Confused over cancelled wedding

[Anna6567]

I recently cancelled my wedding to long term partner because I was feeling overwhelmed and having doubts about getting married.

I've been working through things with a counsellor who has helped my identify some of my negative thinking traits and tracing back the source of some of my anxieties.

At times I feel I am making good progress with the counselling and can see my anxiety is perhaps not based on any real issue with my relationship, and more rooted in my anxious thinking and difficulty in making decisions etc.

On the other hand, I worry that I'm working on convincing myself that things are ok and salvageable when they're really not. The old doubt means don't mentality springs to mind - but my counsellor has said this is not true and especially for people with anxiety problems.

I'm just struggling with my feelings of disappointment and failure just now about how this is all panning out. I should be enjoying being newly married and instead I'm picking apart my life with my FI and feeling like I've messed everything up and things can never be good or right again.

I almost feel like I should just run away from it all. My counsellor has said that I shouldn't throw the baby out with the bath water. But I've never heard of anyone in this situation before. We are supposed to be happy to be married. What does it say about me - and my relationship - that I've ended up making such a mess of getting married and now trapped in limbo.

I feel like I'll never know what's the anxiety and what's my gut talking to me.

I'm not even sure what I'm writing this for. I guess I'm hoping for someone to be able to relate to my situation.

I'm feeling so ashamed of myself just now and just have no faith in my ability to make the right decision and I'm just being so horrible to my FI and acting so distant because I don't know how to process all of this and move forward.

[summerainbow]

Not sure who your Fl as it not something I had seen on here.
You should very confused
And maybe ill
Very glad you getting help
Work on yourself forget about your relationship for now.

[TheNaze73]

Hi Op. Didn't want to read & run. Could you clarify what FI is?

[ClaraLane]

FI is future intended I think.

[PotteringAlong]

Could or does your fiancé see a future with you? If not then anything else is academic, regardless of what you want.

[Anna6567]

Hi - sorry FI was short for fiancé.

My fiancé very much wants a future for us and is being very patient and supportive while i work though these issues.

I have suffered from anxiety before and I'm just so sad that it's come back at a time when I should have been happy and I feel like it's ruining everything. Or maybe it's not anxiety and I'm just not meant to marry him.

I just don't know, it's so confusing.

Has anyone else had to postpone a wedding due to these kinds of issues and managed to work through them? I never used to question my relationship and now it's all I do. I'm so uncertain and just want to feel normal again

[RedMapleLeaf]

Have you talked to your counsellor about this aspect? The torture of it all does sound like anxiety though.

[WingsofNylon]

This is a very hard situation for anybofnus to advise on. You do sound confused. I'm just going to highlight the positive things that you have already said.

1. You are seeking support.
   
2. Your partner appears to be supportive of you and your anxiety.
   

Here are some things to get to the bottom of. These are based on my own axiety around my own upcoming marriage and nothing more.

1. What specifically do you question about the relationship? It is about yourself, them, how you treat each other etc.
   
2. Is it the wedding or the marriage that concerns you? I realised the things I was worried about related to the day and not the life after which helped me put it in perspective.
   
3. Have you talked to your gp?
   

These aren't intended as questions for you to answer on here Iraq in just questions for you to mull over.

[WingsofNylon]

*Iyswim not iraq

[Anna6567]

My thoughts are all over the place - I just feel so confused. And angry - why did this have to happen? It's ruined everything, I've ruined everything, I've made a joke of my relationship and I can't ever change that. I'll never be able to get married and so I think it's best to end things as I'm clearly not in a good relationship if I can't even manage to get married so no point wasting more of his time or mine.

I was just so happy when we got engaged - I did feel anxious about the day itself but I so wanted to get married that I thought that would keep my anxiety at bay. I feel like such a failure and like I've ruined everything. I just can't break the cycle of thoughts and it's affecting how I feel about my partner and our relationship. He's so lovely he deserves so much more.

He has told me that it's not my fault, that I can't control my anxiety and panic and that there will be a better time. But honestly I found the whole thing traumatic as I was so anxious and I'd be too scared to try it again. I'm so sad that this is part of our story now and I can never change that

[RestlessTraveller]

It sounds like you are heading in the right direction in that you have sought help and your partner is supporting you which is lovely.

