AIBU to call off our wedding ten days before the ceremony?

I wouldn’t marry him. You should be really excited now and absolutely love everything about him at this stage. I married with doubts and left within 6 months. I wish I’d just not done it. Don’t tie yourself to someone who doesn’t respect you enough not to be a lazy man child.

I’d tell him straight you aren’t going to marry him because of how he is. If he can’t see it now he never will.

Do not marry him.
Call it offer and hope to recoup some of the costs
Divorce is expensive and difficult.
Just tell him it's not going ahead.

Channel Dolly ( as in when she walked away from Porter Wagner).

There will be tears but your not there for his use and sacrifice.

I was engaged and I'm so glad I didn't marry him.

If you have doubts you need to call it off. Friends and family will understand

You have a lot of good reasons why not to marry this man, I couldn't see one good reason for going ahead. cancel the Wedding, inform the guests. Be strong my girl,you will be glad one day looking back.💕

Please cancel it and I promise none of your friends or family will be annoyed with the £ they’ve spent. Theyll be so relieved for you. I would be if you were my friend.

Talking from experience here.
My ex H was lazy around the house, as in with repairs and maintenance, always sulking, or sitting infront of the T.V. He was financially and emotionally abusive. Very little effort in communication. He wasn't helping with the children, only once in a while.
(However, he could cook for himself and clean.)

I assumed he wouldn't want contact or be bothered with the children, but Wow was I wrong, when we separated his whole family had his back. They would help him out, he would take the children on his contact days and take them to his family and just spend time there.
This wasn't really helpful to the children, they weren't spending time with him.
These men are selfish and manipulative, they have many sides to them ( their ugly side and the side they want people to see).

I think, the way you feel now it won't get any better. If you do get married the marriage won't last. It will only delay the matter.

You are in a difficult situation. Living on your own is going to be difficult because of the financial instability. Living together is going to effect your mental health.

Your health is more important, your twins need a mother who is there for them.
I wish you all the best. I hope you make the right choice. Make sure you have lots of support from family and friends. You need them to stay strong.

Yup. Same! Even when my ex finally understood the mental load and took some in, I still had to help to regulate his emotions. I still had to do the emotional labour.

It’s harder alone in some ways but the benefits for me far outweigh the negatives. The peace. The knowing it’s down to me and just getting it done rather than the uncertainty of not knowing if he will, and if he does will it be done well (eg he did do washing up but would never stack the dishwasher well, would not hand wash up well enough for the pots to be put away, would leave dirty dish water in the bowl and food in the sink trap thing - so even if he did do it, I’d still have to finish it off). And the peace of not having to deal with his moods and anger. It’s worth every hard moment. And the loneliness comes very occasionally but it’s a much easier and simple loneliness than the lonely I felt inside the marriage. And because people assumed I had support there was less offered. Now people know it’s just me I get far more offers of support.

So it’s not all roses and rainbows but single parenthood, in my experience is easier. And if I could go back there is no way I’d have married. It’s only good for SAHPs and divorce is VERY stressful with all the legal stuff and expense.

My instant reaction is don’t do it! But what I would recommend is talking through all of your emotions with a therapist.

It’s completely normal to panic before a big event, when there’s a lot of pressure on it. It’s been building up for a long time. Talking it through would make you separate the anxiety and stress of the wedding from your feelings about the relationship.

I had a panic before my first wedding. I wished I had spoken about it and not gone ahead with it but I buried it instead. The wedding had become bigger and bigger and was never about being married. You don’t want to make a decision and regret it, whether that is going ahead with it or cancelling. You deserve to make the right one for you.

It’s very simple - the marriage vows are solemn legal ethical commitments. You are supposed to mean them! If you cannot mean them you must not marry however difficult cancelling is.
That will leave many issues to resolve but this is the clearest way out. If you can’t make a solemn commitment in good faith then you must not.

“But I honestly feel sick at the thought of marrying him”
Just wanted to come back to this point from your OP.
This is the only reason you need to call it off.

No need to refund your guests’ accommodation. Yes your friends will have to absorb the cost, but when they find out how rocky your relationship is they will just be relieved for you that you didn’t go ahead with it. And probably admire you all the more for having the courage to bail out.

If everything is booked and you want to cancel but save face with your guests, you could consider going through with the "party" but not the legal ceremony so no divorce to deal with. That way you can quietly seperate later.

Would call it off. It's the scenic route to divorce which is inevitable by the sounds of things. My brother went through with a wedding as it seemed easier than calling it off and regretted it.
Maybe this might shock your DF into upping his game?

I haven't rtft but have read your updates op, sorry if I'm repeating what others have suggested already.
I would call off the wedding ceremony but still have the party. I'd separate the legal binding of myself to him at this point in time with the question of whether you are together long term.
If you do split up then you don't have to go through the expense and difficulty of a divorce, and if you stay together you can get married at any point should you choose to. Assuming your partner agrees. Edited to say also assuming it doesn't cost you any more money. If you can get any refunds I'd probably cancel the reception too.
Keeping the reception part means that you still get to see everyone who chooses to come. I would send everyone invited a note to say that the wedding won't be going ahead but the party still will and everyone is still invited if they wish to come, and you understand if they don't wish to. You get to make it clear in the now that you are still together (assuming that to be true by then) but the wedding bit just was not the right choice at this point in time. That the party is a celebration of your family and you'll be overrated to see everyone who can still make it.
If you had a gift list I'd be cancelling that and returning everything so costs could be returned.

