Am I really fit to be engaged?

[Guest]

Facts:

Am currently engaged since over one year with an amazing guy; kind, sweet and everything I ever wanted.

 

I was bullied in school, always slightly chubby and with glasses always felt like the ugliest person on the planet. At few times a year I feel that I look alright. I'd give myself "pass" grade, while I know guys would give me a "cute/good looking" grade.

 

My self esteem has been crushed both by exes and old classmates, in short.

 

Problem:

I have extremely low self esteem. (You could put a monster next to me and within a few days I'd think the monster looked 100 times better than me.) I got into a relationship with my fiance few weeks after I ended it with my long term ex. My plans were not to fall in love, I was planning on being single until I could have regained my crushed self esteem and all the bad feelings involved in that relationship.

 

Instead, things went from romance to commitment and now I am engaged and wondering how bad it is I never had any time to deal with myself. The only time I remotely like myself is when I am with my friends, because I know they like me for me. With my fiance, I know he loves me, but I always feel like he could do better; prettier; smarter etc...

 

What I would need advice on is if I should ask him for a break to be able to deal with my own issues or not? I do not want to see other people or anything - I kind of only want to "see myself". Because I feel as if I do not love myself, I will not be able to be a good wife in the future because I will only get clingy or just depressed. (I am depressed quite a lot whenever I have a "fat day" etc.)

 

I am not treating him bad nor is he, but I really am sad that I never had any chance after my bad relationship to collect myself and get to know myself. (Am 21) When I brought it up to him he said "So I am supposed to tell my dad I'm single now after being engaged??" So he is strongly opposing any sort of break.

 

Am I being silly or should I approach the problem in a different way?

[Wedded25]

New member here. A couple introductory points: (1) I'm not a professional (or even amateur) psychologist, so feel free to reject anything I say that you find off-base. (2) My perspective is that of a guy happily married for almost 25 years and still very much in love with his wife. We've both been wrestling with self-esteem and body weight/image issues for quite some time.

 

That said ...

 

I was bullied in school, always slightly chubby and with glasses always felt like the ugliest person on the planet. At few times a year I feel that I look alright. I'd give myself "pass" grade, while I know guys would give me a "cute/good looking" grade.

 

My self esteem has been crushed both by exes and old classmates, in short.

 

Problem:

I have extremely low self esteem. (You could put a monster next to me and within a few days I'd think the monster looked 100 times better than me.)

{{{{hugs a-plenty}}}}

 

Instead, things went from romance to commitment and now I am engaged and wondering how bad it is I never had any time to deal with myself. The only time I remotely like myself is when I am with my friends, because I know they like me for me. With my fiance, I know he loves me, but I always feel like he could do better; prettier; smarter etc...

Has he given any hints, however subtle, that he feels he could "do better"? It's quite a bad sign if he has, and he'll need to be straightened out. But of course, if he hasn't, it's still tragic you should have to feel such scornful self-assessment. The whole point of any loving relationship is that it shouldn't have to feel like a performance review. Hence I got scared at seeing your thread title: "Am I fit to be engaged?" {{{{more hugs}}}}

 

What I would need advice on is if I should ask him for a break to be able to deal with my own issues or not? I do not want to see other people or anything - I kind of only want to "see myself".

My worry here is that this could turn into a very long break, given how early this programming starts and how deep it cuts. As noted above, my wife and I are still grappling with it 25 years in. (FWIW: Here's my first LoveShack thread, discussing this.)

 

Think about it: The minute a child hears daddy say "WIDE LOAD!" when a less-than- svelte woman walks by, or "FATTY, FATTY, TWO-BY-FOUR!" if mom puts on a few extra pounds, he/she absorbs a message. If a boy, he learns that svelte-only is what to look for, and that he gets to subject his own wife to that kind of evaluation someday. If a girl, she learns that svelte-only is the way to be, and that she'd better expect to be evaluated by her husband some day.

