Time for some attempts at letting go: baby steps

I am dating a completely amazing man.  He is my other half.  My kind of perfect.  And it scares me.

My issues stem from both my parents and my grandparents relationships.  Both are damaging and horrible in different ways.  My parents (mostly my father) believe that it doesn't affect their offspring or that we are oblivious to it.  My grandparents bring out the worst in eachother.  There is a strange hatred and symbiosis there.  I think of them as equal mutualistic parasites.  They feed off eachothers turmoil.  I could never put someone I love through that.  I fear the perpetuation of either relationship. 

Here we come to my fear of the L word.  Love.  Specifically I love you.  I refused to believe it the first time he said it.   The first time he said it was through text, so I could down play my fear.  However the first time he said it to my face I rolled over.  I was scared.  He held me and we talked about it.  It was the most naked I have ever been, ending with me speaking those words for the first time to any man.  I dont know if he knows that part, but he knows me better than anyone else.  He has been my best friend for years, even when we drift apart it always seems to come back to him.  He is the only one that I have ever thought about marrying.  I have persistently been opposed to the idea since childhood, but it is just different with him.

Cheating still comes into my paranoid mind.  I cant imagine being enough for someone.  It seems like everyone cheats.  I trust that he doen't.  But everything that I know says to be afraid of that.  I know that not everyone cheats.  But I have watched too many people cry over it.  Too many hearts broken.  Slowly I am trusting more, slowly I am pushing that fear away.