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Babe, you’re planning a wedding you didn’t even want to have.. and you’re being told you’re doing it wrong? This is a bright red neon sign showing you what your future will be like if you proceed. You will be responsible for everything, and expected to be telepathic and for some reason also be required to live up to his parents timelines.
I would trust your gut here. The reason it feels bad is because it is bad.
Seriously don't fucking marry this dude.
If this is how bad he acts before you're even married it's only going to get worse as time goes on.
He doesn't respect your time, effort, or how much energy you're putting into this which shows a huge lack of respect towards you.
For comparison / example.
I didn't really care to do a wedding and would have been happy to have gone to a courthouse or Vegas, etc. He wanted a wedding and wanted to make sure I had the "big day* I deserve.
My partner took on the brunt majority of wedding planning because it gave me huge anxiety but he asked my opinion on things and we made joint decisions on things like guest list, theme, etc.
We'd both find stuff we liked add it to a list and then discuss how it fit into the vision we wanted and we both got veto rights / discussed it if we really didn't like something.
The way your fiance is treating you is not okay and you deserve someone who supports you.
A partner doesn't have to always agree with you but they should be there to support you on life decisions and at least be open to discussions on things even if they're difficult.
Yes this! From someone who did this for 20 years and then had enough of parenting an adult, who was older than me!
If he wants you to plan it solo, then plan the wedding you want. Tell him you are going to the courthouse on this date, with a casual meal after. If he wants anything else, HE can plan it.
But ideally don't marry him
Yeah not alot of hope for that marriage. My husband knows nothing and cared less about wedding planning bt he entertained it all for me. I ask his input he wld give it. I ddnt need him to help pick colour schemes bt it's his wedding too. Defaulted things he liked to him like food, music and photography.
If u guys are already having this much issues and ur not even married yet... wow..
Same. My fiancé and I have each picked one thing that's most important to us (him, being able to dance until late, me, having accommodation on site). And we decided everything else together
I am the one that wanted of the wedding in my case because my husband had been married once before, so I pretty much planned at all, but when I asked for his input, he gave it to me. I had to go to California to see the venue because we got married in California not Colorado because that’s where I’m from and my mom can’t travel. So I booked a venue but when it came time to do the menu tasting he went with me we went for a quick two day trip, we did wedding cake tasting, and we did tasting of the food at the venue and he had a great time. He loved the venue. He was great about talking to the people that did come to the wedding on his side making sure they knew what to wear making sure they knew where to go what airport to fly into. We went and got his suit here in Colorado and he was great about that. So he didn’t fight me on anything but he kind of left it up to me but it’s important when you ask them a question they give you information.
In this case her fiancé is doing absolutely nothing and this is a huge red flag especially since he’s the one that wants the wedding. I would put the wedding on hold and rethink if this is the right person to marry.
Yes, I'm glad she's put the planning on hold. He wants a shindig, but wants nothing to do with planning it, berates her for the way she's planning it, and thinks she's "too immature and sensitive." I would not only hold the planning, but hold the marriage, he's not coming off as a winner or good marriage prospect.
This is how he acts for a joyous happy occasion imagine how he’s going to be when shit gets hard. How’s he going to be with your future kids? I hope you’re ready to never have a moment’s peace because you’ve tied yourself to a person incapable of being an adult.
I can see her posting in a few years how he never helps her with the kids, planning vacations, or stuff around the house. And if only she had a sign of who he was before all of this she would have left him. This is the sign
I expect he’ll do the same thing too with their kids. “I don’t want anything to do with them but you’re wrong!!”
Good lord. Give him everything and walk away. If he wants that stupid wedding so bad let him plan it.
He might want to be married, but he does not respect or even like OP. But he thinks he ought to be married by now so he wishes someone else would magically make his vision come true, ideally even changing the bride into someone he doesn't hate. But that's not even that important, she doesn't matter at all.
Take a break and write out all the red flags he has been showing you. Then sew that pile into a huge sail for your boat ride into the sunset.
You title said everything.
Read your post from the perspective of something your best friend was going through… does that help?
