Taking back a proposal. It's over, isn't it?

[UpsetandDeflated]

This won't take long I don't think. NC out of sheer embarrassment.

After years together, DP had never made any suggestion he wanted to get married. I have never tried to force the issue, or even brought it up in years.

A month ago, he said he wanted us to get married. Randomly asked out of the blue, and I was pretty floored by it. But really happy, obviously. He said he didn't want a huge big song and dance wedding as neither of us are like that, but he just wanted to be married to me. And that "he would be the best husband I could ask for".

He said he didn't have the first clue what he'd need to do, but if I knew and could do that, he would be happy with that. So I did.

I ordered documents needed, and booked it for a significant date. Very small wedding.
I took DD1 dress shopping. And myself, ordered and paid for both dresses.

Now, he has said he's changed his mind. He was an idiot, he made "a gesture" and it's backfired on him.
That I "should have known" it wouldn't happen, because he's never asked before, so why would I think it would now?

I said he will have to tell DD1 and the two friends we asked, because I am too mortified to speak to them about it, he said "they won't be that bothered, they know I've always been anti-marriage".

I have asked him why he even asked in the first place. He said, "I wanted to make you happy, and I meant it at the time".
And that I should at least appreciate the gesture that he did mean it.

So why let me go through this. I don't think I can see a way back from this. I just feel totally fucking ridiculous and humiliated.

But I'm angry too. How anyone could do this to someone they say they love. That doesn't feel like love to me.

Say something, say you like the date chosen. Let them dress shop. Take your child to choose their dress. Tell your friends. Then say, "actually no, I changed my mind...but you should appreciate the gesture"

I'm starting to think he just wants out of our relationship, and has planned this to make me end it so he doesn't have to.

Please someone tell me I'm not wrong for being so fucking hurt? And also, what would you do? Thank you

LTB

Been there. He renounced his proposal just prior to our wedding. All my friends and family were invited. It was totally humiliating.

I think at least subconsciously he wanted to make sure there was no coming back from it. It may not have been deliberate to get us in to such a mess but we'd been together for years, reasonably happily, so this sure did kill it for me! There really was no going back. Having to tell work colleagues for example that the wedding didn't go ahead was just awful. There was no going back for me after it.

I'm nearly 5 years on though and genuinely pretty happy with my life. He is still a miserable bastard.

You are worth more than this bullshit.

My dress came today, which I wasn't expecting until Wednesday. I was just going to put it in the bin but I couldn't, so I'm posting it here, as someone should see it. It really is beautiful. He is keeping well out of my way, which I'm glad of.

It's a lovely dress.

Keep it for now.

You might well get married one day to a nicer man and wear it.

This is not worth splitting over, if you love him

Or if you like being treated like shit, humiliated and then belittled.

You are worth so much more than a man who can't even acknowledge your feelings. Who wants to get to 80 and look over to see that they have spent their life with a spineless, manipulative prick?

Beautiful dress, it would have been wasted on him.

Overthinker2016 that is even worse that is terrible. I do think there's no way back from this now. I've told him he's broken my heart. Not because I was desperate to be married, I wasn't. It's that he said something, let me plan it all, try dresses with my daughter, order them, tell a couple of close friends, then said actually no, he doesn't want to after all, and I should at least appreciate the gesture he made because he wanted to make me happy, and meant it at the time
I don't see how I can ever trust anything that comes out of his mouth again.
He has said he's a bit tired of me blowing hot and cold with him now, I should have got it all said on the day he told me and we could move on, but he doesn't know where he stands when I'm blowing hot and cold. I really can't win. It's a lose lose situation as someone said earlier.
Either I end the relationship, and the years together are gone. Or I stay, and have my self esteem on the floor because I'm not even worth it. Pretty shit really.

'I've met old ladies who advised me in 15 years time you won't care about your DH's affairs but you will still be haunted by how much pain your children go through and they were right.'

The mind boggles. That blows my fucking mind, that anyone would advise someone to put up with someone who a) violated their trust and disrespected them continually and proved themselves a proverbial liar b) then suggested that splitting with such a person means you are at fault for putting your children through the pain of a breakup.

Of course there were 'other issues to forgive' besides his affairs, because people who continually cheat tend to be complete cunts in many ways.

Loving someone who is abusive, manipulative, has no respect for you isn't love, it's co-dependency.

That is a beautiful dress. I wouldn't bin it, I would hang it on the wardrobe door until he's coughed up the cost of it.

I think there will be a lot of single people in years to come because marriage or relationships are co dependency. That's how it works at its best it's positive and a wonderful experience, at worst it's ugly but that is what it is.
I think the question is will the op and the kids be happier and that's all that matters when all said and done.

