3 Surprising Ways Past Trauma Shows Up When you get Engaged
- Feeling unworthy of love. It can feel like a complete contradiction because your partner is literally wanting to commit to forever with you and this old familiar feeling from your past shows up unexpectedly. Because you grew up feeling you didn’t deserve love, now that you’re getting married, you might also feel you don’t deserve to be celebrated, pampered, spend any money on things you like for your big day, and any special treatment as a bride…even though being loved is what you’ve been yearning for and you finally have it.
- Fear of commitment. That’s right, you’re happy to marry your soulmate and yet intrusive thoughts are coming in about your ex lovers or maybe how you’re not meant to spend the rest of your life with someone. And it might circle back to not feeling worthy. This fear can show up by being tempted to call your ex, fantasize about past lovers and reminisce on old flings, wondering if maybe you’re better off with them. You know these thoughts aren’t true for you, but they are freaking you out and making you feel that maybe you don’t love your fiance as much as you do, even though you know you do. That’s past trauma trying to keep you ‘safe’ from taking risks.
- Anxiety. All of these fears and doubts manifest in heightened levels of anxiety. You’re coming up with worst case scenarios from everything going wrong on your wedding day, to thinking you’ll ruin your relationship. These anxious thoughts are keeping you up all night and making it extremely hard to be present with your sweetheart.
Feeling these unpleasant emotions during a time that’s supposed to be full of bliss makes everything seem even worse. I feel you. I see you. You are not alone. Most of these scenarios are never addressed within the wedding world, but I’m here to not only shine light on these issues, but bring awareness to the importance of healing from your old wounds- healing now, before marriage. Why? Honestly, why not? For me, once all of these things were brought to light, I felt like I had no other choice but to address them and work on loving on myself, otherwise, I would have completely felt out of control, sunk into depression or actually sabotaged my way through the start of my marriage. Take the leap. Prioritize your healing. You deserve it. Your mind, body, soul and marriage will thank you for it.
