Here's what really happens between "I Said Yes" and "I Do" (Hint: It's not all good!)

So I know yesterday was Valentine's Day and every one is high off the chocolates and love. While I love love and I am always down for an excuse to celebrate, lately I've been feeling really frustrated by the lack of honest depictions of what love looks like in those real moments between the holidays and the Made for the 'Gram moments. Being in the midst of my engagement and (sort of) wedding planning, I needed to find some support to understand the crazy range of emotions I've been feeling over the last few months.

Since my fiancé and I got engaged, I've felt everything from pure joy, to anger to deep sadness and then guilt for feeling any feeling other than how lucky i was to be marrying such a great guy. I wasn’t sure who would understand what I was going through and didn’t want to seem like a brat, so mostly I said nothing. The less I said, the worse I felt. My engagement, which we're told is supposed to be one of the happiest times in our lives, just kept getting lonelier and more isolated until the thought of getting married got collapsed with how isolated I felt and I just stopped planning or discussing my wedding all together. I knew something had to be done and quickly because my fiance deserved better than me clamming up and being weird about our forever commitment.

Enter Emotional Engaged: A Bride's Guide to Surviving the "Happiest" Time of Her Life. 

Absolute. Game. Changer.

This instructional, self-help style book by therapist Allison Moore-Smith offers insight from women Allison herself and women who she has worked with in her practice.Reading the stories of other women who have experienced this same roller coaster provided me with much needed community and a sense of normalcy where social media images of perfectly executed weddings and staged engagement photos left me feeling crazy. Stories of how women experienced challenges with their families, friends, even growing communication issues with their fiances offered insight into the very natural roller coaster of emotions and stages one will experience during an engagement

Here are a few major keys I walked away with:

1) Your Engagement is a Rites of Passage. It should be honored as such.

Once people get engaged, the emphasis is placed primarily on the wedding celebration. In traditional cultures,  ceremonies that allowed space for people to process the emotional aspects of important life transitions with a community of elders and peers.  In America, we throw showers and parties but rarely do we provide the kind of community that women (and men) really need during this time. It is critical that engaged couples seek out their own community and create their own rituals to help them transition safely into wedded bliss. This might look like a small ceremony with yourself and a few of your girlfriends where you give away special items that remind you of your single life to demonstrate the completion of that chapter. It may look like a special evening with a few of your married friends where you're able to ask to freely ask any questions or have them share their experience of being engaged. Whatever it is, do not mistake this work for the Hangover- type bachelor and bachelorette parties we've come to known as the American marker for rites of passages.  Feel free to get Bridesmaid wasted if you want, but make sure to set aside some quite time to be with your thoughts and feelings.

2) Being a Bridezilla is actually good for you. 

Fixating on certain parts of the wedding is often a physical representation of something that you need to deal with psychologically. Obsessed with seating charts? You may be struggling with the roles of people in your lives and how they will change. Struggling with how you're going to pay for the wedding? You may need to address your hangups about money with your hubby. Cant say yes to the dress? You may need to think through what your role/image will be once your a wife. The important thing is to not let wedding become a distraction but to notice the areas that cause you to lose sleep and examine what might be behind it.

3) All Emotions Are Valid.

This one was the biggest takeaway for me. There is no right way to feel during this time. Such a big shift can trigger all kinds of other emotions. Going through such a major transition can bring up feelings of inadequacy, grief, questions of identity, even trigger past traumas that you thought you laid to rest. It was can also bring about feelings of euphoria and ecstasy that are almost possible to maintain. The most important thing, in an engagement and always, is to feel your feelings. Reserve judgement and allow them to come and trust that they will go just as quickly.

For many, engagements will be a myriad of emotions and all of it is perfectly ok. Of course, if you are concerned that maybe it more than cold feet or pre-wedding jitters, you may want to seek counsel to figure out if you really are ready to be married and to this particular person. Trust your self and your experience and your partner so that your engagement and your marriage can be all that <em>you</em> need it to be.

Are you experiencing an emotional engagement? What has helped you to stay sane and grounded during this process? Please share in the comments below.