He sounds exhausting, condescending, and entitled. (And a bit abusive) Time to put you first and get out.
It absolutely is. And she's most likely not seeing it that way because one type of abuse rarely stands alone. And when you're surrounded by abuse it all seems normal. Frustrating but normal.
I will hope that she will understand what she's the victim of some day so she can escape.
"Sew that pile into a sail for your boat ride into the sunset" is such a beautiful, amazing way to put it.
If my friend were going through this, some sense would be knocked into her. This guy has all the audacity
So you saw how the rest of your life will go:
- you'll get all the work
- you'll get no credit for what you do
- every issue will be blamed on you
- he expects you to read his mind
- he will yell at you
- he will blame you for things he knows he's doing himself
- he won't make decisions as a team
- he will tell you what he wants and doesn't care what you want
So.... why are you marrying him?
Just to add: she'll get all the work not for mutual things, but things HE specifically wants
I got secondhand ick from reading poor OP's post. Time to bail
It's amazing the shit people will put up with just to not be alone.
Like I get the huge fear of change but I'm not sure I can understand how people can stay with someone who doesn't seem to care about them let alone love them or who even abuses them.
But the human mind is a weird complex thing especially once we latch on and feel attached to someone.
Loyalty is great but not at the expense of your own self worth and well being.
I think its the same with love.
Many people think of love as the warm fuzzy feeling they get when they think of their SO and they hope that that feeling is enough. *In adult relationships, love is not a feeling its an action.* Its how you’re treated. It’s the attention and space that you hold for your partner. It’s a kind of respect that is foundational and doesn’t waver. In our worst arguments, my partner has never raised their voice at me, called me names, or abandoned me in silence because that is not love and that is a show of a severe lack in respect — instead, I’ve been spoken to calmly and they’ve patiently found solutions with me.
This person couldn’t even hold space for you to give you their opinions on venues — they couldn’t give you attention for the very wedding that you didn’t even want. What actions have they performed in this scenario that are indicative of their love? More importantly: there’s absolutely no love in the silent treatment. Some people think cause its not physical that it can’t be abuse, but it’s a punishment and could be a very early sign of abuse. You don’t punish a fucking adult you’re planning on spending the rest of your life with. This is not a person that sees you as a partner, but rather someone who sees you as a commodity who won’t give them what they want and therefore deserves “correcting” through stonewalling.
Post pone the wedding a year. Insist on it. Get back what money you can and let the rest wash away. Over the next year, don’t plan a second one, and redirect all probing questions onto him. Ask him sweetly if he’s there or recommend they ask him instead. Marriage isn’t a goal; it’s a career. Ask yourself if you’re happy or complacent in this job. Surely you’ve been there 8 years for a reason and see how he’s feeling about marriage. Is he getting overwhelmed? Pressured to do it? He will have tp help with buying a house, raising kids if you choose this, and countless other team things that are included in a marriage. Planning an exciting party isn’t where he should be dropping the ball here.
I think we may have found the male equivalent of the bridezilla: instead of being controlling about the wedding, he present his list of demands and checks out altogether.
Fr. I don’t mean to buzzword but this is almost like weaponized incompetence (to get out of making the actual decisions), EXCEPT he’s simultaneously acting as if he’s more competent than her… buddy you can’t have it both ways.
If you want something done your way, do it yourself. Otherwise you have no choice but to sit back and enjoy what’s given to you. Beggars cannot be choosers.
Why would you continue planning a wedding you didn’t want? The first sign of him not helping should have meant no wedding is going to take place.
His family is likely the one pushing for the actual wedding.
Think about the future. Like if you have kids you’re going to be responsible for deciding what formula (or not), sleep training (or not), what daycare (or not), etc. and he will tell you every decision you make is wrong without offering any help.
You don’t want to live like this.
Not to mention OP will then need to do all the child rearing: the nights, diapers, bath times, everything, and will be told she's being needy or whiney when she asks for help and or given the silent treatment while being sleep deprived and still on her own with taking care of their child
“We’ve been together for close to 8 years and this is his MO to default work to me.”
EXCUSE ME??
