Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to not want to plan wedding after 1st was cancelled

91 replies

inkastinka1 · 03/01/2019 15:48

Hi, I know weddings also focus strongly on this board but I’m feeling really down about my situation.
Started planning wedding with my OH July 2017 after a short engagement (we had been together 2 and a half years by this point and have a daughter together) We found a lovely wedding venue and booked for the following June 2018.
Everything was ok for the first few months we both were very excited and were really enjoying the planning stages even though we were both very busy, OH runs a business and I work for him, 3 months in the cracks in planning the wedding started to show, we had booked somewhere with a capacity of 60 and I had repeatedly asked my OH if 30 would be enough for his side he said yes, anyway it wasn’t! In order to Accomodate his side my numbers dropped to 9 including myself and my kids, he was paying for most of it so I felt like I didn’t have a say, then he complained about how much everything was costing I think basically he wanted a champagne wedding on a lemonade budget (we have money so the budget wasn’t a thing) it was almost like he resented it.
We had chosen a humanist ceremony as we’d had one for our daughters naming ceremony and loved it, with the plan to nip to the register office before hand to get officially married, when I have tried to book the register office he always made excuses. During this time his close friend was going through a divorce, he also ran a business and it came to light that his ex wife was entitled to a portion of his business, this was shocking news to my OH and was completely flabbergasted as to how she could be entitled to anything from his business! This is a story for prenups I suppose. Ok so it’s now about Novenmber 2017 everything is booked dress is ordered, invites cakes etc etc it’s been stressful there has been arguments and the conversation slips back to needing to book the register office to which my OH proclaims he has no intention of marrying me! He says he hadn’t realised that if we should divorce he had no idea I was entitled to so much of his wealth/ business.
He does however want to continue with the day and the humanist ceremony... a fake wedding! As he feels it would be far to embarrassing to cancel and tell everyone. By December 2017 and a thousands arguments later everything has been cancelled with the loss of around £8000 in fees and deposits. I am devestated and humiliated but I could go through with a fake wedding a felt as tho I was deceiving people, We made up so well choreographed story about moving house and running a business and not having time to plan our wedding and nobody really questioned it.

Novenber 2018 he’s asks me to marry him, January 2019 he wants to know why I haven’t started planning anything yet... I am terrified the same thing will happen again, I love him we have a good life and we are happy, but I don’t think I can marry him..

OP posts:
ElspethFlashman · 03/01/2019 15:51

O you said yes a second time? A year after him doing and saying all that? Why????

Shoxfordian · 03/01/2019 15:53

Why did you even stay with him after all that? Have some self respect

Fatted · 03/01/2019 15:54

I would have told him to shove his proposal up his arse the second time around.

Ask him what's changed? What's he done with the business to stop you getting a share of it? Has he drawn up some kind of prenup or something?

It all sounds very fishy to me.

Consolidateyourloins · 03/01/2019 15:55

If you're not going to leave him then you do need to marry him, to secure yours and your childrens' future.

Tell him he needs to plan the wedding though.

Pachyderm1 · 03/01/2019 15:55

OP

WHY
WOULD
YOU
MARRY
THIS
MAN

He’s made it perfectly, abundantly, spectacularly, ostentatiously clear that he isn’t committed to you, that he doesn’t see you as a team, that he doesn’t believe in marriage, that he’s selfish and reckless.

Of course you don’t want to plan a wedding. He’s a shit, he was truly awful to you, your subconscious is screaming to you to get out of there while you can. For the love of god, listen to it!

SpiritedLondon · 03/01/2019 15:56

Jesus I’m not surprised - what a kick in the teeth. So when he proposed what did he actually say? Did he address the previous cancelled wedding because I’m not sure I could proceed without bottoming our his thoughts on the financial issues. Although this is not the romance that we want to be preoccupied with it is the “ nuts and bolts” of the relationship and should be ironed out. If he is serious this time perhaps HE’D like to start the planning ball rolling as a way of demonstrating his new found commitment.

paap1975 · 03/01/2019 16:14

Don't marry this surpremely selfish man!!!

aconcertpianist · 03/01/2019 16:17

I suppose you have to marry or leave. Why not book a Registry Office right now, go along get married asap and then take 8 months to plan the ceremony/party.

AWishForWingsThatWork · 03/01/2019 16:20

I would normally say don't marry him, end of.

BUT it sounds like you want to be married to him.

So tell him no wedding. Just a marriage.

