By Elizabeth Mitchell, BRIDES
Photo: Getty Images
Everyone always says that getting married is one of the best days of your life (and it is!), but what about all of the days that come after the wedding? 10, 20, 30 years down the line, will you still be happily married? Will you still be best friends with your husband, or will your yet-to-be conceived kids be stuck in the middle of a bitter divorce battle? While it's great to be optimistic about what the future holds, the truth is we all have our own fears regarding marriage, and the first step to making sure those fears don't become our future is recognizing them. Whether it's winding up alone or turning into your mom, real brides fess up to the biggest things they're scared of below. It's nice to know you're not alone, right?
1. Getting a divorce
"I don't know if I'll still love my fiancé in 20 years or if he'll still love me, and that's scary. You hear these awful stories of a 50-year-old guy coming home one from work one day and coldly telling his wife of 20 years that he wants a divorce. I never want to be that woman." -- Lacy
2. Losing your spouse
"My fiancé and I both have serious medical issues on our respective sides of the family, making the odds of us having to cope with a long-term and progressively debilitating fatal disease pretty high. While we're doing our best to prepare for the possibility financially, I don't know that we can really ever emotionally prepare ourselves for that." -- Gabby
3. Losing yourself
"I'm afraid we'll become each other's only social outlet and stop having friends. And that in the process, I'll completely lose myself because family comes first." -- Kasey
4. Turning into your parents
"Turning into either set of our parents literally terrifies me. Neither of us grew up with the healthiest idea of what marriage is supposed to look like so it petrifies me that one day we're going to wind up just like them." -- Lauren
5. Infidelity
"My dad cheated on my mom throughout their 29-year marriage, so even though I totally trust my husband, that fear is always in the back of my head." -- Andrea
6. Letting the kids come between you
"My nightmare is becoming so obsessed with my kids that I push my husband away and we never have sex and only talk about little Johnnie's soccer schedule and school work." -- Riley
7. Having financial difficulties
"I'm scared that money will ruin our marriage. I'd love to be a stay-at-home mom eventually, which is a plan that he's also on board with. But what if he loses his job and neither of us can find work? I can only hope that we'll be strong enough to get through anything." -- Danica