Love and fear

As I sit here watching my husband asleep beside me, I'm filled with nothing but love and adoration, thankfulness and gratitude. And fear. So much fear. Cold, paralyzing terror, because I love this man with all my heart, and I know he loves me just as much, but I also know that I'm on a path of self destruction that will ultimately end up pushing him away.

We've been together for 15 years, and best friends for 20. We met as kids, and grew together over the years. I literally cannot imagine life without him. We have a 10 year old son whom we love with all our hearts. He has never cheated on me, he's never laid a hand on me, never a hurtful word, he's been nothing but supportive and caring and loving to me. But after a traumatic event that happened to me 8 years ago, we started to drift apart. We stopped speaking to each other about how we felt, we pulled away from each other in an attempt to spare feelings, and it snowballed into something horrible. Coldness, loneliness, the very opposite of all of the things that a fulfilling relationship should be about. I shut him out to protect myself, I was trying so hard to rebuild myself that I forgot that I needed him.

He finally reached his breaking point and told me he was considering a divorce. It broke me. Completely destroyed me in ways I can't describe. But it also woke something up inside of me that has been dormant since said traumatic event. I realized that I didn't want to pull away from my husband. I didn't want to shut him out. In fact, I needed him more than I ever had before, I was just too afraid to let him in. And he had felt exactly the same. We had been on the same wavelength all this time, we just never actually told each other that.

We spent a month straight exploring these emotions, diving head first into 8 years of unresolved neglect and pain. We opened up to each other in ways we had never done before in a last ditch effort to save our relationship, and ourselves.

And we did.

That was 8 months ago. The most difficult conversation I've ever had was him telling me he felt like I didn't care anymore, and it changed me. It changed me on a visceral level in a way that nothing has before, because I did care. I always have. I just let myself forget, and it almost cost me my soul mate.

Things have been wonderful. We've been open and honest and loving and just happy again.

But that conversation broke something in me, and now I can't shake that fear. The fear that I'm not enough, that all the effort and blood, sweat, and tears I've put into saving our marriage will ultimately be for nothing. He got to a point that he wanted to leave. The thought seemed completely unthinkable to me up until that point. And if he came to that conclusion once, he could potentially come to it again. And that's the fear. My worst nightmare coming true, despite my best efforts. He says he only wanted out because he thought I did, that I didn't care anymore. He says he's been seeing the old me lately, and that he always knew I was still in there somewhere, he had just reached his limit trying to pull me out. But now that I'm here again, he says he's not going anywhere, that he loves me and he'll stay by my side as long as I'm making an effort. And I am. I really really am.

But what if it isn't enough? What if my best isn't enough? If I've given all I have, what more could I do?

I trust him with my whole heart. I know he means what he says. I know he's being truthful about how he feels. But that's how he feels now. What will he feel in a year? In 5 years? I can't control anyone's emotions but my own, and I know better than most that feelings change and there's nothing anyone can do about it. I'm scared that he'll wake up one day with a whole new set of feelings, and there won't be anything I could do to change them.

I need help trusting in...the universe? Myself? I don't know. How do I make this horrible fear and insecurity go away? How do I trust that my best efforts will be enough? There's no way to know for sure what's going to happen in the future, of course, and I'm having trouble accepting that. How do I accept that when he says he's here for life, that that won't change?

How do I stop myself from destroying the trust we have in each other because I can't just accept that he's as committed as he says he is? Where do I even begin?