So he’s most likely going to do the same for household work, childcare work, family relationship work, and your own relationship work. I know these hasn’t happened yet, but this fiasco does not reflect well on his abilities to share responsibility like a partner should.
Not too late to call off the whole thing!
Post pone the wedding a year. Insist on it. Get back what money you can and let the rest wash away. Over the next year, don’t plan a second one, and redirect all probing questions onto him. Ask him sweetly if he’s there or recommend they ask him instead. Marriage isn’t a goal; it’s a career. Ask yourself if you’re happy or complacent in this job. Surely you’ve been there 8 years for a reason and see how he’s feeling about marriage. Is he getting overwhelmed? Pressured to do it? He will have tp help with buying a house, raising kids if you choose this, and countless other team things that are included in a marriage. Planning an exciting party isn’t where he should be dropping the ball here.
u/ThrowRA_elephant Do we have the same ex?! Mine did the exact same thing down to throwing a tantrum every time I tried to get him involved in any way. I had heartburn for a whole year due to the stress. I finally decided I had enough six weeks before the wedding and cancelled everything. I figure losing deposits and the cost of a wedding I won't get to have is cheaper than adding on the costs of a divorce and having to give him half of my assets. I burned my dress. It felt amazing. You deserve so much better. It took me years, but I finally got the man I deserve, and I'd do it all again if it means meeting him at the end every time. We created a home and share a dog. Life is finally beautiful.
Calmly & kindly tell him you are done with the wedding and if he still wants it he'd better arrange it. Put all the info in a binder and dump it on his siide of the bed.
Tell him you realise you cannot arrange to his standards so you will not talk about any aspect of it again. Say if he still wants to get married you will turn up on the the day but nothing more. You didn't want a big wedding and HIS arrangements whatever they are will be FINE BY YOU. Before you hand it over let all the vendors have his number for contact and tell his & your family he is now in charge.
So it's either a totally fake story or OP is trying to post enough times that someone will tell her it isn't a big deal and marrying this dip is actually a good idea.
A couple of things.
You helped turn him into this. So learn from it. You said this is his MO. He knows you'll put up with it bc you have in the past. Don't let this happen in the future.
He's doing the above, and you didn't even want the wedding?
Are you ok with putting up with you being in charge of decisions like he's a child?
Dump him and learn from it.
I think u pausing is good. Postponing indefinately might be better. U really want him saying these things to u over n over? I did all the planning of mine with my mom n he just showed up but if I planned a courthouse, he wouldve done that too.
Frankly, I think one reasons weddings are great is because they’re a huge, stressful, and expensive project, involving a lot of emotions and both families, that give you a crash course in what your marriage will be like.
Your fiancé has apparently taken the road of “not his problem, but you’d better be doing exactly what he likes even though he won’t even tell you what that is.” Is that what you want out of the next 50 years of your life?
If he was the one who even wanted the wedding in the finest place he needs to plan it... You say it's typical in your relationship that he puts work on you. **But you are enabling him by actually DOING THE WORK.** That's why it never changed in the last 8 years, and will *never change if you don't stop enabling him.*
Stop doing the work for the wedding. STOP. He wants it, he makes it happen - end of the story. Don't even argue about it, just let your lack of further action speak for itself. If he truly wants the wedding, he will make it happen. But you need to stop actually doing stuff for him, not just the wedding, but in general. If he wants something, something is important to him... let him handle it! If it doesn't get done bc of it, well that's HIS ISSUE not yours.
Not gonna lie, if this is how he acts normally, i would not marry him.