The fact that you are getting counselling shows that these problems can't be fixed in a day but hopefully with some time they can. Take your time, stop worrying about how it looks or what was supposed to happen. Look to the future. Good luck.

[RedMapleLeaf]

Your most recent post is full of catastrophising thinking OP. Keep talking to your therapist and be gentle with yourself.

[Anna6567]

I'm trying so hard to keep my thoughts calmer but it's so hard when I feel like such a failure.

Seriously I just want to go back in time and make this all better. I'm sitting online looking at weddings abroad, secret weddings and also wondering about the big wedding I should have had and it's making me feel so hopeless and sad.

Why can't I be normal and cope better? What can I do to make this right? I just want to do the right thing but I don't know what that is anymore.

My counsellor has said not to think about the wedding, to just try to acknowledge the hurt that is there but to not ruminate on the bad thoughts and feelings but I just desperately want to erase this from my story. Can I stay with my partner when I can't ever be sure I'll be able to commit to marriage and why can't I?

I'm so ashamed. I feel like if I could get married I would feel better in myself in an 'all is not lost' way but that's probably not sensible. I'm going to be stuck in limbo now because I can't see how I can move on from all the hurt and bad feelings this has created. This was my chance to have a lovely wedding and be married and I've ruined it. A marriage to my partner seems tainted now. How can I make this right?

[FaithAscending]

What bits make you worry? Is it the wedding stuff? Or about him as the long-term choice?

I have anxiety issues. When I married DH I was anxious about the day - everything going wrong, missing big stuff etc but I didn't doubt about him himself. Would you feel better about him if you planned a low-key wedding? Or would that not make a difference?

[FaithAscending]

Sort of x-posts. Marriage is for life, the wedding is just one day. Yes you look back at it fondly but it really is just one day. I have an in-law who booked her wedding for when they were on holiday with another couple - the other couple were the witnesses and they went out for dinner. It worked for them! Just because our society expects a big wedding doesn't mean it's right for you. It's no reflection on your relationship either.

[MimsyPimsy]

Lots of people cancel weddings, and still go on to get married and are happy. It's nothing to be anxious about. Personally, I postponed one last year. I just rang up the registry office the week before, saying we were a bit busy that week, and booked another slot this year, in case I changed my mind. No big deal. No point in thinking too much about it.

Then when this new date came round a few months later, we just got married without telling anyone, and it's been fine. We just did it in a small room in the registry office, minimum number of words, our children as witnesses (they are teenagers, and spent most of the very short ceremony on their mobile phones!), all fine. Nothing tainted about cancelling it at all. And although I feared the worst re marriage, that's all been fine too - so far, anyway! (We're less than a month in, so there's still time for catastrophes )

(Lots of people have massive weddings, when really they'd wanted to cancel.)

[Anna6567]

I guess I just feel that even though I really wasn't feeling myself that I should have still went through with it because then I wouldn't have to feel so ashamed and that I let everyone down.

I want to believe that it's ok and it doesn't mean anything bad but I can't seem to cope with the feelings of disappointment and deflation. I just don't know what to do to make myself accept the situation and move on.

My anxiety makes everything seem so cloudy and I can't make decisions because I always have a voice of doubt.

I defjnately should have thought more about how the pressure of a big wedding would make me feel. I'm a perfectionist and the closer the day got the more uncomfortable I felt and I started to worry about what the day would feel like and also if everyone would enjoy themselves etc and I just bottled it. Started having major anxiety and panic and the decision was made that I wasn't in the right headspace to get married.

So now I'm trying to find the source of my anxiety and go around in circles and end up feeling so deflated and upset that everything feels wrong and bad in my life but I don't know why.

[RedMapleLeaf]

trying so hard to keep my thoughts calmer but it's so hard

Are you familiar with mindfulness?

...when I feel like such a failure.

You are labelling yourself a Failure. Do you think people separate in to failures or successes? Do you classify all people as one or the other? Or do we all just fail at somethings some of the times? Would your partner, for example, be able to identify somethings you have been successful at?

[GummyBunting]

I have no mental health issues, not a perfectionist, no anxiety... and I'm feeling all sorts of stress over my upcoming wedding. Can't imagine what it would be like to deal with it alongside anything else you've described.

