My fiancé and I can't stop fighting. Now he has cold feet.
This is such a long story, so I'll try to condense it as much as I can.
We have been together for almost 4 years, and it's been a Long Distance Relationship the entire time we've been together (he lives 150mi away--a 3 hour drive)since I've gone to college--I'm about to graduate within the semester. We're 6 years apart and planning to get married the summer after graduation.
The relationship didn't start on great foundations... This should have been a red flag cause it has come back to haunt us.
He used to be a very big "player," a "Cassanoa" etc, etc, etc. Honestly, girls ate him up and couldn't get enough of him. In the process he's been with a lot of relation****s and when he met me, at the young age of 18, was thoroughly jaded about love and women.
We had instantly hit it off, and had everything possible in common. He claims that I made him remember what it was like to love. I thought we had something special. He left the country the day after we met and continued talking from afar then came back 3 months later... and it was different.
He ended up getting really unsure about us and suddenly stopped talking to me for 2 months. I was heart-broken and didn't understand why, he wouldn't return calls or texts, but since I had nothing invested, so I was pretty ready to move on.
ESPECIALLY when I found out from a mutual friend that he was seeing a professional cheerleader for the NFL during our break.
Things ended with them and suddenly he starts talking to me.
I am head over hells in love still so I say nothing of the cheerleader--at this point I hardly know him still. We weren't official and it didn't seem as if it was heading that way so to me, he didn't seem to be of any emotional threat so I continued being friends with him.
Throughout our friendship, he starts talking about the girl he just broke up with (not the cheerleader) and I try to lend an ear. I wasn't jealous, there was no spite or anger... He talks about EVERYTHING CONCERNING HER. Down from the types of clothes she wears and the tattoos and piercings to the wild things she has done and her beauty, and esp. her neurotic personality and mental breakdowns.
Idk what happened but suddenly he decides that he was as into me as the first day we met, and we suddenly start dating--to the displeasure of his family. We end up having family-relation problems for the next 2 years that strained out relationship, but thankfully it's now resolved.
WELL. Fast-forward 4 years later.
We've been having so many fights over the cheerleader and the ex throughout our relationship... He still decides that he wants to marry me. I cried, I said yes, and I was so excited!! I still am. He asks me to promise him to never bring up any issue we've had before our engagement and to forgive him. I said yes, and meant it.
I'm not mad at him anymore.
... I think.
I don't know what it is!!
But in these 4 years, I lost all my self-esteem and my self-confidence, I became depressed, and just plain crazy. It took years for his family and friends to accept me and that ruined my self-image. I have abandonment issues because he left the relationship when I was right there waiting. I became OCD about the ex and internet stalked her--and finally admitted my obsession to him today.
That's when he said that I'm a Freak and that he's terrified of getting into a marriage with me.
Honestly, I don't know what to do...
We fight about my lack of self-esteem, my depression, my bipolarism, my inability to let go of the past... all the time. What's funny is that I was none of the above before I got into this relationship so could it be the him? The relationship dynamic? ME!
I want to fix it. That's ALL I WANT.
Despite it all, he is so loving, and in no way abusive. Supportive and patient. And we still have everything in common.
What can I do to stop this?
I'm also in college on 18 hours, and planning a wedding on a very small budget (v. stressful), and I have no friends because of my inability to make friends with women due to insecurities and abandonment issues.
On top of it all, my fiancé thinks I'm bipolar and wants me to see a psychiatrist this week.
WHAT DO I DO!?
Omg I'm a journalism minor and the way I wrote this is horrendous. I apologise you guys :( It's 2 in the morning and I've been on aderrall all day studying for an exam and writing essays.. sorry.