Should I cancel my wedding that’s in 3 months?

[Unhappyinlove]

This is my first post. I just really need some help from people who don’t know me or my fiance.

We are due to get married in February 2025 and I just don’t know if what we are going through is pre-wedding stress or the relationship is unsalvageable. We have been on the brink of break up a few times in the last month. His behaviour never changes. Golf and drinking take priority over me. His job is the most important thing in his life and it causes so much stress. He is a police officer and I worry that he sees his work colleagues as his family. He is out with them very often.

most recently, we got very close to breaking up. I said I needed more time with him, that I was feeling neglected, and he said things would change. He gets four rest days and on those days he went drinking and played golf. No time spent with me. He said tonight we could go for dinner then was annoyed that I wasn’t ready at the time I finish work, then was in a bad mood and said we couldn’t watch tv together because he needed to sleep. He was in a foul mood but kept saying nothing was wrong. He then said me asking him to talk to me and tell me what was wrong was what was putting him in a bad mood. So it’s my fault, again.

I am terrified by what people will say. My family will support me, as will my friends, but I know people will judge me. I also fear for my mental health post break up. I don’t think I will cope well at all.

I also can’t quite explain how terrifying I find the idea of starting again at almost 30. We have been together 8 years. The thought of him moving on also makes me feel physically sick.

I still love him a lot. He’s not a bad person. He just has changed so much and I don’t really like who he is right now. Is this a phase or has he changed beyond repair?

we own a house together but have no children.

i really need some help, any advice gratefully received

He's a shit partner so you're going to break up at some point anyway. Just depends whether you do it now before you're legally entwined or in a couple of years time when it'll be an absolute nightmare and it will get very nasty.

Ps- you're still young ! I didn't meet the love of my life till early 30s

Wow they sound scarily similar. And I worry the situation you describe is my future too x

Oh darling, no one will judge! Your family will probably be relieved actually if they can see he's not making you happy. My DSIL was in very similar situation and we were all so happy for her when she said she was cancelling the wedding. She was 30+ then. 7 years on she has married a lovely man and had a gorgeous baby. Don't waste any more of life with someone who doesn't prioritise you.

I remember visiting a lady who had a 6hr discharge home after having her 2nd baby, got home with a new baby & a toddler husband left her to play golf. All she did was cry. I felt so sorry for her.
Is this what you want?
just be honest with & tell him you deserve better than he can give you. It’s not about how much you love him but how he shows that he loves you, from what you have said he is not showing a lot of love. You are more resilient than you know. Don’t be surprised if he meets someone one really quickly just be glad it’s not you.

Agree a divorce is expensive and takes years - you dont need to put yourself through this. People would judge you harsher if they spent time and money on your wedding and then separated soon after.

I put off breaking up with a long term boyfriend when I was 29 because I was worried about being 30 and single. Then I turned 30, realised I was still so young and ditched him within days. I then met my husband, married him at 35 and have two kids. You have more time than you realise (and better to be alone than unhappy, as the song goes).

Please don't marry him. He will make you miserable.

I also fear for my mental health post break up. I don’t think I will cope well at all.

Get yourself set up with a professional counsellor - get other stuff arranged in your life to best proactively support your emotional health - gym, hobbies, holiday, friends, dont drink etc

Oh god, honestly, do not get married to this man because it absolutely will not get better. Once you have a couple of kids, you'll barely see him and these situations that you are having right now will be a walk in the park. I know this from experience.

No, he wasn’t. He became one three years ago, and his personality has completely changed

Getting married because the date is fixed and it seems a huge deal to postpone the date, is not really the issue here. Whenever you chose to marry, that is the big deal, and however difficult it maybe to consider a cancellation, a marital breakup is a far more painful and difficult thing to experience.
Please re read your original post, it is covered in red flags. The behaviours which are troubling you, are not small picky little things, they are examples of different priorities, different standards of behaviour and a lack of loving care.
All relationships are tested, the ones which survive and maintain some form of happiness, are relationships were parties have common goals, maintain an effective channel of communication, and have the ability to exercise self discipline.
It is a little folksy to think this way, but it is true….there is no ‘I’ in team, and when you marry you try and merge your lives so that you become a team. You strive for the same things, you nurture the relationship, you look out for one another.
Your husband to be, is acting as the classic chauvinist, he is prioritising his pleasures before his relationship, if you marry and this persists, he will accuse you of being a nag, a drain on his time and someone who doesn't know how to have fun, or someone who doesn’t recognise the pressures he is under.
If you have children, you will be doing 99% of the heavy lifting and you will resent him and wish you had applied the brakes to the February 25 wedding. You do not want to marry him, what you want is that he changes those behaviours which are making you unhappy, my guess is that he doesn’t want to change, people rarely do. I hope my thoughts havent caused any unnecessary stress. You deserve better.

Don't get married as you are now.

Every relationship has ups and downs but if he's not choosing to spend time with his fiancée 3 months before his wedding then he's not going to choose spending time with his wife (and later children) 3 months/3 years after the wedding.

You can postpone a wedding if you want to but time but bloody hell a divorce is costly, time consuming and stressful.

You should be skipping through life now just 3 months before your wedding - proper honeymoon period stuff, not asking him to prioritise you.

Every single night I snuggle up with DH - whether it's for the whole evening or just for half an hour because one of us has something on. We look forward to that time together and I never have to ask him to spend time with me.
Don't get married like you are - postpone and work on you as a couple or cancel and walk away, but don't go ahead like this.

At this time in your life, you should be feeling so excited to be marrying this person, to have more adventures together and build a future together….
he just does not sound like the right person for you.

