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Original poster

To call off an engagement but stay together

146 replies

Lidale · 10/05/2023 10:24

Is it weird? How many people have done it and if so did you ever end up with a happily ever after down the line with the same person?

OP posts:
burnoutbabe · 10/05/2023 12:08

to redo the engagement you'd have to tell EVERYONE you are now - NOT ENGAGED - and face that barrage of questioning.

then wait and announce again YOU ARE ENGAGED.

it seems far too much public focus on your relationship. just wait until you are ready to Set a date and then do that as the announcement. then people will be excited/interested.

TheLegenOf · 10/05/2023 12:09

OP beneath all that fluff marriage is actually a legal contract. It sets out the rights and obligations of both parties,
It's the 'start of a journey' when a couple have no binding ties. But you already share a joint child and intend on staying with him.
So that ship has sailed.

Yes, I know of people that have called off the engagement and had their happily ever after. But they had no kids, were young and didn't want to make such commitment. Equally those with separate children who realised that ultimately they didn't want the financial tie.

You can feel what you like but IMO marriage for you is just a formality. I don't think, even if you wait people are going to be particularly excited and/or joyful.

SafferUpNorth · 10/05/2023 12:10

You've already done the biggest commitment of all.... having a child together. Everything else - proposal, engagement, marriage - is by the by. Either way, your lives are tied together and your child will be happier if their parents have a happy and functional relationship. I'd say focus on that for now.

TheLegenOf · 10/05/2023 12:15

GneissGuysFinishLast · 10/05/2023 12:06

We were planning to get married when we got engaged, we didn’t formalise those plans by booking a venue (initially we did view venues and didn’t find anything we liked, so we held off … and held off … then we just stopped looking at venues. Or rather we do still occasionally look - we last viewed a venue about a year ago. We may get married one day, but we have no active plans to do so.

Show quote history

You are engaged - 'to be married'. Now we use just the word as shorthand, but that's what it still means.
If you're not actively planning a wedding then you're not engaged anymore. Nothing wrong with that. Many people don't want to marry.

LIZS · 10/05/2023 12:17

Sounds like you want to get married but not to him. Getting fixated on the proposal (or non proposal) suggests he will always fail to meet your romantic expectations. The unfortunate events have just reinforced that.

burnoutbabe · 10/05/2023 12:18

surely it can be "engaged to be married one day"

you'd not get UN-Engaged if you are just not yet booked a venue or activly planning.

i think loads of couples are just engaged to be married some day - and you just say congrats anyway and go about your day.

ladykale · 10/05/2023 12:19

It's just bizarre that people consider marriage to be less of a commitment than having a child together!

heldinadream · 10/05/2023 12:22

GneissGuysFinishLast · 10/05/2023 11:26

It’s not a ridiculous concept really. I’ve been engaged for a long time, we don’t plan to get married but there is no issue in our relationship to cause this. I know many couples in this scenario.

Show quote history

If you don't plan to get married, you are not engaged.
To be engaged MEANS you plan to get married. It's a way of formalising the plan to marry. That's what it is.

tikkanaan · 10/05/2023 12:23

Lidale · 10/05/2023 11:07

You are all reading this very wrong. Maybe it's the way I'm articulating myself or maybe it's just picking apart selective things

To me I see a proposal as a start to the journey towards marriage. I didn't want it to start off tainted. There were alot of issues that arose from the moment my dp "proposed", secrets, lies, issues. So I decided to call it off to be able to start it up again when we are in a much more stable and happier state and people can actually share and feel that joy for us

Those secrets and lies don't disappear. When you get married more little things come out, you get annoyed by each other, but you're stuck in a legal contract. If he's lying when you're not married he will lie when you aren't married.

As for "starting your journey towards marriage" your journey started on the day you met. Your failed engagement is part of the journey. You can't just wipe it all away. It is woven into the tapestry of your story. It forever will be.

Gillbil · 10/05/2023 12:24

The engagement and wedding day is more how u and those around u perceive it than actually being hard, u could book an appt sign the doc and ur married. U could tell everyone or noone.

Really I'd go on finances( if the relationship is good and boundariesare respected on both sides), if u can both afford not being married and if u break up you won't need the protection of marriage then no, take it off the table and u til ur ready

GneissGuysFinishLast · 10/05/2023 12:26

TheLegenOf · 10/05/2023 12:15

You are engaged - 'to be married'. Now we use just the word as shorthand, but that's what it still means.
If you're not actively planning a wedding then you're not engaged anymore. Nothing wrong with that. Many people don't want to marry.

Show quote history

… not true at all. I could go book a wedding venue tomorrow if I liked and my partner would turn up and marry me. We just have other things we want to do first.

