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

OP, this is going to be a controversial opinion on mumsnet, but hopefully it’s good to have a mix of opinions so I’m going for it.

I don’t think you should leave him. What you’re experiencing sounds v similar to me and my husband, and I’ve married a wonderful man. He is the you, the dooer in this scenario, and I’m your fiancé, a bit bloody useless. But - this is so key - This stage of life with the kids is the trenches!!!! You stop communicating. You often get one dooer who sometimes becomes an enabler for the weaponised incompetence one, and one overwhelmed/lazy/depressed one. This moment in the relationship I think is the hardest. Our second is the exact age of your twins and we are also here. He is the loveliest man but I feel so irate to him and he to me. There is practically zero romantic feelings either way. My hormones have plummeted at this stage and age and I don’t have the feelings I used to have. But what I’ve realised from my therapist is that this is totally and completely normal for this stage of life. Also very significant - add to that a wedding - weddings are always super stressful. I never regret marrying my husband but if I were to organise a wedding with him now my word I would not be in the mood.

what I’m trying to say is a marriage isn’t about lovely lovey dovey feelings. Real marriage and real life can be excuse my language fucking hard work. Right now you are deep in the trenches. It’s literally the hardest moments of parenthood and the most disconnected you will feel from each other. You will likely be feeling the worst about each other atm and have so many unmet needs between yourselves.

the house hold dynamic sounds awful but also very very common and trainable. My dad sounds like him and my mum is always moaning about him but has also allowed it all these years. He needs a kick up the backside but he can change!!!!

can you get a babysitter and talk to him freely about all this? I really don’t believe that love is like some glowing spark that stays lit through the dark times. I do believe love is feeling angry and cross at the other person and telling them, and they telling you everything thats hard in their world, and you both listening, processing, crying, understanding, and then connecting. I do believe actually that this is in a weird way the central most important part of a marriage. It’s communication. It’s bloody hard. The other person makes you so irritated, cross, empty, all sorts. But it’s working through these moments and growing deeper. This is so key for the kids too. If you can work on communication and get through the awful times to a more fruitful, grateful place, this can be an amazing foundation for the kids too.

youre both under an incredible amount of pressure atm with twins and parenthood, a wedding, grief, and the hardest most distant points in a lifetime of connection. Can you get a babysitter, and go and talk about it with him? Not necessarily the wedding, but let out all your deep frustrations. Tell him. Shock him. With all the things you honestly find hard. Tel him it makes
you doubt whether marriage is a good idea. I. Would not be surprised if you either delay the wedding and do it in future, or just go ahead with it and keep working together as a married couple building those deeper foundations overtime that is you both going through some real, hard, deep shiz together. Counselling can be a massive help here. Getting him to be less lazy, but also you may find out that he is suffering from a loss of confidence too, and the more he starts to do around the home or with the twins, the more he might start to light up and you remember why you fell in love with him, he sounds a bit like me in this regard! Anyway I’m thinking of you. Be aware as well thar people love to say on here “end the relationship “. It’s very easy to say from behind a keyboard, and I do think there is more of a disposable relationship to relationships in general where there is more room than people realise to work through the difficult shit. But I really hope and pray that you are able to take big, deep, breaths, and find moments of clarity and pause to be able to truly really asses how you feel and what is going on in your mind body and heart. If I were in your shoes I would be feeling exhasperated, overwhelmed and exhausted. And I wouldn’t be able to work easily on communication for a healthy relationship, with twin parenting and a wedding to organise on top - but I really don’t think this means that the relationship is necessarily wrong. My therapist said to me acceptance that you do kind of hate each other in this phase of life, and knowing the other will drive you wild, then jist taking the time to touch a hand here, or say a kind word there, will build a bridge and a moment however fleeting of connection. Maybe you both need to just have a big therapy session or a holiday or something. Or have a deep true discussion, decide to marry anyway and commit to couples therapy or him doing xyz to show willing to change and learn and help support you around the house and with kids as an equal. Ultimately marriage isn’t about a big lovely day - the core of it all - as the vicar said to my partner and I - if you end up married at the end of the day, then thats a success. The rest is lovely if you have it, but the actual marrying is what you are achieving with it all. And ultimately it’s a communttment to say, let’s do this, through thick and thin. If I were you I’d have that hard deep difficult discussion with him, spill out all you feel, get married anyway if you think you both want to try and work at it, and just bloody well both give it all youve got. Amazing you have the support of your family whatever you decide. Let us know how you get on. Thinking of you in this immensely overwhelming time! With much love x

I have to disagree with the previous poster, I think this is a great post and different perspective worth considering.

I have to disagree with the previous poster, I think this is a great post and different perspective worth considering.