Fiancé just told me he only proposed to shut me up.

[olaplexy]

Name changed for this because I’m so embarrassed and I don’t want it linked to other threads where I’ve talked about how happy we are.

Fiancé and I got engaged last summer after being together for 7 years. Booked a wedding venue in autumn for autumn 2022. We had different ideas about the wedding, he wanted something bigger and I wanted something smaller and we compromised at something imbetween. I’ve gone through stages of being excited to plan and looking forward to the day and stages of wishing we could just elope and be married, as that is what I am most excited for - being married. I’ve expressed this to him and he has told me he finds it wearing. But I’ve been the one who has done 80% of the planning, form filling, finding vendors. In fact the only job he had was to book the registrar and he hasn’t done that yet.

Anyway, we’ve had a tough few weeks with some stuff going on in his family that’s made us both worried about how it will impact our day. I was just feeling sad about how I can’t get excited about the day at the moment and he asked me what we could to do make it better. I said we couldn’t do much within the parameters of what we already had booked/who we had invited etc. I then said he didn’t seem very excited about the wedding either, and he agreed. I asked him what he would change if we didn’t have any deposits etc paid and he said he would cancel what we had booked, and just have a long engagement and not think about a wedding until we both had a special day planned.

I then said I’d do the opposite - if just get married in a registry office asap and start married life. He told me he didn’t want to waste our one wedding day on a shit wedding and why would I want to do that. The argument suddenly escalated, with him
saying nasty things about my parents wedding and me asking why he wanted to cancel the wedding.

He suddenly started being really cold and nasty, and told me he only proposed to shut me up because I kept nagging him, he’s sick of trying to make me happy and I have an empty, bottomless void inside me that means I’ll always be miserable. He was so unpleasant.

We then carried on talking and he said he’d only said that to be mean, and he thought I was trying to railroad him into getting married without his family (which I wasn’t - I’ve been the only one to make compromises on that because my ideal
wedding has 0 guests!) and I’d gone into the conversation with an agenda.

I’m sat upstairs now not knowing how to proceed from here. He made me feel like I was in the wrong? But I don’t know why you would ever say to the person you’re engaged to you didn’t want to propose unless you actually mean it? I don’t know what to do.

That's pretty bad to say before you're even married. Marriage is hard when you add kids and life stresses into the mix. He doesn't sound like he will be supportive or active. I'd think carefully about marrying him.

Well fuck him! I would let him cancel it all. Its despicable cruel, you'll never be able to walk down the aisle now if you have doubts about whether he really wants to be marrying you

Put it on hold while you evaluate. You haven't booked anywbere get surely? As an aside, many couples have been gutted booking their wedding before booking the registrar and finding they can't have the date.

Needs another chat though, this needs ironed out.

He's telling you he doesn't want to get married.

In a pretty unkind way too.

I would find it hard to get past if I'm honest

He doesn’t want to get married.

@gamerchick We have booked a venue - our venue has options for both a civil ceremony and a private chapel so we can get married either way but we’d both agreed we’d prefer civil, hence needing to book a registrar, but also we could get married either way.

Thanks for the replies. I feel sick.

Regardless of the context...

Do you want to marry someone who deliberately says things designed to destabilise how secure you feel in your relationship plans and make you feel unwanted when he wants to win an argument?

Do you want to marry someone who insults your family to win an argument?

Do you want to marry someone who suggests you're broken and emotionally exhausting in order to win an argument?

Do you want to marry someone who then freely, easily admits they do things like this to 'be mean' as though that's a normal, rational response?

Do you want to marry someone who makes assumptions ("thought I was trying to railroad him") about your intention and takes the nuclear option in response instead of trying to talk about his feelings with you?

Do you want to marry someone, who, when you've made a compromise on your wishes (to have a small wedding) in favour of his (a big, much harder to organise, wedding), makes you do all the work and then drags his heels on doing even a tiny administrative task?

This could have been about any number of things. It's his defensive, cruel, wildly escalating response to feeling attacked that's the problem here - not the wedding itself.

The idea that you expressed sadness and worry about your wedding day - because you want it to be happy and memorable for the right reasons - and rightly pointed out he didn't seem happy about the wedding HE wanted, and he took this as a personal attack and called you emotionally broken, insulted your family, implied he didn't actually want to marry you, and then admitted he'd do all of that because he wanted to hurt you because he felt defensive is... staggeringly horrible.

Dump. You deserve better.

I know if I ask him if he wants to call everything off he’ll act like I’m being over dramatic. Maybe I am? I don’t know what to do.

@housemaus your post is so right. But I just can’t imagine leaving him. Our lives are completely entwined. I don’t think I’m brave enough to start again.

@housemaus has said everything I felt but couldbt articulate.

OP if this was your friend walking into what seemed like a mistake with someone who wasnt for her, what would you say? Being scared of a possibly better alternative doesn't mean its the wrong thing

He didn’t apologise once for being deliberately cruel, even after he admitted it. Even when I asked him to.

Sounds like he wants the wedding and you want the marriage.

My DF is a vicar. He has a theory that the more important (and expensive in many cases!) the wedding the less the chance of the couple staying together as for some people they can't see past the day to the rest of their lives.
I would think very, very carefully about marrying this man.

Entwined, like a snake?

Yeah, you don't want to be marrying this one, you need to be finding an exit plan.

It sounds like he is a coward who is trying to get you to back out of the wedding so he won’t get the blame for it.

@housemaus speaks absolute sense. I would urge you to listen

Don't waste another 7 years of your life on this man. don't even waste another 7 days. Break it off and get him to move out.

He’s just come into the room with a stupid sorry face on, expecting us to just be normal again. I told him I wasn’t ready to talk, I didn’t want to be normal and I just wanted to go to bed. He told me I could sleep in the spare room if I was going to be pathetic and not make up. I’m not going to.

This is your warning sign. Do NOT marry him. How can you even contemplate marrying someone who has said this stuff to you just because you don’t want to start again!! You’re setting yourself up for a very unhappy life and divorce. Do you want kids with someone like this? You have the chance a rare chance to get out of this and find your person. He’s not it. Come on. You know this isn’t right. He’s not the one. This conversation isn’t going away. He has no respect for you at all. What’s the point in getting married for the sake of it to someone you aren’t compatible with. If you cancel everything I bet he will breathe a sigh of relief. Want better for yourself.

He’s now trying to bully you into making up? This wasn’t an argument over who does the hoovering enough - this was core life stuff. He’s got no interest in the wedding and resents it even though he wanted a big wedding. He’s not a nice person right now.

The things he said to you are unforgivable. I couldn’t get past that.

I’m interested in the circumstances surrounding the proposal, why did it take 7 years, did you feel it was something he wanted etc. But it’s none of my business and I’d consider the relationship over for your own good.

Getting divorced is a massive ball ache.

He’s accuse you of being over dramatic if you say you want to call things off?

Aye. We are always ‘over dramatic’ when we get a reality check and highlight bad behaviour back to them.

Wouldn’t be wanting to marry someone who thought it was ok to shake my foundations before I’d even begun to build on them.

I think snowy has the measure of him.