He sounds devoid of any feelings or emotions.

You'd have to literally HATE someone to do this to them.

I bet you never got a ring?

The dress is gorgeous, do not bin it. Make sure he sees it. Sell it on Gumtree or Ebay.

I know that change is hard, but you really need to ditch this idiot.

If you stay together, I'd recommend giving him promissory notes for Birthdays and Christmas, something like "We're going on a trip to New York" and then add later that you're not really going, but it's the gesture that counts.

Prick.

Oh the irony if saying you're the one blowing hot and cold!

pisssss some of us have standards of acceptable behaviour.

'He has said he's a bit tired of me blowing hot and cold with him now, I should have got it all said on the day he told me and we could move on, but he doesn't know where he stands when I'm blowing hot and cold.'

Lovely, he's a gaslighting twat who makes you feel bad when he shits all over you from a great height. It's only been a couple of days since he did this and he expects you to 'move on'? Yeah, because he's still a cruel wanker.

'Either I end the relationship, and the years together are gone. Or I stay, and have my self esteem on the floor because I'm not even worth it. Pretty shit really.'

Don't fall for the fallacy of sunken costs. The years together are just that. The past. Learn from it. Staying with him shows your children that it's okay to stay with someone who mistreats you horribly. Not something I'd want them to see.

All the standards in the world won't feed the kids to be utterly blunt. I think this guys been a shit, is it worth breaking a family up for in isolation, no it's not.

Can't really add anything. Expat said it all. I do think he has a point though with blowing hot and cold but it's not his point to make, how dare he but you must make a decision for your DC sake, you either end it, or you let it go and move on.

All the standards in the world won't feed the kids to be utterly blunt

I can feed my kids without my husband. I'm with my husband because he is a kind and lovely man , he isn't an unkind, gaslighting, prick unlike the OP's partner. You're basically arguing that women should accept shit treatment, in exchange for financial stability.

So he's continuing to deny your feelings and gaslight you

If you leave him, as with people leaving due to their partner's affair or mistreatment, the responsibility will be primarily his. Please don't let your concern about what he and others might think/say keep you in a bad situation.

Seeking to put the responsibility on the wronged partner is also a classic and nasty plot to play on the partners' fears for themselves and DC.

Lucky you chipped, not everyone can and its a lot to consider and weigh up in most people's cases.

'All the standards in the world won't feed the kids to be utterly blunt. I think this guys been a shit, is it worth breaking a family up for in isolation, no it's not.'

Breaking up a family? He's not her children's biological father, for starters. She has been able to feed her kids without a man in the past, I'm sure she can do it again. She may even have a J-O-B. And she isn't breaking up anything, he is, by behaving like a gaslighting, manipulative, cruel prick.

It's been two days and he's already complaining about your 'blowing hot and cold'?! WTF kind of reaction did he expect? It's really telling that he truly expected you to be grateful to him and just sweep this under the carpet.

And no I'm saying that at the end of the day the only people that truly know the situation and if it's tenable is the op and her partner and what I hate about all these types of threads is the frenzy that gets whipped up.

expat you've said it better than I could.

If it's tenable it's indicative of a person who has such bad self esteem she puts up with cruel and abusive behaviour. Condoning such a thing is pathetic at best, dangerous at worst.

Why is he still there ? He's offered to leave, give him a kick up the arse as he goes through the door

Don't buy into the sunk costs fallacy. If you had an old banger of a car if the mechanic wrote it off would you carry on throwing good money after bad? No. It's the same thing here. You wasting more of your precious life on this twat will not cancel out the shit. It just makes the pile higher.

Your seemingly insignificant comment that the proposal made you "really happy, obviously" is actually key to all this in my opinion. If you were as nonplussed about marriage as him, this would be something i think you could reasonably be expected to get over.

However, deep down clearly you had wanted to get married for years, but it was something you repressed for fear of being rejected. So when he does propose, you're delighted... So much so that you believe it must be obvious that you would be happy with the proposal! It is the fact that he gives and swiftly takes away what had been a secret life dream of yours that you had kept locked up for years inside that is the dealbreaker, not the recanting of the proposal as such.

I wonder why is it so common for women to yearn for marriage but for their partners to reject the idea, only for the women to quietly accept it? Women surely deserve more!

Pissssed Would you say to the partner here that his disinclination to get married was 'not worth breaking up a family over'? Even if a person didn't believe in marriage themselves, in this kind of scenario I would say he knows it would make his partner and the kids happy, why can't he show up, sign the register and suck it up for a day? Or are men allowed to have 'principles' but women should just put up and shut up for the sake of the kids?