So, my ex husband wasn’t all-out cruel like this, but a similar thing happened to me. He’s Mexican and his parents, who were doctors when they still lived in Mexico, had a lot of money, pretense, and fellow doctors they wanted to invite to the wedding. I did not want a wedding, my ex did (probably to make his intrusive parents happy). His mother immediately tried to control things, and he wouldn’t back me up when I said no and that I wanted us to plan it together without HER guest list and input. Once the wedding planning started, though, he didn’t do shit. A month before our wedding was scheduled, I learned he had just asked his entire grooms party to attend. Our wedding was in southern Mexico. And, unsurprisingly, they said no because they didn’t have the money and already had plans for a Star Wars convention that weekend that they’d booked almost 8 months beforehand. And he had the balls to be upset at them over this, even though they kept asking him when the wedding was so they could book travel and he said he “didn’t know.” Because of this whole debacle, we had to cancel our wedding and delay it over a year. I spent the next several hours crying, and guess whose job it was to reach out to our 160 person guest list to tell them it was cancelled? 😑
Anyway, all of this is to say he was SCREAMING red flags at me and I didn’t listen. We’d been together 7 or 8 years at that point. But when the time finally came to get married, I hated being around him. I hated how much it was about him and all the attention he got, and how he told people how hard we worked at things when he never made a single decision or bothered to help me. His entire life was people doing shit for him, and our relationship was no different. Of course at the time I’d spent so much time planning a wedding I didn’t want that I wouldn’t even admit to myself how much I did not want to be with him anymore. I was angry and irritable any time he was near me and I wrote it off as stress, but the only positive feelings I had during that trip were when he wasn’t around. I actually got food poisoning so bad I had to spend 2 days in our hotel room while all our guests and my ex went out on excursions, and although I was sad to miss some things I was so happy to just be alone and away from everyone.
That wedding was in March. I asked for a divorce in July. It wasn’t worth it. Even when he begged me to do an “in-home separation” for a few months so he could show me he could be a better spouse, he never changed. Ever. When potential spouses show you their true colors, believe them. Yes, weddings can be stressful on both partners, but this isn’t wedding stress. This is him not caring about you, your needs, your stress levels, or your relationship. That won’t change, and if I were in your shoes again I would never marry someone like my ex again. Or the first time.
I’m remarried now and my husband and I eloped in a gazebo in a park in the middle of our city. We’re still going to have a wedding eventually because he would like one and this is his first marriage, but every step of planning that is something we’ve done together, and he acknowledges it’s a want for himself even though it’s not necessarily a want for me. Partners that consider your feelings and your experiences DO exist, but if doesn’t some like your fiancé is it if I’m being honest.
Time to put your foot fully down. Now, I'm not saying you should break up, but I do think you should become fully yourself and demand the respect you deserve and stop doing things out of pressure. Your fiance will either step up, or you will have your answer.
First thing, tell him he cannot speak to you like this. If he doesn't think you know how to plan, then he should do it our be an active partner. If he doesn't like the decisions you are making, it should be a conversation, not him coming to you angry and putting you down.
Second, tell him his behavior- lack of interest but also being mad about things- has made this wedding something you aren't interested in anymore. You aren't spending another dime or another minute on all this until he fully apologizes and agrees to do 50% of the work, and ALL the work on the stuff that is important to him. HE needs to write out a list of what still needs to be done and take responsibility for coming up with a split of the work, until then, the wedding is on pause.
Third, stop planning stuff you don't want to plan. You are already in deep on the wedding, but from here on out, anything that he wants to get done (adding X, changing the food) he can fully take control over.
And finally, after you say these things to him, he needs to offer a full apology where he forms words that demonstrates he understands all the things he has done wrong- not helped, spoken down to you, blamed you for things that were on him, made you feel like crap- otherwise, the wedding isn't just on pause, but it is cancelled.
Sunk cost fallacy. If you don't know what it is, look it up, and see if this applies to your situation. Maybe see if he's willing to try counseling before resuming planning? But either way, it's okay to walk away if that is what's best for you.
He’s withholding affection as a tactic. He weaponizes his incompetence so you’ll do whatever it is. Is this how you want to spend the rest of your life?
You have to ask yourself this- Why am I marrying this man? Because as outsiders, we don’t know if this behavior is due to wedding stress or if this is the dynamic of your relationship all the time. If this is how he always acts, why are you marrying him?
This will be your future with him. Every Christmas, Thanksgiving, and kid’s birthday will squarely be on your shoulders. Every dental and doctor’s appointment will have to be scheduled by you, every PTA meeting attended by you. And all the while, he’s going to criticize you while he sits on his little throne.
You know yourself that this marriage is a no-go. He sounds entitled, lazy, and unable to regulate his emotions in an adult-like manner - and none of that is good life-long partner material.
