Hello liz, and congratulations on having built such a wonderful life for yourself and your new family.
If I may, I'd like to give a guy's perspective on this. I don't know if it applies to your guy, so take whatever fits and leave the rest.
That is not the way I see women. Whether friends, relatives or my two XAW's. I see ladies as "confident women". What counts, in my mind, is _not_ what a woman has on the outside. Whether it be profession, degrees, or the color of her hair. What I want in a partner is what she has on the _inside_. Kindness, compassion, courage.
As a BTW, both my XAW's are highly educated career women of the kind you describe, so I am speaking from experience.
I know a lot of guys like that. My experience is, as others have said, that if your guy's priorities were about a woman's _outsides_ then he never would have approached you in the first place. Never mind developed a relationship with you. He sounds like the kind of guy who is well aware of what he wants in life and has no problem going out and getting it. If he wanted a brain-dead trophy wife to show off to his buddies, he would have one.
For the important things. He needs someone who will be a role model to _his_ kids. I can't think of anything more important than exposing your child to good role models. To find someone who can be both a partner _and_ a role model is priceless.
If your guy is like me then he needs you to be yourself. He needs you to share your wisdom, your love for children, your sense of humor, your opinion on important decisions that affect the family. To share the "load" of being a "team" in a world that is far too ugly and cruel.
Oh he already has seen the real you. Just like you have seen the real him. He knows that what you really are is just another human being like everybody else. All us humans have all these insecurities you mention, some people are better at hiding them, that's the only difference.
From what you have shared it seems to me like you are doing just fine. You are coming from a huge amount of stress and dsyfunction that surrounded your entire life. Which makes you pretty much "normal" out there in the real world. The only thing "not normal" about you is how much work you have done to get rid of all that "brainwashing" that was forced upon you. Not a whole lot of people are willing to better themselves to the extent you have.
From a guy's perspective, the fact that you are a _normal_ person with all the normal "debris" that results from living life and yet you are _flourishing_ in spite of it all makes you plenty exceptional.
I know very little about you, only the things you have shared here on SR, but that's enough for me to know that you are a real "catch". Your guy is both lucky to have met you and smart to have courted you.
Mike
