H2b no longer wants to get married

[IACGMOOH]

Whirlwind of emotions here so be kind.
Back in January we had a registry office and reception venue booked, whole thing was going to be no more than £600 but the reception venue done us over and we had no choice but to cancel it. Before I had booked this though, h2b did say he'd rather wait until we were in a better financial position. We lightly discussed it but I went ahead and booked it
In may, we found a new venue. The contract wasn't signed until July however, due to get married in October and now it's come out that h2b is in a bad strop about the whole thing, doesn't want to do it as it's too expensive, doesn't want to take any interest in it and I'm just so sad.
I feel like I've pushed him into something he didn't want aibu? I don't know what to do now!

Is he one of those people who like to say 'yes, fine' as you go along, but then when you've done all the hard work, like to find fault instead of thanking you?

I am SO glad I read the entire thread before commenting, as I had a long post written out in my head slamming you, but it seems your H2B is jerking you around. First he wants to get married but 'wait awhile' which turns into 3 and a half years. How much longer does he expect you to wait? Then he complains everything is all too tacky, then complains to his brother that everything is all expensive. FFS, he doesn't know what he wants, does he? You can't win. The not being interested in the details is no big deal, I find most men don't seem to give a stuff about the details and assume the girl will take care of it all.

It seems most men would rather chew broken glass than get involved in planning their own wedding. I think it is a multi-tasking issue, they are simply not good planners the way us women are, lol. But it is the mixed messages. The 'that's too tacky' but then complaining about the cost of things that aren't tacky. I honestly don't know what to suggest. I would though say speak to his brother more in depth about it, ask his brother if he thinks he really wants to get married, and ask the brother what specifically he has said about the planning, the venue and expenses. That may help give you a better idea.

Then you can sit down with HTB and say "one last time, for once and all, do you really want to marry me?" Then say "what type of wedding do you want? Do you want a cheap but (in his view) tacky wedding, or a more expensive one? How long do you expect me to wait, if you want me to 'wait a while?' It's been 3 and a half years?!?" "If you truly want to marry me, how about we just either elope, or we continue with the plans as is? Because you are marrying me at the end of it all, does it really matter when, where, how?" I think you deserve answers, and he is truly giving you mixed messages, about the wedding, about the costs.

Well said Salem

Exactly what I was trying to say but far better worded!

my budget is under three grand. He doesn’t even have one

In all your posts, I cannot make head not tail of the financial situation here.

Who is paying for this?

Are you jointly saving?
What is this ‘better financial position’ that you want to be in?

e.g. for me, I have a minimum of 6 months money saved. So as long as my savings didn’t dip below that, I would feel OK to spend anything more saved on a wedding (though I’d then have limits based on what something was worth to me. I e.g. could have saved £500 for a cake, but 2 café-homemade ones at £30 each were more my style, so it wasn’t about affordability or my financial position)

Is the problem that you’re saving equal amounts each the a wedding account, which means half is his money that he just doesn’t want to spend on that stuff? And does it mean that all your saving capacity is going on a single day - or do you still have buffer savings for emergencies?

I agree with Fontofnoknowledge when she said this on Friday.

MN loves nothing more than to tell everyone how shit their relationships are - and how every man you've ever met is a waste of space. - Just take a breath.

It's risible (or it would be if it weren't so predictable) to see that the posts have slowed down since it became clearer that this wasn't a case of jilting (which MN absolutely craves).

Some people like big weddings, some don't. I don't think your answer is on this thread because you'll just get posters like therealhousewife who want to put the boot in and make you feel worse. Go and spend time talking to your fiancé to work out your next steps. Not here.

my budget is under three grand. He doesn’t even have one
What do you mean by your budget? There should be one wedding budget?!

I agree with Morty The W2B and H2B cannot communicate - at all! So far she's got not one single straight answer from him - she can't get it or he won't give it.

There's a strong chance that one or the both of them are deluded, living in two entirely separate worlds with their own, unknown to the other person, thinking as to what they want, what they don't want, anything.

