What is going on in their heads?

[Zimmy]

Mozza: Thanks so much for taking an interest in my story. It means a lot to me to have someone to talk to about all this.

I think your insights are dead on. The one observation you made about our long engagement is particularly acute. That is a long, somewhat sordid story and is the crux of any issues we may have. I will try to tell it as honestly as I can.

We got engaged in Aug 2009 after dating for 18 months. It was the best day of my life and the most romantic proposal I could have imagined while we were on vacation in Mexico. We were both super excited about the wedding and spent the following months in the fall happily planning the day.

However, shortly after the New Year in 2010, he dropped an unexpected bomb on me. I was working on some wedding planning while in bed late on a Sunday night and he seemed to be distracted, so I joked to him "What - you don't want to marry me anymore?" He turned to me with a face I had never seen before and he responded, "I'm not sure." I was flabbergasted - did not see this coming at all. We had just spend a very happy holiday season together and I wasn't aware of any issues.

When I asked him what was wrong, he really struggled to tell me, but he finally admitted that he was concerned that I had put on some weight over the latter half of the year (due to my very stressful job). I wasn't obese by any standards, but I definitely could have been taking better care of myself. On one hand, I understand that people should not let themselves go in relationships; on the other hand, I would hope that my partner wasn't so shallow or so cruel as to handle it this way. In any event, after talking through the issue a bit more, he apologized and told me that really loved me, I forgave him, and we seemed to get past this.

Fast forward to the day before Christmas in 2010: he drops the bomb again - this time says that he is having doubts about us, but couldn't seem to give me a reason (I had lost the weight). We split up over the holidays though were talking, and I went home to Detroit devastated and confused - had a miserable Xmas crying in front of the fire. Even worse, one of my single friends called me up to tell me that he had just checked out her profile on match.com, which meant he had just joined and was hunting for a new girlfriend. I couldn't believe he could move on so quickly. I called him up and confronted him and he immediately took his profile down - he told me that he wasn't ready to give up on us, and he didn't understand why sometimes these doubts crept in as he knew he loved me very much. When I got back to New York, we had a real heart to heart, he agreed to go to counseling, and we ended up getting back together.

Fast forward to Dec 2011 and yes, it happened again. He told me out of the blue that he wasn't sure about us. That 95% of the time he had been very happy, but sometimes he has doubts becasue he felt that being in our relationship would prevent him from doing other things in his life (though he couldn't actually name any things that he thought he was missing out on, and admitted that our relationship had brought him experiences he had never imagined having - for instance, I got him a job at Morgan Stanley, we traveled the world together, etc.). He told me that he realized that he was really messed up in the head, and he recommitted to working with this therapist. What came out of that therapy was that he realized that he was a very insecure person, didn't really know himself or what he wants in life, that he is not sure he is capable of being in a mature relationship, and that despite all of this, he really loves me more than anything and he wanted to try to make it work because we had such a special bond. He seemed devastated and very shamed that he had hurt me so repeatedly and could be so shallow and selfish.

After all this introspection, things really got better. We had our happiest years in 2012 and 2013. In Aug 2012 he asked me to marry him again and he seemed really settled and sure. We had such fun that year as I invited him to take up my sport (riding horses) and he fell in love with it - it was wonderful to share this with him and enjoy the sport together. In June 2013, we bought a house together and we were so excited about making this our forever home. We spent a lot of money on the horses in 2012 and 2013, and so as a result we pushed the wedding back to next year in order to get our finances in order. i didn't push the wedding planning because I was nervous about his prior freak-outs, and I didn't want finances to be a point of contention.

Of course, then the affair started in Jan 2014 and that was the end of that....

That is the very abridged version of the story. Bottom line is that I left out all the wonderful times - the fact that other than these horrible episodes where my fiance would freak out for ridiculous reasons, we were very happy. He was always very loving. He was my best friend - we shared everything (or so I thought). We had great sex. We were building a life together, and he told me he had never been happier than with me and he was so grateful for our life. I knew naively that he had some real internal issues / demons / insecurities, but I thought my love was strong enough to make him a better man. I believed in him.

You should also note he was married once previously to a woman he dated for 7 years, then married and then had doubts a year in and they divorced. I thought it was just becasue they weren't compatible and fought all the time, but maybe I don't know the whole story there...

Maybe I was stupid for hanging in there so long. I guess I wanted to believe in the happy ending and believe in the power of love.

Be gentle...