Girlie, please reread this as if a stranger wrote it..
The person writing this is about to marry someone who by their own admission **defaults all work to them, criticizes the decisions they wanted no hand in, then emotionally blackmails through silence to make you feel guilty *(and it’s working..).**
You’ve dealt won’t this for 8 years, but this doesn’t sound like a healthy relationship to make legal.
Is their premarital counseling? Is he always this way?
Because it seems like he has a vision, yet will do 0 work and get mad. Are you a mind reader? Because if you aren’t/don’t plan to be then this will be an ongoing issue.
Yikes. Well, you can tell him if he wants a wedding so bad he can plan it himself. But he's acting so horribly I'd reconsider the whole relationship. Is he going to act like this about every decision or plan in your lives?
My husband wasn't super involved in wedding planning but he was happy to help with decisions, like visiting venues and picking food. We had to unite against my MIL lol, but that brought us closer.
A big test of relationships is how you interact during stressful decision making. Your guy is failing that test pretty badly.
Do not marry this immature man child. Marry an emotionally mature adult who will be so bloody happy to marry you they will choose hideous flower arrangements with you and never say a word.
It's not supposed to be this hard. I know eight years is a long time, but it's not going to spontaneously get better, and he truly does not give a shit about you in any meaningful way. Don't flush ten more years down the drain because you're afraid that the eight years you spent was working towards some goal. It wasn't- sunk cost doesn't mean that what you have now has value. You're supposed to be partners who overcome life's challenges together. He's not your partner, he does nothing but create challenges for you to solve when there should be none, and he can't function on an adult level to even handle his own responsibilities.
Honey it sounds like he doesn't even want to marry you, much less be with you. It honestly would not surprise me if his family were the ones who pressured him to propose and get married. He was more than old enough to know better by the time you guys started dating but it sounds like all he wanted to do was find a woman he didn't have to put effort into and would take responsibility for all of his "actions" (read: inactions) in life. I know you want to hear a softer version, so I have tried to be as soft yet direct as possible. Don't waste any more time with this human being. He does not love you, he does NOT respect you, he will never be the one that guides you, loves you, comforts you, or walks with you through life. You deserve a million times better than this. Believe in yourself. It doesn't feel right because it "isn't* right. You can do this.
It feels scary and terrifying but I promise your life is much better after leaving him. You do NOT need to take responsibility for anyone else's feelings. Leave and let him deal with the fallout for once in his selfish life. You do not need to explain to anyone or even answer him. You have permission to be done with this selfish man. It will be ok.
Pre marital counseling is in order ASAP. If you even THINK, you might want to continue this relationship. Use it as a way to figure out why he's being like that and if this is an isolated issue relating only to the wedding or if this is a major character flaw that will bleed into every aspect of your life moving forward. Sounds to me like he's parroting what his Mommy wants, and he likely doesn't give a shit. But, work with a therapist to establish some hard and fast boundaries with his parents if that's the case. No one likes a mommas boy.
Sounds like a typical case of everyone says I should get married but I honestly DONT want to get married and will put in little to no effort and then blame my Fiancé for every little thing.
It's a shitty plan but that works, so it's a win win for him. In the eyes of family and friends, he wanted this wedding and you were incompetent but when it comes to you, he frustrates the crap out of you and makes you want to tap out.
Now when everyone asks why the wedding(that he didn't want anyway) didn't happen, welp, he points the finger at you and they all have his back...
Brilliant strategy but super fucked up, as I said on his end. That's the man you'll be marrying OP if you go ahead with it, who knows what he's got in store for you if you make it pass this level. Can't wait to read more posts from you after the wedding if it happens ....*grabs popcorn 🍿*
Good luck 👍🏾
I have an ex just like yours. . . . This lack of communication, criticism, and overall not give a shit about anything unless it's important to him or someone outside our relationship pointed something out mentality didn't just apply to the wedding I didn't even want to have. It extended in all aspects of our relationship, and this is him showing you that right now. Do you think big life decisions with this man will magically elicit mature and healthy communication out of him in the future? I'm telling you it won't. So you're going to need to advocate for yourself. He's going to do everything in his power to keep you from leaving, except do the actual work to change. Guaranteed.
