u/free_as_a_tortoise

For those who fear. I understand that these thoughts are automatic for most of you. As they are for me. But they mean far less to me than they did before and after 3 years of working on this, I find myself more able to dismiss them and just decide to be happy. Everyone is on their own journey but the steps are similar for all of us.

My former coach told me the story of one of his clients who kept worrying that her partner was cheating. She learnt over a long period of time to reduce her compulsions, to embrace uncertainty and be OK with whatever happens.

The she found out that her partner had been cheating on her.

With her mother.

This extraordinarily horrible situation was beyond what she was afraid of. Her fears were right all along. And there's a temptation there to take away the lesson that we should indeed listen to our fears, because they can sometimes be right.

But here's the thing: Fear tricks us into believing that if we hyper-vigilantly monitor, worry, and check, we can protect ourselves against pain. But as that story proves, control is an illusion. Her obsession wouldn't have prevented the betrayal; it only would have stolen her peace before the betrayal happened.

​By choosing to reduce her energy investment in the compulsions, she didn't prevent a terrible outcome, but she reclaimed her sovereignty. She stopped letting the fear of a disaster dictate her present moment. When the worst actually happened, she wasn't left as a broken victim of an obsession—she was able to face it as a grounded, real person who had already learned how to stand in uncertainty.

​When we live our lives employing tactics to prevent our worst fears, we spend our entire lives playing defense against a phantom. Letting go of fear-driven control isn't about blinding ourselves to real risk. It's about shifting from a life built on vulnerability-reduction to a life built on purpose, presence, and genuine self-trust. Trust not that you'll get everything right, but that even if you don't, you'll be OK. You may feel pain, you may suffer, but we all do that for reasons we never saw coming in any case. Spending your energy on what could happen is an attempt of control, or insurance, because part of us thinks if we see the hit coming, it won't hurt as much, or we may be able to somehow escape it. But reality always works differently than our imagination.

​Fear is a terrible insurance policy. It charges you the price of the tragedy every single day, whether the tragedy happens or not. Reclaiming your life means deciding that your peace and capacity to live fully are worth having, even if the worst comes to pass. And the more we accept the worst case scenario as possible, but something we can get through, the less scary it is to us.

Your partner could cheat and they could easily hide it from you.

They could stop loving you.

Your relationship might turn cold someday.

But thinking about those scenarios does nothing to prevent them. And there's always a never ending supply of possible scenarios to use your energy and focus on.

You can take the energy you spend thinking about what might happen, and direct it towards making yourself a more resilient, more relaxed, more... "OK with whatever happens" person than you were before.

I used to spend so much time watching videos about relationships and psychology and related topics. But all that was coming from the place of trying to be ready for every eventuality. And while a bit of learning is helpful, when it becomes an obsession dressed up as education, it just pushed me into being a fearful person more than I needed to be.

​But lately I've concluded that my future lies not just in not worrying, but building a beautiful internal life where I know I can deal with whatever happens. Old habits die hard and this is a slow ship to turn around, but I can see it turning. I look forward to seeing how things improve in the future.

I'm getting married in under 2 months, and I'm seeing myself getting more easily triggered than I was before. Today, I had a brief text conversation with someone I only met once briefly, and was initially was very attracted to, but she was leaving the country so we just kept in touch as friends, occasionally having the odd text conversation about philosophy, psychology and other topics we share common interests in. She did suggest I come visit her sometime but by then I was in a committed relationship with my now fiancée. She is also my fantasy ideal type, like a natural Barbie but with black hair. But as she lives in another country I didn't consider her as a realistic relationship potential. Today I was telling her that I'm getting married. She was very kind in her congratulations but given that she also posted some photos from her vacation today also, including one of her in a dress which showed cleavage, and I thought to myself that she looked very good, so my mind is throwing at me "you're not as attracted to your fiancée as you are to her", "you're marrying the wrong person", "you shouldn't be marrying someone if you have strong superficial attraction to someone else". But I think underneath all this is that same belief that if I chose a different person, maybe this girl, maybe someone else, my life would be magically better. But I don't really know her. She could be a great conversation partner but not good to be in relationship with. Or maybe she'd be great. But I did what I thought was the most reasonable thing in choosing someone locationally and emotionally available to me and moved a relationship forward based on the world I was actually living in. Maybe there are people on earth who would be better matches in some ways, and worse in others. But I somehow think life would always end up feeling like life, even if I got the fantasy physical type. The novelty would fade and eventually so would the looks.

I suspect all these thoughts would have been replaced with a "oh she looks good, moving on..." in neurotypical people.

Endless comparing against real people, imagined people, and idealised versions of real people, really is the way of discontent.

And even if there is maybe someone better out there for me, I'm choosing my fiancée. I've made my choice and I live with the consequences, known and unknown. And I'll enjoy the life I'm building as much as I possibly can.

Something that has come out recently in therapy was that I had internally held unrealistic expectations of what a relationship was supposed to be. For most of my life I had expected my ideal relationship to:

1. Compensate me for the abusive relationships I experienced as a child and in my 20s

2. Be a source of sexual euphoria to block out the pain I felt inside, and desperately tried to distract myself from.

In reality, there doesn't exist some swing from one extreme to another. I was looking for a woman with the body of a porn star and the character of an angel. And I got hints of the first part through my most attractive years, but they never really wanted me that much or treated me well. I was just a stepping stone at best to them. And moving to an objectively good, but much more ordinary/average reality has felt at times like a big loss. Not compared to what I really had or was capable of getting and keeping, but compared to the fantasy that I had used those fleeting experiences to prop up. There's also some terror at realising that this means that I am actually normal and ordinary and there isn't going to be some underdog to superhero story like in the movies. Pretty good is objectively enough but it isn't the never ending paradise I was aiming for.

I understood why against my conscious desire to be in relationship, I found myself going from short term fling to short term fling. Because the chase and the variety was exhilarating. Plus the adrenaline and the newness always made sex seem much more exciting than it would be most of the time with someone you've been with for years.

And it isn't just on the physical side that I've had to compromise against my fantasy but on the character too. Everyone says and does things that could be considered red flags. I am still terrified of ignoring warning signs but I also understand that these things must be understood in the wider context of the relationship. If someone says something that seems to threaten a core value e.g. "sex isn't what keeps people together", they are expressing a belief they hold in that moment which might have a different meaning to them than it does to me ("haha, I'm going to suddenly not be interested in sex, or make it really boring, as soon as I've got children with you then you'll need to decide between harming your children's emotional development and feeling fulfilled"). On the whole I am loved and treated well and I just have to trust and risk that that love and treatment will continue as long as I am doing my part to show up with love, presence and not letting my anxiety drive.

On that pain inside, some of it at least is a part which helped me to survive in childhood by keeping my hopes low so that when I was trapped and psychologically tortured, I wouldn't be disappointed. Maybe there's more that will come out. I've had 10 years of therapy including psychedelics so maybe the old wound will be something I carry forever. I can respond with addiction and euphoria seeking, which won't ever be more than a temporary distraction, or by sitting with it and putting one foot in front of the other and living each day in its full depth. Either way, there isn't a fix to be obtained from the outside.

Everything I've ever tried to keep through fear and checking and control, I've lost. So perhaps the only way forward is to abandon that strategy completely. Even though it's been my best friend for my entire life. Even deep into my recovery journey.

I'm getting married in a few months. Normies would assume there's something seriously wrong with my relationship if I was to tell them I often feel like this. But I'm more sure that I'm feeling like this because I'm walking right into what my fears tell me must be a huge trap or a big disappointment, but my rational mind says is a good step forward for my growth and most importantly, my potential to be a loving husband and father.