What My Wife’s College Reunion Taught Me About Belonging, Identity, and Love

By Ed Coambs, LMFT, CFP®, CFT-I™

When I sit down to write these blogs each week, I often picture the people reading them. Sometimes you're my friends—people I’ve shared lunches with, laughed with, or sat beside on a soccer sideline. Other times, you're familiar strangers on my newsletter list, quietly opening these emails each week. And sometimes, you're the clients I've worked closely with for years, weaving parts of your story into mine.

This week, when I sat down to write, something in me softened. I found myself unexpectedly emotional, because the only way to write this post was to tell the truth about belonging, class, identity, marriage, and the parts of ourselves that still feel young and uncertain.

Returning to the Worlds I Never Believed I Belonged In

My wife, Ann, and I flew to Houston and Austin for her college and dental school reunions—a 25-year and 20-year milestone. On the surface, the trip was about her reconnecting with old friends, revisiting meaningful places, and remembering who she was before life, career, kids, and marriage shaped her into who she is now.

But as it turns out, the trip was just as much about me.

Growing up, I never saw myself as the type of person who could attend a prestigious university. I wasn’t guided toward top-tier education. I didn't have the academic preparation, the confidence, or even the awareness that such paths were available to me. The idea of attending a school like Rice—or a medical, dental, or law program—felt like it belonged to a different universe of people.

Smart people.
High-achieving people.
People with connections, advantages, or enormous internal drive.

Not people like me.

So even now, after three graduate degrees, certifications, and building a career I’m incredibly proud of, being around people from those worlds activates something old inside me—an ancient whisper that says: You don’t belong here. You’re the outsider.

And for anyone who grew up outside prestige or wealth, you know what I mean. Class transitions don’t happen neatly. They’re layered. Emotional. Confusing. They require identity updates measured not in weeks, but in years.

Starting the Trip With Someone Who Still Feels Like Family

Before we reached Rice University, we stayed the night with Donna—the mother of my fire academy roommate and dear friend Jordan, who died by suicide more than twenty years ago. Donna was like an adoptive mother to me when I moved from California to Texas as a young adult trying to make my way in the world. She helped me buy my first home. She fed me Thanksgiving dinners at her mother’s table. She offered the kind of ordinary warmth and structure I needed more than I realized.

Being back with her was both comforting and heartbreaking. Some grief never fully leaves; it simply softens enough to live beside us. Ann and I met just days before Jordan’s suicide, and watching Ann and Donna talk and reconnect brought me a sense of peace—two important people from different eras of my life sharing a moment that felt sacred.

The Grounding Power of Newer Friends

The next morning, we met my friend Jonathan and his wife Kristi for breakfast. Jonathan is a fellow financial therapist, a Texan through and through, and someone I love dearly. Sitting there with the four of us reminded me that I didn’t just enter Ann’s world—she also entered mine.

For years, I had unconsciously carried the belief that I left my world behind to join hers—her dental community, her accomplished friends, her highly educated circles. But in truth, I was already moving in that direction. And if we asked Ann, I imagine she also stepped out of some of her social worlds to join mine.

That’s the thing about class transitions in relationships: both partners join new worlds, and both leave something behind.

As I wrote this, I noticed how naturally I began imagining Ann’s experience—what she gained and what she lost by joining her life to mine. That is part of emotional maturing: seeing both our own gains and losses clearly, while also becoming curious about our partner’s.

Our identities are layered. Social class is part of that. And when any part of our identity gets stressed or stretched, our emotions respond.

Looking back, I realize how important it was to spend time with my people before stepping into Ann’s reunion. It helped me recognize myself in our shared journey. Part of healing from anxious attachment is not losing myself in another’s identity, and remembering my inherent worth—not the worth I gain by proximity to someone else.

We left breakfast feeling the beginnings of a couples friendship that I think will grow beautifully in the years ahead.

When My Nervous System Meets Social Class at Rice University

Later that morning, as we walked onto Rice University’s campus, I felt the shift almost instantly. My mind fogged. My chest tightened. My thoughts scattered. I felt myself pulling inward—present in body but absent in spirit. Dissociation felt like a thin layer between me and the world.

From the outside, nothing looked wrong. We were just another couple arriving for a reunion—comfortable clothes, name badges, easy smiles. I know how to play it cool. I know how to shake hands and blend in.

