize (wise man! Because if he’s not looking like just won a prize, he will not treat you like a prize).
But you, on the inside, are dying. Dying because you’re not sure if you’re ready. You are not sure if you’re ready to stay with one guy for the rest of your life. You’re not sure if you can live with his habit of biting his nails and then piling the pieces up on the coffee table and leaving them there for days. You’re not sure if you can handle your future mother-in-law’s constant critique and judgments.
You’re just not sure.
What most people do—and what they really shouldn’t do—is tell their friends.
“You’re crazy! You have a man that loves you and wants to marry you? What’s to worry about?” they snap. This is especially true if they’re single and haven’t found a good boyfriend yet.
“Well, honey listen. Marriage is not a fairytale. It’s work. If I could do it all over again, I wouldn’t have done it so young,” says your married friend. And to think, you thought as an outsider looking in, your friend was happily married.
What do you do when you have cold feet and no one in your immediate circle understands why? How do you push past the “I’m so gonna scream” feeling you get every time you think about being shackled to this one person for the rest of your life?
Sidebar: Shackle sounds like a bad word. Maybe too harsh? But yet…it fits somehow…
When I receive the floods of daily emails from frantic newly engaged women and brides about to walk down the aisle in a week, I always tell them to ask themselves this one simple question:
If he hadn’t asked me to marry him, would I still want to be with him?
Why is this question important?
It takes the emotion out of “cold feet”. You see, having cold feet is not the reason you’re having doubts about getting married. The problem is something buried deep inside. It’s a treasure that you’ve hidden from yourself. Learning to zero in on what is really bothering you will possibly eliminate 95.9% of your cold feet. (The other 4.1% is the anxiety about communicating what’s bothering you to your partner.)
A Side Story
In a hostage situation, the police negotiator is trained to keep the perpetrator calm. They do this so that the perp won’t go crazy and shoot people due to an onslaught of emotions overtaking him. This is also why they always give in to their crazy demands.
Helicopter? Check.
A million dollars in unmarked bills? Check.
Pizza? Double check.
All of this is done to calm the perp’s nerves. Give them what they want and keep them calm so they can figure out why the crazy banshee is holding these people hostage in the first place.
What You and A Crazy Man Taking Hostages Have In Common
You, my dear, are no different. (minus the hostage scenario)
You see, when you’re an emotional wreck, you can’t focus on anything but the problem. And focusing on the problem will not solve it. In fact it will create more of it.
You start to solve it by asking it questions. The first being:
If he hadn’t asked me to marry him, would I still want to be with him?
Want more help with this? Grab a copy of the book below. (It’s free)
