Hello. My girlfriend and I have been dating for about 2 years now and recently became engaged. Before I proposed to her i had various friends and acquaintanced tell me that she was wondering if i was going to ask her to marry her or if i even wanted to get married. I finally asked her about a month ago to marry me. She told me i caught her off guard that she wasnt expecting it. She was also concerned that lately my communication, in general, with her had gotten poor. Nevertheless she said yes but was concerned that she wanted to see some improvement in my communication with her. I agreed. We finally got to talking about the wedding and other things in general where she said she noticed Ive improved my communication skills among other things. My concern is that since i proposed to her there has been this sort of "distant" feeling between us where we dont quite joke around as before or our intiment playing around in general is not the same. Ive dont various romantic gestures that she really enjoyed but I cant figure out how to get rid of this distant feeling between us and get back to normal relaxed mode that we used to have. Women's comments here are greatly appreciated. What am I doing wrong? Thanks

Uh-oh. Bad signs. She is acting like a bad wife already, distancing herself, criticizing your communication skills and not returning your advances...be very direct with her, ask her what is bothering her, maybe it's just the wedding, it's a bigger deal for women than for guys. Since she complimented your communication lately, things can be back on the upswing if she also communicates well, just get past this bump in the road.

I wasnt too happy about having stipulations regarding her saying yes to my proposal, but then I put myself there by letting my communicatons with her degrade, so I think thats fair. Nobody wants to be with someone who wont talk to them. Since then we've talked about many aspects of the engagement such as kids, home, etc... but everything we talk about sort of feels more businesslike than personal. I would think a woman getting engaged would be excited and joyful about it and not just go through the motions. Ive asked her a few times if she truly is happy and if this is what she wants and she's told me yes every time, but not with a lot of compassion. I dont know if she's still a little scared, which i can understand since this is a big step for her or if she's just trying to convince herself this is what she wants. Naturally shes probably not going to say no unless she unequivocally doesnt want to, afraid to say so and give up what we have. I just want to see that passionate gleem in her that she had before that tells me she truly wants to be with me and our engagement. This somewhat passionless distance i feel sure makes me feel insecure with us, on edge, and sometimes aggravated because if were going to be married and shes happy then we shouldnt have this oddness between us. How could i truly find out if shes happy, but just scared a little? I could understand that since shes never been engaged or married. She said she was sort of overwhelmed with everything. From a womans point of view is that normal? Thanks for everything, much appreciated.

Yeah, I can see how you would expect her to be kind of overwhelmed, and to be so excited that she would have that gleam in her eye at least some of the time.
I have seen so many couples who look like they are going through the motions and a few years later they are not together anymore. Passion has to be there, even if it means that she goes bonkers and get angry with you out of proportion, sometimes she'll be crazy happy with you beyond reason. If that isn't there, which seems to be what you are saying, how do you get it back? Can you get it back? Does she acknowledge that?

"businesslike" isn't something you want to include in these aspects of anticipating marriage, don't like the sound of that.

Hope you get some femme responses, maybe tryo ther baords, this one is not very active, you might have noticed.

Good luck, let us know.