Do I want to be the Pot or the Kettle? (Stella)

I am dating a new man. Yea!! right? Um, no. I stopped getting excited about new relationships years ago. Now I approach them like I'm walking up quietly on a venomous snake that will snap my neck in two if I startle it. Somehow in my head I'll find my husband when I can get my arms around the scary snake before he notices I'm there. Unfortunately, for me that's what relationships have become. Everyone says - Have fun! Enjoy it! I laugh a dry, sarcastic laugh and say uh-huh. To my sweet married friends who didn't date past the age of 23 and have absolutely no idea the trauma of adult dating I tell them - you go and have 8 miscarriages and then tell me you're excited when you get pregnant again. A rather gruesome analogy but it gets my point across.

So this new fellow...he's great. Not just great, amazing. A 'real' grownup with a career, a home, and a life prepared to provide for a family. He is marriage minded and makes it very clear that I am being evaluated for future wifehood. That makes him sound methodical and cunning but he's quite the opposite. Despite being scarred by a painful divorce he is open and honest with his feelings, his fears, and his hopes. He treats me like a princess and trips over himself to take care of me. He's the kind of guy I've waited decades for. I'm having a wonderful time and feeling all those warm fuzzy feelings and yet...

I'm freaking out.

Why? Because THIS ONE is different. It feels totally different - as if it has real possibility. This one is all the things the others were not and this one just might be it. Funnily, I find myself (inside anyway) acting just like the men from my past who were so happy to be in a relationship until it turned serious and then they were clawing to get away. I absolutely refuse to let fear ruin my future or my possibilities so I charge ahead and tell "the jerk" (my special name for satan) to jump in a ditch 'cause I'm not listening!

That said I find it hysterical that I find myself (through honest means of heart shattering experiences) acting just like those men I've dated before who let their fears and insecurities make their decisions for them. I hate that and I absolutely refuse to be that person but it's interesting none the less that these feelings are so powerful.

The future is not yet decided and we're certainly not at a point of making any announcements but I thought I would throw out these thoughts and remind myself of my favorite Book of Mormon verse:

Moroni 7: 12 - Wherefore, all things which are good cometh of God; and that which is evil cometh of the devil; for the devil is an enemy unto God, and fighteth against him continually, and inviteth and enticeth to sin, and to do that which is evil continually.

In honor of my future family I say - If the jerk can't find a ditch I have a few other suggestions...