But inside, it was a different story.

There was no threat around me—just joyful alumni greeting each other, hugging, laughing. Yet underneath, a familiar message got louder:
You don’t belong here. You’re out of your depth. Don’t let anyone see it.

That’s the strange part: you can look calm and confident in high-status spaces while your nervous system is quietly panicking. Anxiety, numbness, or fog can run in the background without any words to describe what’s happening.

When Ann and I attended her five-year reunion years ago, I had no language for any of this. I just knew I felt proud and small at the same time. I desperately wanted to belong in her world but didn’t feel like I had earned the right.

This is how psychological and relational growth works:
Our bodies know long before our minds can explain.

Only later do we gain the language—class transitions, attachment, belonging, identity, nervous system regulation. Naming these experiences is part of becoming freer, part of unmasking, part of integrating who we are internally with how we show up publicly.

On this trip, I had more language. And I had Ann.

She noticed immediately. After twenty years, she can feel the shifts in my nervous system before I can articulate them. As our nervous system becomes more dysregulated, our ability to verbalize drops. She reached for my arm gently—attunement, not solution.

That touch created enough space for me to name it:

“I’m overwhelmed,” I said quietly. “My insecurities are activated. My sense of belonging feels shaky.”

Naming didn’t fix everything, but it restored connection. It helped me exhale. And it kept us from drifting into misunderstanding—two people walking through the same space, now with shared understanding.

Finding Steady Ground Again

After dropping Ann off for lunch with her friends, I drove through Rice Village in a reflective haze. Eventually, I parked, grabbed some food, and opened ChatGPT to untangle the swirl inside me.

“What am I feeling?”
“What is this really about?”
“How do I come back online?”

Slowly, clarity returned.

I’ve come to appreciate how helpful it is to have my thoughts mirrored back to me. That mirroring helps me see my internal world more clearly—just like in therapy. When we externalize what’s happening inside and have it reflected back accurately, our brains ease. We feel seen—even by ourselves.

That moment, strangely enough, felt healing.

What This Means for Couples Navigating Identity, Class, and Belonging

Trips like this—family reunions, class reunions, milestone events—stir up more than nostalgia. They activate identity wounds, class transitions, old comparisons, forgotten griefs, and the parts of us still longing for belonging.

This is where long-term relationships show their depth.

Partnership isn’t defined by smooth trips or perfectly aligned emotions. It’s defined by how we respond when one partner is overwhelmed by something invisible.

Here are a few insights this trip offered me:

1. Your partner isn’t responsible for your wounds, but their presence can help you heal.

Ann didn’t cause my belonging insecurities. But her gentle presence helped me move through them without shame.

2. Emotional dysregulation isn’t a relationship problem; it’s a nervous system response.

Fog, panic, dissociation—these responses are ancient. When couples understand this, blame dissolves and compassion takes root.

3. Class transitions always activate the question: “Do I belong?”

Upward, downward, lateral—every class movement stirs identity. Understanding this eases money conversations.

4. Belonging becomes a shared responsibility.

You may not share each other’s past, but you can share meaning-making.

5. Love isn’t the absence of insecurity; love is the presence that stays when insecurity rises.

This trip wasn’t perfect. But it was honest. And honesty grows intimacy.

The Heart of It All

We don’t get to choose which parts of our past get activated. But we do get to choose how we respond—to ourselves and to each other.

We can choose honesty.
Compassion.
Naming what’s hard.
Staying present even when uncomfortable.
Recognizing that money, class, identity, and belonging are intertwined.
Holding each other tenderly in the places that still feel young and afraid.

This is the real work of long-term partnership.
This is financial intimacy.
This is relational intimacy.
This is human intimacy.

Imperfect, nonlinear, messy—
and profoundly worth it.

Always.

If this stirred something in you…

Maybe you’re navigating your own identity evolution.
Maybe you and your partner are climbing the social class ladder and feeling the growing pains.
Maybe reunions or milestones are stirring up things you didn’t expect.
Maybe parts of this story felt uncomfortably familiar.

If you’d like a safe, grounded place to explore your own journey—and how these themes show up in your relationship—I’d be honored to talk.

👉 Schedule a time to connect: 

You don’t have to figure out identity, belonging, or financial intimacy alone.

Wishing you financial Intimacy,
Ed