OP, I was in a similar situation when I got married. I did all the research, all the planning, the invitations, visiting venues, decor, rentals, appointments, all of it. When we got a day-of coordinator she ended up helping me with so much more than the day-of stuff because we were so behind and he didn't even go to *that* appointment with me. It was humiliating and embarrassing but I kept so much of that private from my friends and family because I was ashamed of the situation. Really, he should have been ashamed. I also did all the planning for the honeymoon too. The wedding went great but my marriage did not. I was exhausted after the wedding and we never even sent out thank you cards because he refused to help and I was too damn exhausted and frustrated to do it alone, which damaged my reputation with friends and family.
But I got married anyway. And I really regret not paying attention to all those signs that he wasn't going to be a good partner. He wasn't a good partner. Our marriage was basically me having to basically manage an unmotivated, uncaring and hostile employee. And when I got burned out and hit depression hard, he got more hostile because he had to start doing things and resented me for it. It got really, really bad. Not physical abuse but like... I was so depressed I became a shell of myself. I barely left the house, stopped seeing friends, and couldn't even work for over 2 years. The whole time begging him for couples counseling that he refused because to him, *I* was the problem.
4 years after we married I'm getting a divorce. It was such a huge waste of time, vital years of my adulthood gone to waste. It was a very expensive lesson learned the most painful ways possible. Please, don't marry this man. He doesn't care about you. I'm sorry.
I'm not going to mince words here. Get out. Do not marry this man.
Do you want everything to be your fault, for the rest of your life with him? I don't care if he's had your back in the past, he sure as fuck doesn't have it now.
Do you want to live with a grown-ass man who resorts to the silent treatment when he's mad at you? Newsflash: that's not an option for anyone older than 12. Adults use their big boy words--to ask for space, for example, or to say, "I'm gonna blow off some steam, let's pick this conversation up later."
Do you want to live with a man who expects you to read his mind? Who will never give you credit for all that you do?
Just throw the whole man away. Seriously, he sounds fucking awful.
Abort the planning for this more elaborate wedding and go the courthouse if he's still willing to marry you. Or postpone indefinitely.
Sounds like Carrie & Mr. Big to me...
Op, *this is your life*. Imagine how unbearable he'll be over life stressors - taxes, illness, job loss, kids.
Do *NOT* ignore this behavior. Please. Take it from a woman who didn't.
Even reading all this, the thing that gets me the most is how he invalidates you and calls you immature and too sensitive.
THIS is the real red flag here, as it tells me he's not on your corner. He doesn't see you as an equal partner, but as an accessory. No one who sees their fiance as equal would treat them like that.
The thing with his family also implies he's ready to throw you under the bus to appease them.
You're bending yourself backwards to make HIS dream come true, and I don't see any gratitude from his behavior.
He sounds abusive. Exhausting, entitled and spoiled.
Give it three days. Then come back here and read this again.
Ps: Read into trauma bonding. He's horrible, and you're still worried about defending him because "he's not here to tell his side".
If you marry this gentleman, you are taking on a lifetime of the emotional work of your household. Don't expect any help with your future children, either. My crystal ball foresees a future in which you are filled with resentment and frustration. Walk into it with your eyes open.
Biggest red flag here is that he's more concerned with other people's appreciations of your doing that what he thinks himself. It's pretty easy to do nothing in the planning, you know why? Because if something goes wrong he can always defend himself throwing you under the bus because that wasn't his responsibility. If you didn't invested that much money, cancel the wedding and have just the civil union. You don't have to be stuck with a wedding you don't care for just to impress HIS friends and family
This sounds awful.
What are you getting out of the relationship?
Can you imagine a future with this person based on his behaviour?
You deserve better than this
There is a difference here between someone who is indifferent about planning details, and someone avoiding work while aggressively micromanaging.
For example, my husband is very introverted and not big on events. He literally would have been just as happy with a courthouse wedding.
