14 Irrational Fears All Women Have About Love

Getting married is perhaps one of the biggest commitments out there. And, since women have been found in countless studies not to be risk takers, we of course have to consider every single possible thing that could go wrong the moment it looks like our relationship might be headed in the direction of marriage. In the pursuit of being rational we can become very irrational. Here are 14 irrational fears we’ve all had about love the second things feel too good to be true.

My boyfriend misses his ex

“When he’s making love to me, he’s picturing her. When he finds me in his shower in the morning, he wants it to be her on the other side of the door. Their relationship was perfect—this is a second tier relationship.” Okay, remember they broke up for a reason: they weren’t getting along anymore! He doesn’t forget that and neither should you.

I have a breakdown coming and don’t even know it

“Even though I feel perfectly stable and a therapist couldn’t find anything wrong with me, one day I’m going to totally lose it, become paranoid, hear voices, see things that aren’t there and lose all my senses. And my partner will be terrified and leave me.” Newsflash: nobody just goes from perfectly sane to crazy in one day. You’d be feeling strange enough long before that to seek out professional help, and get back on track.

My boyfriend is a sociopath with three families

“He seems perfectly nice and ethical, but it’s all an act. Maybe he’s an incredible actor, or just such a sociopath, and it doesn’t phase him to sleep next to me one night and then sleep next to three different wives the rest of the week! And I’d never even detect it!” Give yourself some credit: you did a lot of bullsh*t filtering during your single days. You can tell a phony from the real thing.

Sex is more important than love to men

“Sure my partner and I have the same values and laugh together a lot, but he’d much rather be with a woman who was a sexual goddess and did everything he wanted in bed, and was just quiet the rest of the day.” Um….does that set up sound fun to you? No? That’s because you’re humans and humans are social, emotional beings. So is your partner. He doesn’t want a sex robot: he wants you.

My partner will wake up one day and want out

“One day, after years of being together, buying a home together and having children together, my partner will wake up, look at me, feel suffocated and realize he wishes he was still a bachelor and leave.” Be real: he’s invested as much time and emotions into this as you have!

He has one that got away out there

“He’ll never, ever tell me but I know…I just know…there is a ‘one that got away’ out there for him and he pines after her. And if he ever found her again, he’d drop everything to be with her. If this were a movie, I’d just be a side story to their major romance. I’m not the leading lady in his life.” Men don’t think like that: they’re pretty rational. If they didn’t totally want to be with you, they wouldn’t be.

He tells his friends what a nag I am

“Everything I see in the movies is true: when my guy is watching football with his friends, he talks about how annoying everything is that I do, and then they all talk about the nice rack on the bartender and all the dirty things they’d do to her.” To assume this is to assume men met thousands of years ago and agreed to pretend to be good people in front of women, and totally flip a switch and become jerks when no women are around. And while some guys do do that, you can usually tell right away the ones that do. Think Barney from “How I Met Your Mother”—pretty transparent.

All married couples end up hating each other

“We’ll have five, maybe ten good years, and then we’ll get bored of each other, stop having sex, and just accept a love-less marriage. That’s just the way it works.” You just think that because of all the divorced couples you know but the ones who stay together do so for a reason: they enjoy a deep bond, and you can too.

My partner will become bored of me and not tell me

“He’ll think that all I talk about is work or yoga or how the garden is looking, and I won’t even realize how boring I’ve become, and he won’t tell me—he’ll just tune me out—and we’ll stop communicating.” You’d get bored too if all you spoke about was yoga and gardening! You’ll notice yourself getting boring long before your partner does and you’ll do something about it.

Everyone is unfaithful

“Infidelity is an inevitable part of life. Everybody cheats; even the good people.” Do you feel like you could cheat on someone? No? Then not everybody cheats.

If I fail at my career, my partner won’t be attracted to me

“I better be rich and famous in my field or else my partner will think I’m a loser and be ashamed of me.” You weren’t rich and famous when the two of you met and he fell in love with you! That’s because he fell for your qualities that will never change like your sense of humor and your values. Those will be there even as money comes and goes.

I’ll become dependent on another person

“I can’t get too comfortable having love and support in my life because I’ll become dependent on my partner and won’t know how to take care of myself should something happen to him or should we split up.” Having someone there for you is one of the greatest feelings on the planet and while, yes, getting comfortable in that puts you at risk for heartbreak, keeping distant from people forever to avoid heartbreak is heartbreaking on its own.

“The one” is out there and this isn’t him

“Even though I’m madly in love with my partner and this feels right, maybe ‘the one’ is out there and this isn’t him and I’m not following my destiny!” There’s no such thing as “the one.” If everything feels right, then you’re currently with one of the many people you could be happy with. Consider yourself lucky to have found one!