My fear of Marriage.

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In less than one year, I will be married.

Married.

It's becoming surreal.

There were many times that I thought this dream would never come true.

But here it is, staring me in the face. 

Can I be honest?

I used to be terrified of getting married. 
When thinking of it, images of running away from the alter filled my mind.

When asked, "Do you want to get married?" 

I would cringe at the thought.

I think that my last relationship had a huge impact on how I looked at marriage. 

When I was younger, I wanted to get married young and have children right away. 

When I met my ex, at a very young age, things changed. 

His outlook on life became mine. And so, we settled on puppies instead. 

Which was fine. But as I got older, my dreams and desires started to creep back up on me. And after quite a few years with my ex, things didn't look like they were ever going to go in the direction that my heart wanted to go. 

There would be no wedding. No children. 

I could accept our life or I could search for what my heart yearned for. 

You can never shut out who you really are. 

It will always come back to you. 

He was all I had known and I loved him wildly. 

But like the song goes, "Took awhile for her to figure out she could run. 

But when she did, she was long gone....long gone. "

I mustered up every ounce of courage I had and walked away. I left. 

And of course, that was when Ty came into my life. 

He came in strong on his white horse, with swords and armor and destroyed my wall of fear and pain. 

He loved me like I had never been loved. 

And you all know how that story went...if you haven't read it yet, you can read it, Here. 

Even after meeting Ty, I didn't think marriage would be for me. 

I had been with someone for 10 years and hadn't figured out it was wrong until the very end. 

How would I be able to really know if someone was marriage worthy in a shorter amount of time? 

Would I have to spend another 10, 15 years getting to know this new man? 

Then Scarlett came, by surprise, and everyone's question was, "When are you getting married?" And my answer was, "We aren't. Not just because we had a baby."

In fact, I was hoping Ty wouldn't propose. 

I didn't want to marry him because he got me knocked up.

If I did get married, I wanted it to be because I chose to spend the rest of my life with him.  

And that was how it was. Time went on. 

Ty completely broke down any discouragement I had about relationships. 

He proved to me over and over again that there are true, good, men out there. 

Men who will never hurt you. 

Men that think you are good enough by yourself. 

Men that will love you hard and fight for you. 

Even when I was ready to walk away from Ty, out of fear, he fought for me. 

He didn't care that it wasn't easy. He didn't care that I was damaged in some aspects. 

He kept pulling me back. I needed that. I needed proof that someone could be so genuine. 

When he surprised me with a ring at dinner, just 2 years after we met, I was in utter shock. For a split second, I thought, "How do I know if this is right?" 

And before I could even think of an answer, it came to me. 

Life is never a guarantee. There are always surprises and things to work on. 

But if I always hold my guard up because of what happened in the past, 

I will never have the future I want. I will always be living in that past. 

I have to take chances, and go with my gut.  

And in my case, that ever-so-strong gut feeling, was Ty. 

I said yes and from that moment on, I knew without a doubt, that I wasn't scared of marriage anymore. 

I am a work in process. 

All the time, everyday. 

Probably for the rest of my life. 

I'm okay with that. 

I look at Ty and think, how did you get so darn wonderful? 

He has many less faults than I and I admire every one of them. 

Marriage is a lot like me. It will be a work in progress for the rest of our lives. 

We will fight, argue, love, forgive, accept, argue again, and love deeper. 

People now days, give up too easily. Nothing is sacred and everything is disposable. 

Back in the old days, people knew how precious life really was and they fought for it. 

They put their heart and soul into it. And when they said, "I do" they meant "I do forever." 

Ty is very old fashion. He has said many times that he would never divorce. 

He would fight for it until his heart no longer could. I love his values. 

They intrigue and inspire me. 

When I say "I do" next June, I am going to be saying it with all of my heart. 

I will promise to fight for Ty how he's fought for me.  

I guess my fear was never really of marriage, but more of failing each other.

I realize now, that I can never fail Ty if I never give up on him.