I only know one person in my peer group who had an engagement of less than two years (we are early 30s, professional, non religious - all of which I think are relevant to the long engagement thing - we all chose to prioritise travel, home ownership, and having children over spending money on a wedding - I don’t know anyone who did the registry office thing either, because most people I know get married to have a nice big day rather than the paperwork)

I guess it depends on the norm in your social circle - most of our friends got together in their teens and twenties, all now been together 10-20 years, and all still with the same partner. Maybe itlll be more of a big deal when we get a little older and already have resources behind us prior to the relationship - we were all skint students when we met!

drpet49 · 10/05/2023 12:31

SirSamVimesCityWatch · 10/05/2023 10:46

This is bonkers. What has gone wrong that means you can't get married on the right foot, yet it is still a good idea to live together and raise a child together?

This

holaholiday · 10/05/2023 12:35

Dixiechickonhols · 10/05/2023 11:17

I didn’t realise you had actually called it off and told everyone but stayed together.
I’ll be very honest and say if you told me you’d got engaged again I’d think why don’t you just get on with booking wedding. But I’m married 20 plus years, no proposal and no engagement ring. We had a conversation in McDonalds and said let’s get wedding booked.

Show quote history

He he it was Burger King for us and I still tease him about it as sooo wasn’t my idea of a “good” proposal …but 20 yrs later we are still going strong, the manner of a proposal is irrelevant if you want to be together and have a strong foundation for a relationship. so I’m happy for you @Lidale if you have worked through the stuff that was bothering you both, that’s the basis of all successful relationships.

rwalker · 10/05/2023 12:40

Woman I worked with was going to get married for the 2nd time outfits bought things booked
she originally wanted kids and parents only
it snowballed into big do and she called it off
16 years later there still together and not married

SafferUpNorth · 10/05/2023 12:41

ladykale · 10/05/2023 12:19

It's just bizarre that people consider marriage to be less of a commitment than having a child together!

Really?!

Surely, a child is the biggest commitment of all as it involves the welfare of a third person who is profoundly impacted by their parents' relationships and actions.
Families can be happily together but not married. Marriages can break down but the parents still remain civil.
Anyone with a child should put their child's welfare front and centre of every decision they make, surely.

SafferUpNorth · 10/05/2023 12:42

...that is why it's the biggest shared commitment of all.

ladykale · 10/05/2023 12:43

@GneissGuysFinishLast sadly partners and viewed the same a a random gf often in the eyes of the law.

If your partner was suddenly very I'll and a life / death decision has to be made, his next of kin would be asked and not the gf or partner.

Hopefully you have sorted wills etc as again nothing defaults to you. Huge tax bill for inheritance purposes if he were to leave anything to you.

I don't know why people despite reading thread after thread still kid themselves that marriage is just a piece of paper or a big party.

ladykale · 10/05/2023 12:44

@SafferUpNorth yes that's why I said it's bizarre that people act as if marriage is a bigger commitment than a whole child!

Strange to be committed enough to life together and raise a child but not to be married

Seas164 · 10/05/2023 12:45

ladykale · 10/05/2023 12:19

It's just bizarre that people consider marriage to be less of a commitment than having a child together!

I don't think that's bizarre at all, you are linked to someone if you have a child with them, that will remain the case forever. I know people that were married and divorced and couldn't tell you where their ex was now.

SafferUpNorth · 10/05/2023 12:47

ladykale · 10/05/2023 12:44

@SafferUpNorth yes that's why I said it's bizarre that people act as if marriage is a bigger commitment than a whole child!

Strange to be committed enough to life together and raise a child but not to be married

Ah, I read it the other way round...

TheLegenOf · 10/05/2023 12:49

GneissGuysFinishLast · 10/05/2023 12:26

… not true at all. I could go book a wedding venue tomorrow if I liked and my partner would turn up and marry me. We just have other things we want to do first.

I only know one person in my peer group who had an engagement of less than two years (we are early 30s, professional, non religious - all of which I think are relevant to the long engagement thing - we all chose to prioritise travel, home ownership, and having children over spending money on a wedding - I don’t know anyone who did the registry office thing either, because most people I know get married to have a nice big day rather than the paperwork)

I guess it depends on the norm in your social circle - most of our friends got together in their teens and twenties, all now been together 10-20 years, and all still with the same partner. Maybe itlll be more of a big deal when we get a little older and already have resources behind us prior to the relationship - we were all skint students when we met!

Show quote history

Again, nothing wrong with that - but I think the conflict here is around what it means to be engaged. In your example - the moment you booked the wedding you'd be back to being engaged, when previously you were 'unengaged'.