You just want to book in a time at the registry office and get married, no fuss except perhaps a nice meal after. You don't want to invite anyone because he humiliated you the last time you were planning to marry him by making it sound like you were after his business and a big wedding.

He can put up or shut up. You could be married this week if he means it.

MumW · 03/01/2019 16:25

Can't believe you didn't give him the boot after his behaviour and the loss of £8000
I wouldn't be able to trust his intentions we honourable after all that. They certainly weren't last time.
Are you sure the business hasn't run into trouble and he's hoping to saddle with you with half the debts?

inkastinksalot1 · 03/01/2019 16:27

We have spoke over the last year of the cancelled wedding, I think he was naive about what marriage entailed financially he even went to see a solicitor as he refused to believe a wife would be entitled to a portion of essentially someone else’s business, he was obviously informed that this was true.
I didn’t leave him, because a wasn’t prepared to plunge my children in to poverty, why do people think it’s so easy just to leave, and go where with 3 kids who are settled and have really good lives

Purpleartichoke · 03/01/2019 16:29

If you do want to proceed, which is a bit crazy but since you have a child isn’t absolutely crazy, I would just go to the registry office now and get married. The rest of the hoopla is optional. If you are actually, legally married, then you would probably feel better about planning the hoopla.

gottastopeatingchocolate · 03/01/2019 16:31

Has he mentioned a pre nup? How will you feel if he does?

Ragwort · 03/01/2019 16:32

Do as Awish suggests, a quiet ceremony, just you and your DP, so that you are legally married. You don’t need the ‘big occasion’ and if he doesn’t agree with that then ask yourself if he really loves you enough to marry you.
Or just continue as you are but do not plan another big ceremony again. You must be mad.

roundaboutthetown · 03/01/2019 16:32

If he's serious, he needs to arrange the registry office for you both and get that bit over with. Once that's done, you can organise the party. If he doesn't want to do that, then sod the expensive party - what's the party supposed to be celebrating? That you are no more committed to each other than you ever were and nothing has changed?

Juells · 03/01/2019 16:32

I wonder if, when the wedding is all planned, everyone invited, everything booked, he'll suddenly whip out a pre-nup and insist you sign it or be embarrassed by another cancelled wedding?

Do you still work for him?

Hohocabbage · 03/01/2019 16:33

How good is it if their father doesn’t love their mother? Agree with others, call hud bluff by booking a registry office and just getting married. You could do a big party after if you still want to. Least you’d have more security,

Aneira11 · 03/01/2019 16:36

I wouldn’t go ahead. One of my close friends arranged a wedding to her now DH, it got cancelled. She arranged another wedding to him, it got cancelled. She arranged another wedding to him, they actually got married.

They have a shit marriage. She’s incredibly unhappy and rather trapped now.

The two cancelled weddings cost her ALL of her £25k savings!!!

Slothslothsloth · 03/01/2019 16:38

I wonder if you will even gain anything from marrying him now? To me the only reason you would marry this awful man is to eventually divorce him once the kids are a bit bigger and take him to the cleaners. However he’ll now obviously put some iron-clad prenup in place so you can’t do that and will leave you with nothing when he (most likely) fucks off with a younger model.

If you don’t want to marry him for financial security and actually want to marry him for love, I don’t really know how to advise you. It’s unimaginable.

MrsTerryPratcett · 03/01/2019 16:39

So tell him no wedding. Just a marriage.

Protect yourself and your children. If he agrees to pop down to the registry office and marry very soon, no fuss whatsoever, to show he loves and commits to you, maybe you will feel more inclined to fake marry him in a few months. The fake wedding he wants. No idea why he can't plan his own fake wedding but there you go.

MaverickSnoopy · 03/01/2019 16:39

After that I couldn't trust his intentions and wouldn't marry him.

If you really want to go ahead with it then I would insist on registry office wedding.

Slothslothsloth · 03/01/2019 16:40

Juells I’d bet anything there will now be a prenup involved! Why else would he change his tune regarding marriage?

Slothslothsloth · 03/01/2019 16:41

MrsTerryPratchett has good advice

inkastinksalot1 · 03/01/2019 16:42

I would sign a prenup, prenups in this country are not the same as the ones we see in the movies, they’re technically not legal here they hold legal weight but they can be still discounted if the court believes it unfair, I’ve done a lot of research!!
Im mostly disappointed how my relationship turned in to not being more than a financial transaction 😞

HairBnB · 03/01/2019 16:42

I think I'd be wanting to look at his books before agreeing to anything - a debt shared and all that...