you're all i've ever wanted, but i'm terrified of you

i'd imagined it would bring me such comfort. but, oh, it's made me squirm. it's made me the grand inquisitor, seeking out any and all potential, hypothetical, looming, lurking flaws in our relationship. i want to cut them off at the pass. i want to smother and suffocate and drown and squelch. it has made me so violent. i want to bind and tether and lasso and shackle.
so much fear.
the rest of my life is huge.
the rest of his is huger.
it makes me such a controlling bitch.
i want to know everything, anything.
i want to know that our interaction boasts the kind of sealant that won't allow us to break carelessly apart and drift aimlessly separately until we finally awake next to each other and realize that the bunched wad of sweat-dampened sheet is all that remains between us.
i don't want us to be like so many others...cheating, cheating, cheating, sometimes never touching, but cheating nonetheless. not wanting each other. not needing each other. not remembering the love we once had for each other.
the new prospect i'd so symbolically contorted has caught me in the twisted tail of its emotionally muddled funnel cloud. i am awash in delight and petrification, thrill and terror, anticipation and ambivalence.
i will marry him with all my heart. i need to trust he'll do the same. and that, ten years later, we'll both be glad we did.
the panic only exists in a comparative context. when i am alone with him, i am not panicky. i know that he loves me, don't doubt when he says it. it's only when she walks by with her fiery locks or her wide, doey eyes or her tiny waist or her hipster affect or her bursting bosom or her lilting accent, it's only when his eyes surrpetitiously scan the horizon to see where she went, it's only when he watches as she remains an intriguing enigma walking out the door, fascinating him. it's only then that my chest clenches. it's only then that i squeeze his hand and beg him to remind me that he loves me. it's only then that i wonder how he could look at that and enjoy that and turn back to me without balking, without being terribly letdown.
but.
i've been acutely aware of other men noticing me because i've made myself aware, because i've forced myself to consider that maybe other men look at me the way he looks at them. walking from the hospital doors, i caught the construction workers leering as i crossed the street. reading that heavy book on the train, i felt the conductor's eyes boring into me. standing in that long line with my nose in my book, i looked up and caught him, bright, eager and way too young, interested, watching me. he grinned sheepishly at me from his place in line as i walked past him and out the door. in class, i sat again with my nose thrust between the pages of my book, filthy from hammering and sweeping and yanking carpet tacks, loose grubby jeans spattered with chunky spackle; so many seats were open, yet one-by-one they chose the seats around me, then deliberately distracted me from my book. he called attention to me too many times to be comfortable, addressed me directly, stared me in the face as he pretended to address the class. then, he did the same, making an effort to learn only my name, noticeably and effortfully placing my green-inked information card at the top of his pile, telling me in lab that he would make it his goal to make me smile at least once every class period, appreciating that i was the sole student in the room who understood the word facetious. then dreadlocked he waited longer than he should have to hold the door for me.
i am desirable. i just don't ever notice that other men respond to me. because i'm so caught up in him and what he means to me. because i allow him to fill that role so completely. and everyone else is just a pawn. sort of useless and redundant.
no one could possibly interest me the way he does. so i ignore them entirely. maybe it's important to acknowledge their existence, if only to keep me grounded in some sort of relative reality.
in bed last night, his words penetrated me. i needed them. i needed to know that some things scare him, too. because he is such a rock, and because he flows so easily into the cracks of my own, makes it solid, keeps me strong and whole.
she told me that i should understand that my insecurity undermines the strength she knows i have. she pointed out that the things i take for granted are not things that everyone can do.
the qualities i most value in myself are qualities not readily associated with desirability. i am resilient, i am capable, and i am considerate.
i am also strong.
somehow.
but he still made me blush when he addressed me so directly tonight.
so there are weaknesses. and something about his lusty manner identified it immediately. thrice, i was first to turn away.
he wears a wedding band.
i don't ever want my own husband to feel he needs to do that.
again: fear and the ensuing grasping for control.
what makes me panic is that strength, resilience, capability and consideration are not the sort of things that men whip up for themselves in a heated moment of visualization. i want to be his desdemona. i want him to look at other women, even those who have actively sexed themselves up for his benefit, and shrug because they're not the prototype, because they're not me. even if desdemona was stephanides' sister, he couldn't help wanting her with such permeating fervor that every other woman was not enough for him. incest aside, that's the kind of woman i want to be for him. i need to stop applying everything i see and hear and read to our relationship. cancerous me, i am such the die-hard romantic. inside my tough casing, i am utter mush.
and i told him i thought it might be bad that he knows the mush he makes me. it's empowering in ways both good and bad. he said he's aware that it could make him take me for granted. and he said that's part of why he wants to try to be more emotionally candid with me. he is devoted. he is true. i need to trust that.
he's talking about houses and says he's excited that i'm suddenly web surfing through silk and froufrou, fantasizing ceremonies in my mind, dreaming vows in my sleep, adding songs to our imaginary playlist. i know he loves me and will marry me just for that. somehow, i need to find a way to pipe this knowledge directly, rapidly to my brain when she walks by so that i can remember that our love is bigger than her breasts, deeper than his gaze.