I think I might be ending my relationship 3 months before my wedding

[Alicialflorrickshair]

Crap crap crap name changed for obvious reasons

DP says that he doesn't feel he can marry me. He has developed feelings for a much younger work colleage over the last few months. We have been together 8 years and are supposed to be getting married in September. No DC.

My feelings haven't changed, I'm still as in love with him as I ever was. He says he still loves me too and still wants to be in our relationship but doesn't feel like he can marry me whilst he has feelings for someone else. I've told him that if we cancel the wedding then it is probably over for us completely as I can't see myself being able to get over that however pathetic that sounds.

Everything booked and paid for, mainly going to be letting down small local suppliers which is even worse.

I'm early 30s and also don't feel like time is on my side in relation to meeting anyone else and starting a family. I really don't a want this to be happening.

We have spent the whole weekend crying and talking about splitting up but it doesn't seem to be what either of us want. I'm convinced these feelings are in part a stress reaction from him, but he has panic attacks at the thought of the invitations being sent out so I doubt he is going to suddenly come round.

What a fucking mess.

I think he's keeping you hanging on until he knows if its going to move forward with younger colleague. If not you'll get him back. Lucky you, eh?!

AuntieStella has a good point. To get to the point where you admit your feelings to someone outside your relationship, who is also in a relationship and you share a workplace - that is some pretty heavy emotional investment that has taken place already. And all that time you were busy planning your wedding and he was saying nothing.

If this woman had reciprocated his feelings, how do you think that conversation would have ended? With a chaste peck on the cheek and a promise to remember her forever as he walked off down the aisle with you?

The bald facts are that he has clearly tried to have an affair, failed, and couldn't deal with the guilt so he's dumped it all on you. What a morale and decent chap he is.

I have to agree that you would be better off sucking up a bit of heartache now and avoiding a massive car crash of any further relationship with him.

I began divorce proceedings the month I turned 30.
Subsequently I married DP end of last year, I'm 37.

You're very young yet. Try looking at it without the panic of 'being alone at 30'. If he feels this way now and you plough on, what will you do if five years from now with a child he meets a willing attractive woman at work?

He says he doesn't want to get married. He's made his decision. You go ahead any future falling out will be, 'I told you I didn't want to get married this is your choice...'

He isn't keeping me hanging on in case something happens with her. He knows nothing will happen with her. She is very happy in a relationship with someone else.

He didn't tell me through choice really, you live with someone for a long period of time and funnily enough you can tell when they are incredibly sad. I asked him outright what the problem was as he was going green every time the wedding was mentioned and he told me the truth. He says he kept hoping that as the wedding got closer he would feel differently but in his words 'it's getting worse not better'.

He looks so sad and keeps apologising for letting me down and hurting me.

It's not just the wedding it's our whole lives, our house that we are in the middle of renovating, our shared friends. He acknowledges all of that. He looked physically ill before we went to work this morning.

Did you have any indication at the time that he was spending a lot of time with this woman? Because if not, that means you cannot trust him to be open with you, except when it suits him. Recipe for neurosis in a marriage, surely?

Did you know he was meeting up with her in February Op ? Did you know he was getting so close to her ?

I'm sorry to say I would suspect an affair or that some sort of physical contact has occurred. It's a rare person who blurts out that sort of statement to someone who is in a committed relationship and has apparently given them no encouragement.

I would dig around a bit I think.

He kept hoping he would feel differently...?

It's his choice whether to nip his feelings of longing in the bud once he realises they are inappropriate, or whether to hang on to them and fancy him and her to be star-crossed lovers.

He chose to nurture this fantasy in his head.

This doesn't add up. If he knows nothing will happen with her why did he announce he had feelings for her ? There could have been a range of negative consequences for that , the end of their friendship , trouble at work , trouble from her partner ect.

I wasn't there when they were depending a lot of time with each other, I was away with work (a one off occurrence). He has never given me any reason to believe he would cheat on me and we have very shared lives, same friends, same interests and very little time outside work spent away from each other.