You are still young , not yet 30!
I met my husband at 31, had 2 kids mid 30s/early 40s…. You need to get out there and see who makes you be your best self. Who lifts you and energises you.
Don’t tie yourself down to the first boyfriend, it sounds like he will make you miserable. Sorry OP.

You will get through it and the whole world will
open up to you!

Jump now or you'll spend another few years trying to save face, panic about divorcing and meeting someone new and having a baby, you'll just be older.

Loads of people break up long term relationships just before 30. I think its because people realising it's the last big milestone to start over before time is against them and they are doubling down on something that isn't right.

Be honest - if it's still bad in 3 years, are you going to leave or just have a baby anyway because you're scared.youll.miss your window?

Marriages work from the bottom up. You build from a firm foundation. I've seen far too many times situations when they are looked at from the top down. In other people kid themselves that the sanctity of the legal agreement somehow irons out hiccups and straightens out issues.

Doesn't work like that. And what you describe are not minor problems. Cut your losses and get the hell out of there. Grin and bear whatever opprobrium you get from others. If anyone criticises your decision, then they're not a real friend.

Should I cancel my wedding that’s in 3 months?
Yes. So many alarm bells in your post. For me the big one was that you've discussed your issues, he's said he'll change and he hasn't. If he's not inclined to change at 30 with the excitement of a wedding on the horizon, he's sure as fuck not going to at 40 with small kids and you doing all of the work because he's still prioritising drink and golf above you.
I'm mid 40s now but so many of my friends came out of long relationships around your age. It was a mix of realising that person was no longer right for them and that they're on the edge of the period where you need to start getting proactive if you want kids. It felt like a really healthy milestone for people, no matter how painful it felt in the moment.
It doesn't feel it at nearly 30, but I promise you are so young still, with decades to look forward to. Don't tie yourself to this man who can't prioritise you. You deserve much better then that.

You know you're right to not marry him. You've spent almost all of your 20s with him. Don't resign yourself to spending your 30s with him getting worse. Thirty is plenty young enough to start over and you'll be so glad you saw sense and made the decision to cancel this now. These people who'll judge you mean nothing. It's your life that's important and your family and true friends will completely understand.

Does anyone have any advice for how to end it when you still love them and care about them?

If you think about it really hard, do you love the man he is now or are you in love with the man he was?

Based on what you've written there doesn't seem to be much about him that is loveable. But I don't think the old him is going to come back.

Splitting up will be hard. You have to let go of the future you thought you had three years ago before he joined the police. You will grieve for it. But you've been together for eight years and three of those have been hell. Think about the last year particularly - do you want that to be your life? Never being supported, never being a priority, being the punchbag for his moods, him always making any disagreement your fault?

Don't marry him. Don't give him any more power over you. You deserve better than him.

You are giving yourself an amazing chance here OP - the gift of not making a huge life-changing mistake.

Grab it with both hands and even though it will be tough and scary, you know this marriage would not be a positive thing.

Future you will be pleased with you!

If he's like this before you are even married, he will only get worse and even more so if you have a baby or babies.

Better to cut things off now than the pain of divorce and shared parenting.

He's not marriage material, sorry.

Please don't marry him. You already know you shouldn't, that's why you're asking. Things really won't get better after marriage if they are this hard now.

My very good friend called off her wedding about three months before it was due to happen. She was in her mid thirties, and, like you, terrified of what the future would hold. She agonised over it, said she couldn't do it as she'd upset too many people, everything was paid for, what would people say/think, she would be wasting thousands of pounds, etc.

In the end she knew she couldn't marry him and that was the most important thing. She didn't want to commit her whole life to someone she knew she would not be happy with. It was incredibly hard at the time but she was very brave and called it all off.

Nearly twenty years later she can now look back and realise it was one of the most important things she ever did. She is now very happily married to the right person and he is happy in his life too.

Between the ages of 19 and 24 I was in a 5 year relationship l, the final year of which we were engaged. I ended up calling it off and breaking up with him as the relationship wasn’t right (for a variety of reasons) and I knew it would have been a huge mistake to go ahead with marrying him.

Whilst we hadn’t got as far down the road in wedding planning as you have, and of course there was some embarrassment and awkwardness having to tell people of the break up etc, those whose opinions really mattered supported me 100% and I’m so relieved I didn’t go through with a wedding and a marriage that would have just made me miserable.

I married my DH 5.5 years ago, have been together 14.5 years. We didn’t meet until I was 28 and it was totally worth the wait. Don’t undersell yourself and settle for a life partner who has continually told you through his actions and his words that you do not matter to him just because you are frightened of having to start again.

If you’re worried about the financial implications, do you have wedding insurance @Unhappyinlove that might cover at least some of the costs of cancellation?

The best advice I ever got: “When someone shows you who they, are believe them”

You know this isn’t the level of compatibility needed for a life-long commitment to marriage.

End it. Every day that you don’t is another day of your life wasted on the wrong person. More days feeling like this. You’re grumpy with each other as neither quite has the courage to say what needs saying.

I split up with my fiance aged 29 and it freed me up to meet my husband who I’ve now been with for 16 years.

Bugger everyone else, btw. They don’t have to live with and share a bed with this man for the next 50-60 years. Only you get to decide if you want to do that.

Yes, you absolutely should cancel your wedding. Being married won’t stop him taking you for granted, but it may well make it worse. The discomfort of cancelling and telling people, will be nothing compared to the discomfort and costs (financial and emotional) of divorce.

You have loads of time! I broke up from a LT relationship at 31 and had a great time socially once I was over the initial heartache. I subsequently went on to meet DH and have a family. Get yourself some counselling if you are struggling to cope emotionally but definitely do not marry this man.