Whilst quite a few PPs have been deliberately dense about the details that OP has provided (she's stated some things quite clearly) but at the same time you get the impression of a wedding that doesn't really have a plan and if it does, it's being put together in isolation. This all goes back to the communication which is absolutely appalling between OP and her H2B. If OP cannot get a clear answer out of him about this then she should cancel. If they cannot communicate at this point when they are in a relationship together and planning on an entire life together, then OP should cancel. Then they should probably have a few sessions at a relationship counsellor's to figure out just what the hell has gone on, what issues have come into play that have caused them each separately to act the way they have and make the decisions they have because it appears completely impossible on here to unpick much of this situation - it's coming across as a reactive, jumbled mess that's residing in OPs head and it could even be that H2B can't actually respond on any level to OP or engage because it's a constantly changing scenario? Having said that he needs to be VERY clear (and be pressed on being very very clear whether he likes it or not - don't stop asking until you get a proper answer) about what he WANTS because I'm still not clear. You've asked him several times he's said he still wants to get married and don't cancel but because you're (quite clearly) on very different pages, any communication at the moment you may as well be talking to the wall! Because neither of you is hearing the other one.

The thing that concerns me, is that he's putting up barriers (let's wait until we're financially secure, doesn't want to elope cos he wants his nan there, doesn't want a registry office, golf/social club too tacky etc) which gives the impression he doesn't want to get married, but OP has offered to cancel, and he's said no.
I feel that his refusal of the "tacky" venues, is to stall things, because other venues are more expensive and he was hoping it meant they'd have to wait until they found a cheap venue that wasn't "tacky", but OP has booked a more expensive venue anyway, so he's just gone along with it.

It's not a good sign, the lack of communication on his part could be because he's a coward and doesn't want to tell OP he doesn't want to marry her. He could be hoping she throws her hands up in the air and cancels it, because she's unsure what he wants.

This has been a bizarre read.

Your partner wanted to wait until finances were better, yet somehow you've gone from a buffet for 20 people costing £600 to a sit down meal for 55 people costing £3k.

And in that jump in costs his only desire, the place to actually get married, has been trodden over by you.

I'm questioning why he wants to marry you, not whether you should be cancelling, as you clearly have no respect for him.

It doesn't cost 3k, That's the budget. I don't want it to go over that, currently it's under it by 1k

But why does he keep saying to wait until finances are better whilst at the same time he's sending totally mixed messages:

Message 1 - this is all too expensive (I think that's one of the things he's said although it's a bit hard to tell!) - so for what is the reason he wants to wait to save up in order to spend more?
Message 2 - the venue/whatever isn't posh/nice/un-tacky enough (ergo, we should be spending more). Which makes no sense in consideration of all this effort to keep it small and simple...

It's not been trodden over, he is getting stressed bout costs yet you're all saying it makes sense to add on an extra 500 to have it all under the one place?

Exactly that doingit. He thinks the cheaper options are too tacky, look too cheap, he hasn't said this but I got the impression he'd feel embarrassed to invite anybody to a working men's club, ones that have bars on the windows don't exactly give the best impression tbh.

Does he think the venue you have booked is tacky? If not, he should either accept it or find somewhere both stylish and cheap enough for him.

Just moaning because you haven't found his perfect combination is not getting anywhere because it probably doesn't exist.

Maybe he wants champagne at lemonade prices. So willing to pay for 🥤but expects 🍸

I would look at cutting out unnecessary extras to try to keep the price down.

You need to go right back to the beginning. List out all your bookings showing deposit paid(which would be forfeit on cancellation) and balance due. Talk through the day and decide what does meet both your ideas, what does not - Of which you discuss whether to cancel/rearrange/do without. Then list what is yet to be accounted for, what you can do without , agree a budget and spec and keep to it. It is quite possible he has no idea how budget relates to reality ie the champagne analogy above. During this discussion his concerns should become evident. If he does not engage it is not something he wants to go through with.

I agree - do what @LIZS suggests.

If you list everything out, it should become apparent which aspects you are both happy with, and what the total cost will be.

It can be frustrating when new bills turn up but you are not sure if it fits in with your overall budget and whether it is even something you want.