Other than this blip the relationship has previously been very respectful and other than a few arguments from time to time, good.

I know the easiest thing would be to hate him and blame him but I genuinely can't bring myself to do it when I think he wishes he hadn't developed feelings for her as much as I wish that wasn't the case. I can't hate him for being honest. Isn't honesty what relationships should be based on?

I cancelled a wedding with three months notice and coming from that POV, I think he's being a coward. I developed feelings for someone else (my now husband) and didn't want to have an affair or get married to my then fiancé- so I told him I couldn't marry him and left. It was brutal and horrible but better than a marriage my heart wasn't in. It sounds as though your partner hasn't got the balls to actually end it and so is leaving you to make the final decision. Not cool IMO.

If he were honest he would have told you in February

This sounds like he's wanting you to make the decisions and be the bad guy

Let him go.
He isn't yours. He is interested in someone else. Whether she'll have him or not doesn't matter.
Sod the wedding, cancel it.

Move on.

You deserve better. Are you going to go through life thinking 'He only married me because Miss X wasn't interested'? No.
Let him go.
By which I mean "Kick him out."

But enough of him. What do you feel, what do you want?

Your posts are all about him and how sad he is and how it's so difficult for him but what about you? I totally understand you must be gutted, shellshocked and petrified. But look at it from where we're looking - your fiance is too cowardly to make a decision one way or the other so he's heaping all his angst on you and letting YOU make the decisions, so you look like the bad guy and he comes out shiny clean. What a twat.

I wouldn't want to marry someone who isn't sure they want to marry me, and I think you really need to get some space. Either you or him needs to move out (I think it should be him) and let the dust settle. Cancel the wedding because even if you sort things out it would be a very fragile foundation on which to build a marriage.

february was just when they spent a lot of time with each other, the feelings have developed over time since then, getting to the point we are at now.

I believe him when he says he hoped the feelings would go away. He has deliberately not spent anytime with her outside work since he realised he had feelings for her. They haven't swapped phone numbers, they aren't friends on Facebook. They do email each other at work and share jokes about work stuff but its a small company that only employs him and six others so it's no like anything inappropriate would go unnoticed.

I feel sadness mainly. I feel like my world is crumbling.

Never mind the wedding we already have a life together.

he is an extremely moral person

A man who allows himself to 'develop feelings' for another woman while in a long-term relationship is not one to whom I'd apply the word 'moral'.

If he's one of those uptight repressed males who others describe as being 'morally upright', run a mile as they're inevitably the worst kind of hypocrites.

Sorry to say that I definitely think you should cancel the wedding too.
A friend was in a similar position - OH going green when they sent out invitations, kept asking my friend if she wanted to do this (she did) and not making the decision himself. In the end, he managed to make the decision not to marry her...just a few days before the wedding. Fall out was not fun at all but both have gone on to marry other people and are much happier.

The crush is a red herring, really, I think. Bottom line is he doesn't want to get married and so he shouldn't.

The sooner you make the decision to cancel, the sooner you can start to move on to the next stage of it all.

Sorry this is happening to you OP.

I don't agree with the LTB brigade in this instance (unless of course that's what you want to do!). It sounds to me like your DP has done the right thing in trying to be honest with you, even though it must still be very hurtful for you.

However, I do think you need to ask him if the only reason he's with you is because she doesn't reciprocate his feelings. If she did, would he leave you for her?

I am in a very happy, loving relationship but last year I had a crush on someone at work that made me question it a bit. DP and I were both really busy, neglecting each other a bit and nothing ever happened or came close to happening with this other guy but I was in turmoil for a couple of months over it because I felt so bad but I never ever wanted to leave DP - it was just a stupid crush. I told him about it, we went on a nice holiday together and took the time to reconnect and it was (and is) all fine.

