The INSIDER Summary:
- Kim Kardashian opened up about her feelings before and after her 2011 wedding to Kris Humphries.
- She said she had doubts and that her mom offered to "handle it" while she walked away from the marriage.
- Kardashian said she brushed it off as cold feet but that it was actually indicative of larger doubts about her relationship.
- It can be hard to distinguish real doubts from cold feet, but there are some ways to tell.
Kim Kardashian and Kanye West may seem like they've always been a power couple, but you might remember that Kardashian had a 72-day marriage to basketball player Kris Humphries way back in 2011.
While the short-lived marriage was the subject of tabloid fodder and late-night jokes, Kardashian revealed the real panic she felt just before the televised wedding.
In a massive interview the Kardashian and Jenner sisters gave to The Hollywood Reporter on the occasion of their show's 10th year, Kim explained the doubt and indecision she felt just before the wedding, saying that her mother, Kris Jenner, offered to scrap the whole ceremony for her.
"The night before, my mom pulled me aside, off camera, and was like, 'This isn't it for you. Why don't you go away and I'll handle it?'" Kardashian told The Hollywood Reporter.
Kim said that even producers on the show, who would have had a stake in the televised weddings' success, offered her an out.
"There was all this attention on the wedding, and I thought maybe it was just the pressure of the show giving me this anxiety," she told the Reporter. "My friends told me I just had cold feet, but even the producers said, 'You don't seem happy. You don't have to go through with this.'"
Many married couples can probably identify a bit with Kim's anxiety going into the wedding — even if theirs wasn't set to air as a television special. It's natural for prospective brides and grooms to get "cold feet" before the wedding and it's not always an indicator that you're unhappy. But how do you know if that anxiety is healthy or if it's a sign you shouldn't be going through with your wedding?
If you find out some red flags about your partner, it's more than cold feet.
If your partner decides pre-wedding is a great time to reveal some skeletons in their closet, it's, of course, going to make you feel more than a little anxious.
While it's great that they want to let you know this information before you make a formal and legal commitment, they also need to understand that dropping a bomb on you could make you want to back out of the marriage.
Put the actual wedding out of your mind: if they would have told you that information after a few months of dating, with no proposal in sight, would you have stayed in the partnership?
If the answer is no, it's a good sign that those pre-wedding jitters are actually fears about your marriage. It may be best to call it off and give yourself some more time to process this info — or end the relationship all together.
If thinking about being with that person forever makes you want to cry, it might not be cold feet.
Weddings, though magical, are stressful as hell. That can put some serious strain on any partnership and even make the marriage itself seem scary.
But if you can put the wedding itself aside in your mind and just think about the rest of your life with that person and it still doesn't seem appealing to you, your cold feet may be less about the wedding, and more about choosing the wrong person.
"Picking" a life partner is stressful, so it is natural to feel nervous about it. But if you don't feel at least a little bit of a relief along with that stress, the outlook for your marriage might be bleak.
If you talk to your married friends or trusted advisers, and that doesn't calm you, it might be more than cold feet.
The best advice you can get is from people who have been there before. Everyone's experiences with weddings are different and some of your friends may never admit to having cold feet, but hearing their perspectives can help put yours in check.
If you don't have many married friends, or one's who are willing to get real with you, you can talk to trusted family or spiritual advisers or a therapist. They'll most likely have had friends or clients who have gone through something similar and can help you see how your doubts stack up to those peoples'.
Obviously, you know yourself best, but if those close to you think that your doubts are more substantial than "holy crap, I'm committing to someone forever and ever, that's crazy!" then it may be worth thinking about calling it off.
So it's more than cold feet: what now?
In an interview with producer and TV host Ryan Seacrest, he told the Hollywood Reporter that Kim Kardashian called him days after the wedding and was very candid about the doubts she still had about Humphries.
"It was just a few days after, and she just didn't feel like it was right," he told them.
Of course, knowing that she and Humphries would split just two months after they married, we know that Kardashian's cold feet were more than just some jitters.
There is something to be said for that correlation: A 2012 study conducted by the University of California, Los Angeles claimed that couples who admitted to feeling cold feet are about 2.5 times more likely to end up divorced than those who don't. But keeping your cold feet to yourself is not a way to prevent a split for happening.
Be open with your partner about your doubts. They may be feeling the same way, which can lead you both to a solution that works for you — wedding or not.
If the talk comes as a surprise to them, well, its better that they know now, before consenting to marry someone who is essentially a ticking time bomb of doubt and fear.
Doubts about your marriage do not have to spell the end of your relationship, but it might. Wanting to have a wedding does not outweigh the potential lifetime ahead of unhappiness if you're not sure.
And who knows, you could even split with a Kris, only to get your very own Kanye West.
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