A lot of people seem to see 'engagement' as a big step. A bit like the OP. Maybe in this day and age, when a lot of people don't marry it's a sort of protection against being strung along, like all the other threads we read on here.

However many marriages never happen... people get engaged but it turns out that he never wanted to marry her and just proposed to keep her quiet. They break up without marrying, etc.

So if someone got 'engaged' with no firm wedding plans (at least a timeline!), I'd probably assume one of the above. Again, it's only my business if they make it so by telling me that they are engaged. If they don't, then no skin off my nose.

ArdeteiMasazxu · 10/05/2023 12:51

Three sets of uni friends had on-off engagements while they worked out whether they were really ready to commit, so yes it happens. But none of these already had a child together.

Marriage is not about a "happily ever after" - there's no "ever after" involved. There's always next year, and next decade, and the one after that, and people grow and change and get more irritating and set-in-their-ways or more self-aware and more mellow and it either ends in divorce or in death.

What marriage is, is a commitment to aim for stability. Especially with kids in the picture, stability is important. When kids are in the picture, finances can be tough, and the legal effect of marriage is to tie two people's financial futures together. If life's fortune is a dice roll and unmarried people have an equal chance of rolling a 1 or rolling a 6, married people agree to a double roll and sharing the outcome so you are much more likely to get a "score" of 3-4 and much less likely to get either a 1 or a 6 - and that stability is good for the kids. (of course life is unfair so the dice you are rolling are unfair and weighted and some people have a much higher chance to roll high than others - so be aware of that before you link to someone)

He's the father of your child, your futures are tied together for the next 13+ years anyway. But is he a good person? Will he put you and the child(ren) first and do right by you? If so then fgs just marry him already. If he's a waster and a cocklodger or a selfish arsehole then don't. But don't romaticise the perfect proposal/engagement instagram storybook. That's not what it is about.

TheLegenOf · 10/05/2023 12:52

Also @GneissGuysFinishLast I have a similar social circle but people don't propose until they are ready to marry. But there's no issue with having all that other stuff without marrying. Maybe they don't think they need social validation, or a token of their intentions?

Fiancé and I are marrying sooner than we'd like for various reasons but if that hadn't happened he'd have waited to 'propose'. Our families treat us like a long-term couple though. I can certainly see where people might see 'engagement' as adding legitimacy, but if people are like that they are also likely to think negatively of a long engagement with everything except a wedding in the works.

GneissGuysFinishLast · 10/05/2023 12:55

TheLegenOf · 10/05/2023 12:49

Again, nothing wrong with that - but I think the conflict here is around what it means to be engaged. In your example - the moment you booked the wedding you'd be back to being engaged, when previously you were 'unengaged'.

A lot of people seem to see 'engagement' as a big step. A bit like the OP. Maybe in this day and age, when a lot of people don't marry it's a sort of protection against being strung along, like all the other threads we read on here.

However many marriages never happen... people get engaged but it turns out that he never wanted to marry her and just proposed to keep her quiet. They break up without marrying, etc.

So if someone got 'engaged' with no firm wedding plans (at least a timeline!), I'd probably assume one of the above. Again, it's only my business if they make it so by telling me that they are engaged. If they don't, then no skin off my nose.

Show quote history

Your views and mine obviously differ. I view a marriage as nothing more than an excuse to have a party; you obviously view it as an important step. For me, the security and commitment came from the intention to get married, rather than actually going through with the party bit (we did legally protect ourselves in other ways such as LPA, naming each other on our wills, ensuring all property is in joint names, etc)

GneissGuysFinishLast · 10/05/2023 12:59

TheLegenOf · 10/05/2023 12:52

Also @GneissGuysFinishLast I have a similar social circle but people don't propose until they are ready to marry. But there's no issue with having all that other stuff without marrying. Maybe they don't think they need social validation, or a token of their intentions?

Fiancé and I are marrying sooner than we'd like for various reasons but if that hadn't happened he'd have waited to 'propose'. Our families treat us like a long-term couple though. I can certainly see where people might see 'engagement' as adding legitimacy, but if people are like that they are also likely to think negatively of a long engagement with everything except a wedding in the works.

For is, the engagement happened to signal the end of a significant health issue. We knew we couldn’t afford the wedding we wanted, so we got engaged, and then did all the legal stuff that has meant that marriage isn’t important to us. The wedding will merely be a party - if it ever happens. We didn’t want to do a registry office because at the time I wanted the big princess wedding. Now that we are a decade older, the party isn’t as important to us, but the commitment that underpinned the proposal is. If that makes sense.

Most of our friends had large lavish weddings so spent several years saving for them post proposal before even booking the wedding. We didn’t want quite such a lavish wedding but instead wanted to have kids and buy a house.