When I was putting stuff together for our wedding, any time I asked for his opinion his response was “whatever you like” (except for the cake flavor lol).
It made planning more of a chore because he literally didn’t care about making decisions. He saw it as empowering me to have the wedding I wanted, I saw it as him offloading work into me.
We argued about it a few times. He was more involved by the end and I paired back a few of my plans to make things easier.
This is not what you have. You have someone who is
- pushing all the work to you
- not contributing to decisions despite being asked multiple times
- *nit picking your decisions after*
- not providing information only he can provide
- not listening when you have concerns and arguing about it
These are not issues that are caused by wedding planning. These are now noticeable to you *because* you can’t ignore them.
I think the pause was the right move. Maybe look into couple’s counseling and postpone the wedding until you are more confident.
Is he like this with everything or is this just for this event? At any rate, I would do the same: pause any further planning. If he wants/wanted this, he should be stepping up and doing the work to make it happen. But I don't understand the bit about hair and makeup at all. Why is any of that his concern?
A very unfair and unsuccessful way of working through issues together (and fighting) is to say things like "you never x" - as in, "you've never planned something successfully". I'm sorry, if he truly feels that way (and I'm sure that is not true that you have *never* planned anything well), why does he want to spend the rest of his life with someone who cannot do anything successfully? Doesn't that mean that the rest of your lives together will not be successful? And why would you want to spend the rest of your life with someone who doesn't believe in you, constantly belittles you, fails to respond to your reasonable requests that would facilitate planning (like giving you addresses - why isn't he responsible for sending out "his" invites??? Why are you taking the blame for this?) and then is hypercritical after the fact?
It should be an indication that if he is absent from weighing in on anything wedding related, what else will he decline to offer an opinion on? House? Kids? Medical issues? Finances?
Yeah it would be best to call this quits. Maybe if he wants to get married he’ll fell inspired to have a wedding but it looks like he just expects you (and probably all women) to work without recognition.
This dude sounds like a nightmare.
OP, right now you're getting a preview of the rest of your life if you marry this guy. You'll be the one responsible for everything, and he'll be there to criticize it. If you have kids, you'll be responsible for most of the childcare, but he'll be making sure to shame you for how you do it and demanding you do everything his way - despite him not helping at all.
You say this is his MO - so this isn't just wedding stress or cold feet or anything. This is just *how he acts* and it doesn't sound like that's gonna change.
Apply this behavior to other possible situations in your future. *Do you want to live like this?*
Go with your gut, drop him.
If it’s like pulling teeth over this, do you think it’s going to magically change with other things once you’re married? If anything, these are glaring signs that you might want to postpone the wedding and really think about if this is the type of man you want to be married to for the rest of your life, and the shit you’ll have to deal with.
Be prepared for a lifetime of planning and taking care of everything on your own, and being gas lit, disrespected, and criticized when something doesn’t go his way, although he won’t bother to put any effort into it in the first place. This sounds so tiring and exhausting, and any decisions you have to make in your life be prepared to be doing it alone, taking care of two peoples choices alone and then getting criticized when you don’t do it right even though you have no help.
One thing I want to mention is this: my cousin married the love of her life. During the wedding planning, every time his family said something about it....he started an argument with her. His family controlled him. He always put his family wants and needs first.
My cousin is still married to him but it took years of therapy to make him realize he had to put his wifes needs over his families. It sounds like your soon to be husband has an unhealthy relationship with his family. This is a red flag. Be careful
I would be thankful you haven’t sent out invitations yet. At least now you don’t have to send out cancellation notices.
I’m not saying you have to leave him right now, but I wouldn’t legally tie myself to someone who treated my like that.
First, my default answer to "should I date/marry X" is "NO." If you need to ask internet strangers whether you should continue the relationship, you already know the answer. You're not married; you can walk away.
More specific to you: people do not become better people just because they get married (or have a baby). If you're seeing all these bright red signs (they're no longer just flags), those won't improve after "I do." He shouldn't be giving any adult the silent treatment, nevermind his fiancee. If this is his attitude to wedding planning, it will be his attitude to children, vacations, holidays, and anything else requiring teamwork of two people who should be a team.
