Terrifying Love

*****Warning: this is the most vulnerable blog post I have ever written. I’m running on the assumption that my following has significantly dwindled, because I’m getting HARDCORE REAL today.******

I am completely and totally, head-over-heels in love with my husband. I love him with all my heart, which is why I agreed to marry him. Incidentally that’s also why I agreed to be his girlfriend. In fact that’s why I said yes to a second date.

Yeah, I’ve been crazy about Spencer ever since I met him.

I also had this dating policy where I’d only go on second dates with boys I really really liked. i.e. If I couldn’t see myself marrying a boy, there wouldn’t be a second date.

As you can imagine, I went on very few second dates. (Enough to count on one hand.)

So I meet Spencer, he has all of my “necessary qualities” (speaks Spanish, loves the Lord, worthy priesthood holder, ambitious, this is too embarrassing to continue writing) so I say yes to a first date. The first date goes really well, he continues to be everything I expect in my man, so I agree to a second date. In fact I’m so bold as to tell him at the end of our fist date that I had a really great time and I’d love to go out again. (Granted, he said it first. But I would’ve said it if he hadn’t!)

Second date goes really really well, and I decide that he’s the man of my dreams and I’ll agree to marry him if he asks me. So of course I agree to a third date. Everything continues like a fairy tale, and before you can say “basic Provo girl” we’re engaged. [In all fairness, I’m 26. That’s not basic.]

Believe you me– never in a million years would I ever have imagined I’d be one of those girls that got engaged fast. I always said I’d never even have a conversation about marriage until I’d been in a solid relationship for at least 6 months. And I also always planned on having a long engagement. (tbh I have no idea what the long engagement logic was haha.) Turns out all my judginess of fast engagements came back to bite me. When you know, you know. You know?

So I’m in love with Spencer, I know he’s the one, and I feel absolutely confident this is the right thing to do. However, along with my confidence, there’s this deep and abiding fear that Spencer would just wake up one day and realize that he wasn’t feeling it anymore, or I wasn’t who he thought I was, or he just couldn’t handle me anymore. And that would be that.

Story time: I did let down my [super duper] high walls once before, a few months previous to meeting Spencer. For literally the first time in my life, I allowed myself to be vulnerable and I opened myself up to another person. I got into like a real relationship, the kind where I let him hold my hand and kiss me and introduce me to his family as his girlfriend. It was one of the most courageous, scary things I’d ever done. And then it ended very abruptly, very quickly, with no warning at all. He just drove to my house and told me he’d received revelation there was someone better for me, and we had to cut it off immediately. (Important interjection: I am eternally grateful this happened. Spencer is my soulmate, the only one for me, and I am so thankful this other boy had the courage to act on the prompting he received. I’m just sharing this to give context to my hardcore trust issues.)

So yeah. Daily, constant, deep fear that Spencer would break up with me with no warning at all. But he didn’t.

We got married, and he’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I love him so much it hurts.

And that’s sort of my whole purpose here– love hurts. Sometimes it hurts like hell. When you love someone with your whole heart, you run the risk of having your whole heart shattered. It is SO SCARY to give yourself completely to someone else, always running the risk that that other person could at any point just decide to leave. There are very few guarantees in life, and another person’s continued happiness and loyalty are not one of them. I have no control over how Spencer feels, and that sometimes terrifies me.

Even though we tied the knot (and in our case were sealed for eternity, including real covenants with each other and God) I still can’t help from worrying that one day he’ll realize I’m not as good as he thinks I am, or I’m not the same as the woman he fell in love with, or he can’t deal with how much I cry (which is regularly, even though I’m happier than I’ve ever been #gofigure), or he meets someone that’s better than me.

I know I just have to trust him, and every time he does something to deepen my trust, like still loving me when I got food poisoning on our honeymoon, or showing me that I’m the most important person in his life by saying no to other people so he can spend time with me, it gets a little easier. It also helps that he’s NEVER done anything to break my trust. Sometimes when he tells me he loves me (which is often) I say, “I believe you.” That used to take a lot of work to say. Now it doesn’t. It’s still a little bit scary sometimes, but it’s getting less scary.

Love is scary, especially when you have 26 years of practice not allowing that kind of love. Protecting myself all those years kept me safe, but it also kept me from feeling.

I choose to trust that the high risk yields high returns. It already has. I never thought being married to the love of my life would require so much bravery, but it takes real courage to choose to trust Spencer every day. The good news is I’m a brave girl. I’ve been brave my whole life, and now I’m married to the most patient and supportive man I could imagine, and the terror of love is beautiful.