It sounds like it's the actual day that is putting you off, not the idea of being in a legal contract. Why not just slip away and do it quietly without fuss?

[MimsyPimsy]

Who are you letting down? I've known several weddings that have been cancelled, and some have later gone on to marry the same person. The main things people have thought have been how brave the couple were to cancel.

When I was a child, our neighbour's daughter and her fiance cancelled on the actual morning of the wedding. No-one that I heard said "how awful". Everyone said, just one of those things.

[Anna6567]

Redmaple - yes I'm familiar with mindfulness and I am working on this at the moment. Trying to acknowledge the thought and any associated feeling but not allowing it to take over and being present in the moment, but as you can tell by my ramblings I'm not managing it well ATM!

I don't think of other people as either successes or failures but I am very hard on myself. I know on the outside I seem very confident and quite successful but I'm very negative about myself and this is one more string to my bow. I've let myself, my partner and all suppliers and guests down. I've not been able to face seeing most people since this happened and feel they would laugh if I ever try to have a wedding again. I feel sad that I can't experience happy life events without my anxiety taking over and ruining them.

One bit of me thinks I should rearrange the wedding to prove something to myself. Another bit thinks that's a bad idea because I'm not capable of that. So then I start to think well what's the point of being engaged if I can never get married? Then I start to wonder when everyone else is so happy and I'm an anxious mess that there must be something horribly wrong with my relationship. So then I think it's best to break off the engagement and start afresh because my partner deserves more than this. And I feel like if we stay together we can never get married as I've ruined it all.

It's the biggest regret I have - tainting everything that was good and now having to process it and move forward. I'm so tired of analysing it all and not making progress. I'm sure my counsellor is getting annoyed and impatient with me not making progress.

One half of me believes the stress of it all brought on the anxiety, the other half thinks there's something wrong that I'm not seeing and the anxiety is actually my gut instinct screaming don't do it.

[RedMapleLeaf]

Redmaple - yes I'm familiar with mindfulness and I am working on this at the moment. Trying to acknowledge the thought and any associated feeling but not allowing it to take over and being present in the moment, but as you can tell by my ramblings I'm not managing it well ATM!

One of the hardest things can be to not judge yourself as Doing Mindfulness Well or Badly isn't it?! I use the analogy of the mind as a blue sky and the thoughts as clouds. Sometimes I just have to acknowledge that my thoughts are swirling around and I'm getting all caught up in their movement.

I'm sure my counsellor is getting annoyed and impatient with me not making progress.

How often are you seeing them? Please tell them this fear you have.

[Anna6567]

Yes that's a good analogy! I do often feel I'm not doing well with the mindfulness - some days it's easier than others!

I see my counsellor once a week - this week we are working in preparing a list of qualities I see as important for a relationship. I think she wants for me to see the good in my relationship so I can start to disprove some of my negative mind chatter and start to gain some clarity and control of my thoughts about my relationship so I can separate this from the stress and anxiety about the wedding.

I'm just so sad about it all Red - i haven't always had anxiety and I feel like it's taking so much from me. I feel that I was meant to get married on that day and I've missed my opportunity and ruined everything. I don't have any trust in myself now and I'm ashamed.

[RedMapleLeaf]

shame is such a destructive emotion.

[MimsyPimsy]

I feel that I was meant to get married on that day and I've missed my opportunity and ruined everything.
Not wishing to be harsh and unsympathetic, but what a lot of negative rubbish! It's just one day. Lots of people have perfect weddings, and don't have a happy marriage. People have awful weddings, and live happily ever after. Even when you're married, nothing's perfect. Some days'll be good, others bad.

my thoughts about my relationship
Are you happy with your DP at the moment? Y/N
Does your gut feeling say you would be happy being married to your DP? Y/N
Imagine you are married to your DP. Do you think you would be happy?
Y/N
I spent years analysing why it wasn't right with the first person I almost married (yes, I have cancelled a previous wedding as well so I do get your feelings of being ashamed, but the answer was that he wasn't the right person, even though he was lovely.)

[georgethecat]

Don't panic, I think you've become overwhelmed. Maybe try not being married to each other - just enjoying each other's company.
Weddings/marriage is way up there on the stress list.