Concerned about friend who will be getting married soon!

[smilesdd]

Hi! Thanks for reading my post. I have a very good friend of mine who is 33 years old and is engaged to a man she has known for one year. They are very different from each other and since I've known my friend for the past 5 years, I've noticed a change in her since she started dating her now fiance. It's not a terrible change, but she now drinks, uses more advanced vocabulary that I'm sure that he uses and has become even more insecure. He moved to her area last year and he didn't know anyone, so she took it upon herself to be his only social life and has been with him almost every day since they started dating. I didn't quite think that was healthy with them being together so much or the fact that she was evolving into someone I didn't recognize. I really don't think she has shown him her "real" self in fear that he would not like her as much and now I think, everything is backlashing into her face.

Well, fast forward several more months and they are engaged. They are getting married in a couple of months and she is absolutely miserable planning her wedding basically b/c of her fiance. He takes a long time to make a decision and doesn't even trust her to pick out an appropriate evite for their wedding, so he wants to do it. She mentioned to me that she thinks that she is "temporary" for him, and that he will end up with a gorgeous business woman of some sort. She also mentioned to me that she's been tempted to take off her wedding ring a couple of times to affect him during one of their fights. She is so frustrated and told me that she didn't know how hard work a relationship was.

Since I know her so well and I know her true self, I really don't recognize her anymore and it hurts to see her like this. Should I talk to her about my concerns here? She is really fragile right now, but I'm so concerned for her well being.

[IndigoGal]

I don't really have good advice for you here. I've been in some awfully similar situations and I never know what to do either. I usually end up just asking them a couple of leading questions, but refusing to give my opinion or advice, and don't push the issue. I will say that of the four situations I'm thinking of, two ended in divorce, one is just in a very unhappy marriage (that would have ended by now if they weren't dead broke), and the other ended up having second thoughts (partially prompted by me and partially by her mother and another friend) and broke it off.

It's really going to depend on your relationship with this friend and who she is. If you aren't careful, you're the girl who told her not to get married, and she might hold that against you, whether that's because she doesn't marry the guy and wishes she did, or does and knows you don't approve of him. Of course you could also be the girl who saves her from a horrible situation. I'm a huge help aren't I? I just wanted to commiserate, I guess. Good luck.

[smilesdd]

Thanks so much for your response, your words were very helpful. I think that if i do express my concerns to her, she will just become even more insecure about things and I don't want to be the bad guy here. It's just so hard to witness a very difficult relationship in front of my eyes, mainly b/c I've been through it and relationships really should not be consisted of insecurity and lots of anger and tears. I've been through it before and to see her go through it herself to the man she is about to marry, really is hard to see. I guess things could get better for her or worse, it's really out of my control. Thanks again.