Don't legally bind yourself to someone unless you are certain it's the right choice.

And ultimately, if he's not pulling his weight, then what's the point of staying in the relationship?

I was in a similar position and went through with it. Now separated after 8 years of marriage. Don't do it!

As someone who has traveled to weddings having to pay the cost of a hotel and travel myself with no partner to split it with when I was single, I can tell you this - I would not be angry at all even if the hotel cost was non-refundable and I’d just be hugely supportive and would NOT expect any reimbursement.

He can clearly see that I’m unhappy, and I can’t see how he can be particularly happy either. We feel like passing ships in the night. But he doesn’t seem to want to do anything about it either.
He seems quite happy to trundle along with an easy life and avoid the upheaval that making changes would bring. Maybe some of that is his depression. I do understand that.
However, he has shown very little interest in the wedding. I’ve organised everything, just as I organise virtually every other aspect of our daily lives. But equally, when there is something he genuinely cares about, he can be passionate and engaged with it.

So he’s not passionate about the wedding and more significantly in general exhibits a lack of interest regarding life with you and your kids and it shows in how he leaves everything to you.

Read that back and think about what you have said , OP. This is not a man who cares deeply about you. There is no reason at all to go through with this.

Don't do it.
The people who love you will understand and be glad you didn't go through with a marriage you didn't want.

As a gossipy aside, not related to your situation OP... I know a guy who got married while having a full on affair with a colleague. He was holding hands with the OW under the table at the reception 🤢 He got divorced 6m later when his poor, poor wife confronted him.

It would have been best for everyone concerned & preserved a lot of dignity if he'd just said no to the wedding.

How often do you honestly think ge would have the twins if you separated, given he does nothing now? He doesn't sound like he'll want or do 50/50.

If it's maybe one night a week or once a fortnight, that is one night you miss them for, compared to being miserable daily if you marry and raising the kids in an u happy marriage you knew would be unhappy when you entered into it. It's not fair on him or the children.

And once they are a little older, him having them for the odd night will give you much more respite than a man living with you that doesn't help with them.

OP you consider "just... getting divorced later". Can't you tell, from the many thread on here from women "stuck" in marriage, that it's often really hard to get divorced later. Those women WISH they could go back to ten days before their wedding, and have the option that you have.

Cancel it. Have a party / all enjoy the food that you have paid for etc.

It's not even the right time to you. Things have changed. There's a lot going on. You can live with him & resent him etc without being married. You don't need to be married - in fact it's the last thing you need.

If he wanted to step up he would. He's happy seeing you run ragged. Do you really think he'd bother to organise & do 50/50 anyway??

It makes you think why on earth do people in that position go through with it?

I get why it happened the old days - there was a lot of shot gun weddings or pressure to marry due to wealthy families wanting certain unions or women not having much of a choice.

In this day and age I can’t imagine what pressure he could have been under to make those legally binding vows to someone else, when he was in love with someone else.

Marriages break down all the time, I get it so I am not saying if I attend a wedding then the couple divorces later I’m going to assume it was a sham and they wasted my money.

But tbh I’d feel some type of way knowing a wedding I attended was all a charade that they went through with when one or both partners did not want to marry.

Sunk cost fallacy. The money is gone whatever you choose. Your options are:

A) Spend the money that’s gone (and probably more) on a wedding, live a miserable life until you undoubtedly leave, then pay more money for a divorce lawyer.
B) Spend the money that’s gone (and probably more) on a wedding, look in to counselling for your relationship and have a chance to have a happy life, but you may end up paying for a divorce lawyer.
C) Spend the money that’s gone. Leave, work through what you need to, setting up a family life that works for you in a way that you are largely in control of.

In all of these options you are spending the money that’s gone. So take that out of the equation. Focus only on what your life looks like at the end of it and decide where you want to be in 5 years time. Work towards that goal.

None of these options involve caring a jot about how it impacts on potential wedding guests. If they are close enough to you to be invited to the wedding, they care about your happiness enough to realise you shouldn’t be marrying if you will be miserable. If anyone is saying “what about the embarrassment” they are thinking only of their embarrassment, not yours. Nobody should be embarrassed by calling off a wedding. It takes mountains of strength. If that’s what you want to do, then do it. If anyone challenges you about it personally, ask them why they think you should go ahead with a wedding that would only end in you (and probably your children) being miserable.

Don’t do it! Not remotely similar circumstances, but I got guilted into getting married in my 20s. I remember contemplating just disappearing the night before the wedding and almost disassociating during the ceremony as I knew in my heart of hearts I was doing it because I felt I had no other option, rather than actually wanting to be married to him. The fallout post-wedding was messy. I’m now in my 40s and wish more than anything I’d stood my ground and not allowed myself to be emotionally blackmailed into the marriage, but I was young and genuinely thought putting his feelings ahead of my own was the right thing to do at the time.

Can you see yourself with him five or ten years time? If not, don't do it to yourself, him or your children. Once you are married, it adds a whole other level of pressure and legalities to splitting up.