It just depends on what the situation is here. For me I wouldn't have done anything or left DP even if my crush had reciprocated. That was how I know it wasn't a big deal, just a stupid distraction because my relationship needed some TLC.

And it's not immoral to have a crush on someone, for crying out loud. It's inmoral to act on or encourage it. But feelings? You can't help those I'm afraid. Actions, yes. Feelings, no.

He has deliberately not spent time with her outside work since he realized he had feelings for her

Or

He has deliberately not spent time with her outside work since she rejected him. I don't think it's as honourable as it sounds.

Is he possibly angry at you Op ?

Alicia, I know this is incredibly hard but I really do think you have to end the relationship. I ended a 10 year relationship just before 30 and it was awful. I was incredibly sad. I was physically sick. I broke my own heart as much as my ex's and in fact it took me longer to get over than him even though it was my decision entirely he did everything he could to make it work. He was a gem. But it wasn't right and whilst I couldn't bear the agony of us ending, I just couldn't marry him. I'm not a cheater. I had never cheated on him, but I knew there'd be trouble ahead because although I loved him so much, I just didn't 'feel it' enough to think this was us for the rest of our lives and that I'd never find myself one day down the line feeling bored and doing the unthinkable… it took me such a long time to peel the plaster off, prolonging the agony because we both just kept crying as we loved each other so much. It took months and months to finally say 'we can't do this anymore' and stick to it. And then the grief really kicked in. Fortunately we are both very happily married to other people now. There were never any nags or doubts before those weddings. It was the right thing for both us and we both know it but it was awful at the time.

He doesn't want to split up because it's so incredibly hard and agonisingly painful. But he doesn't want to marry you, and I don't think it's just about his feelings for this other women. You two are never going to get married and you need to give yourself time to go through this heartbreak, heal and then meet the man you will spend the rest of your life with and not let this relationship limp on until it collapses and you bitterly resent him for screwing things up for you.

I think this is called an emotional affair, isn't it?

really sorry, OP - but this is not normal for a man three months off his wedding. He might be dreading the fuss of the actual day but he should be still having eyes for only you.

he doesn't. He's fallen for someone else. Game over.

so sorry, again. Cancel and HE needs to move out.

After 8 years, just as the wedding finally approaches, he is distracted by someone who might not really be a distraction, so you should just hold on a second until he figures out if he wants her or you?

No. He just wants to weasel out of having a big actual break up. Wants to put everything on hold and let it all slip onto actual break up land in a way that is less dramatic and painful to him and obviously ALL his fault than a clean break because he found a new girlfriend would be.

break it off, cancel everything, return the ring and begin immediately on dealing with your grieving and recovery process. Partners don't get to play around on the side and expect you to wait in the wings. Be glad this happened this year, not next year.

Oh op.... I too was with a guy for over eight years and we too were going to get hitched.
He had no enthusiasm for the planning at all. Don't get me wrong, I'm no bridezilla, and certainly not one if these people who goes nuts over weddings, I'd have eloped!
It gradually dawned on me that we weren't right for each other. We were at the the start, but I think over our twenties we just changed, as folk do.

In the end I called it off and left him. It was the most painful, wrenching thing I'd ever done, because he hadn't cheated or any of the 'stereotypical ' reasons people call it all off.

I moved out, I lived by myself for a couple of years and sort of resigned myself to getting lots of cats.... But then, I met the most wonderful man, we got hitched and are now expecting our first baby.

Op, don't torture yourself with this other woman. See that he has massive cold feet, has feelings for someone else and he should be having feelings for YOU. In the run up to a wedding nerves are fine, but there should be a genuine desire to get married and excitement about the future.

but it's all about him isn't it? His feelings, not yours, his selfish crush, not focusing on your relationship. You've got some hard choices to make, but they have to be what's best for YOU. Not your suppliers etc.

Two things spring to mind. One, marry in haste, repent at leisure and two, when you've got some distance between you and this, think it's not impossible you'll find out there's been more to this crush than he lets on.