Lots of good input and advice here! Sorry I took so much time coming back.
Tying loose ends now.
You said--
"I don't understand where is the line between loving yourself and having the desire to feel "protected" and secure with someone else."
To allow someone into your life and love can add sooo many blessings. So nice to be affectionately taken care of and cherished unconditionally for 'who you are'...
Sometimes, if you don't already have a level of self-security and love, then the love and protection that another pours into you might not be felt at the fullest level you can have, because, it can feel as though you have holes that leak out all the attention the partner can give. Then you might start mistaking 'clues' that you misinterpret as rejection, or rejecting-behavior, even reacting through a dark sense of abandonment... which might unconsciously 'set up' that relationship FOR perpetuating and *proving* lack of love.
Having a wonderful Understanding partner can go far to help heal any wounds you might have from your past.
And you'll be able to more-fully enjoy a relaxed and reciprocal relationship when you yourself are full of Love. Dry periods can come. You need to be able to maintain a fortified sense of your own self during those times. (That would go for your partner too. Self-Love, self-care, allows love to enjoy a freedom.)
Give and take. Love deepens, and matures. Many life-struggles, of course. You knock each other's corners off (ego). But when you come back to yourselves and practice seeing each other through the eyes of Kindness and grace and forgiveness-- you find you have Grown, and Deepened, and Widened.
RE ~arranged marriages....
I only mentioned that because it reminded me of some fun and entertaining cultural Traditions around some marriage-ceremonies.
There are families of people who do an 'enactment' where the spouse, or the spouse's friends, come to "steal the bride."
This can happen at the engagement, or before the ceremony; some pull these pranks after the vows are officiated.
In the passage of time where the bride might be changing into another dress or out refreshing herself, they will block her entrance into the Wedding reception hall. In the mean while, the new groom, who awaits her appearance, is approached and told he has to perform (silly) tasks, in order to 'earn' the right to be with his new bride. ...
Maybe (being whimsical here) your Future-Beaux might come from a cultural background like this? (Just playing a bit with the idea here!)
Oh. The other reason I 'waited' a bit before coming back.. is a bit surreal (for me). I was shocked reading your dream. I had had a dream almost identical to the one you posted, just before I met a person whom I married.
Does NOT mean that what happened to me, will happen to you---- (I used to have precognitive type dreams in my past.)
I had typed up the post about my dream, and the circumstances around it, then backed out of posting it because I didn't want you to feel a bad omen.
Just before I had my dream, I had been spending some time communing with God about my life.
I expressed to God how satisfied I was with 'being single'... and that I could stay SATISFIED being that way for the rest of my life!
Then, I had the dream.
Then, a man stepped into my single-world and disrupted what I had seen in my trajectory in life.
With that one, I SHOULD have heeded warning signs-- the intense and excessive nervous signals he gave out were NOT normal engagement and marriage jitters. On the wedding night, and during the next 5 days, then few weeks, I discovered he had been 'hiding' some crucial secrets about him and his life-- that he probably knew would have been deal-breakers for me had I known.
I kept 'overriding' the clues I saw, always giving him respectful 'privacy' and the benefit of the doubt.
And that was just-me---- Now, we'll talk about YOU!
I LOVE the sexiness in your dream. The sassy-passionate tossing or throwing of the beer, and the affections that were present-- The way the groom seemed angry-yet maybe not? LOL.
You could trust in him. The trust grew. He was 'there' for you. You were 'together' in your sense and validating each other's thoughts and premonitions.... no matter what could befall.
*sigh* ..... That's a great Dream.
We are BOTH Romantic Hearts!
I HOPE you 'find' the Quality of LOVE you wish-- one that will Grow and Flourish, and Be EVER-Lasting and True.
Love yourself first... Be Completed.
Then, be One + One ...
United for a Greater Higher Love.