Remember that you don't have to pay for aspects of a wedding that you don't want. A lot of weddings seem to try to include ALL the traditions that you have ever heard of. You don't have to do this, you can select the ones that you both enjoy.

I think OP you've got to properly dig and winkle out what it is he's actually saying because it's not clear. If he's pissed off you went ahead and booked then you need to drag this out of him - banaal, non-commital non-answers won't do.

Does he want to spend more and want a much snazzier day? Is he saying that to delay or pull out in the future? Does he ACTUALLY want to get married (saying "I don't want to cancel" isn't the same as "I don't actually want to get married any more") - it's not an answer.

I do hope you can sort it out and find out exactly what the issue is which is to also dig down into are there actions you've taken actions that have pissed him off (even though he said they didn't). It's very mixed messages of telling you he wants to get married, having opinions on venues etc, don't spend too much but don't book somewhere tacky - you don't know which way to jump. Additionally he's told his dissatisfactions to his brother and fair enough to some extent, but he needs to sit down, stop avoiding, so you can both get to the bottom of what his issues ACTUALLY ARE.

Oh dear god.

Can you take listening lessons or something?

Because you're just repeating the same things over and over without engaging with the substance of what anybody is saying. Do you think if you keep repeating yourself we'll eventually all nod along with you?

Stop with all the bloody guesswork and pseudo mind reading.

When you listen to someone you focus your attention on absorbing what they're saying and reflecting on it. You don't use the time they're speaking to fine tune what you want to say next.

Communication isn't about steamrolling over other people. It's not how healthy relationships work.

You've described a conversation where you say he went quiet but it's not like he actually said no so you carried on with what you wanted and ignored what he was communicating.

Tell me. If you offered him a drink and he went quiet and stopped responding to you having previously been talking away, would you go off and make him the drink then pour it down his throat? Or would you think, OK, he clearly isn't interested I won't make him one?

He's communicating clearly and you're seeing it, you're just refusing to acknowledge it so you can carry on doing what you want regardless.

Which has been your exact approach to posters on this thread too.

You're setting yourself up for a lot of misery if you don't change.

It's funny how people are saying I'm not listening or I'm ignoring him, when others can't even understand what it is that he is saying🤔

But YOU don't know what he's talking about either, because he's constantly contradicting himself / being unclear.

He's communicating clearly and you're seeing it, you're just refusing to acknowledge it

Is he, though? It definitely sounds like communication is an issue but that’s not all on the OP’s side. She needs to listen but for that he needs to actually talk, not just go quiet/moan to his brother/have preferences that contradict each other and expect her to mindread out a compromise.

He needs to start owning some of the decisions here. He doesn’t like the venue, okay, sit down with him and work out what he does like. He doesn’t want the registry office, ditto. He wants it to be really really cheap but also he wants options that will make it more expensive, okay, he can’t have both so which one of those is more important to him to go with?

If you can’t work out between you a way to properly communicate and compromise when you want different things, then it’s not just the wedding that’s going to cause problems, it’s the whole marriage. He needs to actually talk.

So that's hardly not me listening is it, I was more addressing the pp above me

Op you really need to sit down and have an honest conversation and listen to what he's saying to you. Put all the talk about money and planning to one side and just ask him what kind of wedding he would like - I'd put money on the fact it's not the kind of wedding you have planned.

Have you decided what you're going to do yet?

It sounds to me, like you want him to jump for joy at every little frivolity that you've decided to purchase.

He has repeatedly said - No, don't cancel, it's fine - I just wish you had waited.

You also haven't answered whether your combined income is 1k, or your combined savings are 1k per month. Nor have you answered whether there is a chance that you can become more financially sound.

You're wilfully ignoring and arguing and you're doing my head in quite frankly. But strangely I keep getting sucked back in.

I think you're throwing a strop and want him to get down on bended knee once again and beg you to marry him. We all know that ain't happening.

I don't know why you keep on posting for goodness sake.

53rd. She has said numerous times that he says not to cancel the wedding, he just wished that she had waited.
He's placating her, as she's dangling this over him like a threat.