 

Are you safe in being forthright and honest with your fiance about these matters while stopping short of a breakup? Life will throw plenty of emotional issues at both of you, and a prime tenet of a good and loving relationship is knowing they're coming and being prepared to deal with them compassionately, without feeling the relationship itself to be threatened. (You might call it "discovering yourself on your feet.") Is he willing to grant you this during your engagement and after? (If you can't be direct, maybe you could bring up body image issues in general terms -- for example, a well-placed witty comment about how an ad means to scare women about their looks -- and thereby get him thinking about them.)

 

Because I feel as if I do not love myself, I will not be able to be a good wife in the future because I will only get clingy or just depressed. (I am depressed quite a lot whenever I have a "fat day" etc.)

There's that insidious self-review sneaking in again ... {{{{more huggles}}}}

 

I am not treating him bad nor is he, but I really am sad that I never had any chance after my bad relationship to collect myself and get to know myself. (Am 21) When I brought it up to him he said "So I am supposed to tell my dad I'm single now after being engaged??" So he is strongly opposing any sort of break.

This worries me -- him being more concerned with his dad's feelings than yours. If he's opposing a break, it should be out of genuine caring for you, and a sincere wish for you to feel comfortable both with yourself and with him.

 

Hope this is helpful; again, feel free to kick my hemorrhoid if I'm out of line with any of it.

 

Wedded25

_________

 

"We were the eleven o'clock news

because while the rest of the world

was going to hell we made love."

 

-- Richard Brautigan

[norajane]

Why do you need a break to work on your self-esteem and other issues? Can't you do that while you are with your fiancee? If you agreed to marry him, you agreed to make a lifetime commitment to this man - isn't he your best friend, your support, the one person in the whole world whom you know is on your side? Why would you shut him out now if you are planning to be a team, a partnership in marriage?

 

My suggestion would be to seek help from a therapist for your self-esteem issues. This is a lifetime project for you as you have a lot of pain and anger and repressed anxieties to work through, as well as needing to develop new ways of thinking and making those new thoughts a habit. Do you see what I mean? You can't do that on a 'break' from your relationship - it will take a lot of work that can take much of your life.

 

So break up with your fiancee and seek therapy if your relationship with your fiancee isn't good. Otherwise, stay with him while you seek therapy for your problems.

[AtAGlance]

Dear Guest

 

but I really am sad that I never had any chance after my bad relationship to collect myself and get to know myself.

 

 

this is the line that stands out to me. True I have planty of problems of my own and many would say that I'm in no fit state to comment, but this thought of yours worries me. I too am in a back-to-back relationship and I have often wondered if things would have been different if I'd given myself some breathing space.

 

You can be sure that if you don't get rid of this thought now there will always be a little nagging doubt that you made a mistake.

 

You can work on your self esteem together - you don't need to be alone to do that, but be sure you're getting married for the right reasons, not from insecurity.

 

AtA

[fluffy0]

"So I am supposed to tell my dad I'm single now after being engaged??"

 

This is the line that most stood out to me. i understand that someone who has asked you to marry him would obviously not want to break up. But...

 

"We can work on this together"

"Do you feel depressed, do you need psychological help?"

"Do you still love me"

 

Those would be some response I would expect. But it sounds like his biggest concern is how he will look like in front of other people if you break off the engagement. that should not be his main concern if he wants to marry you out of love.

 

To me, it sounds like he might be marrying just for the sake of having someone to marry at this point in life. That is very selfish as well as inconsiderate of you. You deserve someone who wants not just a wife in general, but you and no one else as a wife.

 

The only time I remotely like myself is when I am with my friends, because I know they like me for me.

 

Ideally, your husband to be should be one of your best friends, the one who makes you feel the best. If this is not the case before you get married, it will only get worse when you do get married. I would definately talk about this with your boyfriend and call off the engagement. In all likelyhood, he will be very mad, but you owe to yourself and to him to do this. Maybe you two can still go out but not get married yet, while you work out your issues? If you tell him that you just need some time to work on yourself and he still refuses and says it's marriage or breakup, then you are better off just leaving him, because he wasn't very in love with you in the first place if he refuses to wait a little. But if he says he is okay with waiting a little, then this guy truly loves you.

 

By the way, it would be helpful if you told us how long you two have been going out.