Cures for Cold Feet: When Your Engagement Needs TLC

The stress of pre-wedding planning can freak anyone out. Oftentimes, the stress itself can cause arguments and before long, you find that you’re obsessing on all of the things that annoys you about your partner and wondering if they’re really the one.

Cold feet and being racked with doubts are two different things. There is a difference between healthy doubts, which everyone has and really do come as a natural part of pre-wedding jitters, and serious warning signs. Really, though, chances are good that your cold feet mean nothing more than that your relationship needs a little Tender Loving Care.


Healthy Doubts, or Warning Signs?

We live in a country with depressing marriage statistics: almost half of all marriages end in a divorce. When you look around you and feel yourself getting cynical about the reality of a life-long commitment, remember one important thing:

You control your commitment. Your relationship is private, and has nothing to do with any relationships around you.

Try sitting down and thinking seriously about where your doubts are coming from. Is it your partner, or the idea of marriage itself? If you find that you can answer – easily and quickly – that it’s mostly about marriage itself, then you’re going to be Okay. Your upcoming marriage isn’t in jeopardy, you’re just being logical.

Talk with your partner over dinner, or create some private cuddle time where no planning is involved. Ask him or her about what they want from your marriage, what is their vision of the “ideal marriage”, and how do the two of you work towards living within that vision? Take some time to ask each other and yourselves hard questions, too. What makes you think you’ll be happy together? What is really important to you in life? Important in love? What couples can you look to as inspiration, because their commitment to one another is admirable?