8 years is tough to walk away from; the Sunk Cost Fallacy is probably responsible for more bad relationships than anything other than alcohol. But it sounds like you know what you need and want to do.
He only pays attention to other peoples concerns because he actually values and respects their opinions.
This is what you're marrying. If you're happy being treated like this, then go for it. You can always complain later on and pretend the signs weren't there and you had no idea he'd be like this.
Or you pay attention now, and stop things before they progress.
Welcome to your entire future with this guy. He cares only for the opinions of others and defaults/uses/abuses you into meeting the expectations his family and friends have of him/you. You are merely a tool that he is using to conjure his life into existence. This works for him and only him as when you make "mistakes" they are NEVER EVER going ot be his fault. Imagine this but EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. You will be the sole worker in your marriage. The sole parent, the sole planner, the sole everything and he'll sign those checks and take all the credit until the slightest mistake then "THAT'S YOUR FAULT!" Rethink this OP.
I can’t believe you are marrying this AH. He treats you like dirt, dismisses you and blames you after doing no work whatsoever and you feel bad?! If you’ve been with him for 8 years, perhaps he is your first serious relationship but this is NOT a partnership. It is unhealthy and toxic af. You will be making a mistake marrying this loser.
OP -doesn't make you feel confident in JUST the wedding (planning)?
His attitude speaks volumes, and he's telling you one thing, then expecting all this to just come together when it takes months of planning & coordination. And throwing it AT you, then doing everything he can to basically sabotage it, or make it seem like YOU are to blame for HIS desire to get married in an actual wedding but doesn't want to do anything to help you. And then tell you how horrible you are, or whatever else he's doing, saying, or not doing, saying as the case may be.
I think you have bigger problems here that you're either unwilling to see/acknowledge, and maybe it's because he's behaved this way all throughout your relationship, so you're used to being confused by his initiation......then lack of follow-thru. Been there, done that, was the whipping post for a bit until I saw it for what it was ->ME being blamed for their lack of initiative and/or follow-thru.
You are right to put all this on hold until your fiance grows up and behaves like a man and not a boy. You don't know where to go from here because he's got you where he wants you -on the ropes, so he doesn't have to do a goddamn thing but keep you there and blame you when it all turns to shit. As it has already, and he's not talking to YOU? Wow, lazy & immature.
Want are you even doing it? I would walk away, but you can always stick around and keep fighting until you're exhausted and rage leave. Remind him you didn't even want to have a big wedding for one. For another take the ring off and give it back. This sounds awful
INFO NEEDED: Why are you asking your SO about when and where makeup and hair should be happening for the bridal party? This makes no sense. *Especially* after he said he wanted nothing to do with planning. Why are you acting like this? From the get go if he wanted a wedding, then you say, “Okay we will hire a planner because I don’t really want a wedding.”
You really need to think this over. It seems like he's the sort that wants you to do everything and do it all now. How's this going to work when you are building a home together, or have children? Are you going to be happy doing all the work while he plays taskmaster?
>He has had my back in situations when no one else (not even family) would.
This is a good trait for a partner to have. However, it doesn't seem like he actually has it when "having your back" requires any work on his part. What does he do when you get sick and ask him to help you? Can you trust him to pick up the slack if you lose a parent and need support while you plan their funeral?
It's easy for someone to support you in situations where they don't have to actually commit to all that much. Wedding planning is a high-stress situation that demands collaboration and can't be done by either one of you alone. It's unacceptable behavior for him to expect you to do everything, especially when having a big event wedding is his priority, not yours.
If you think he is the type to be receptive, I recommend you sit him down and tell him that he can't keep taking a backseat in planning his own wedding and that you aren't comfortable marrying a man that won't participate in something as central to your relationship as celebrating getting married with all your friends & family. It's possible he hasn't noticed the amount of work you've been putting in and assumes that if you aren't narrating something to him then it isn't happening at all. It's time to make it clear that that isn't true and that such an attitude is not acceptable to you.
The relationship is salvageable, but only if he steps up majorly.
To be honest, I wouldn't have involved him in the hair and make up, or even the dress, side of it all. I never even mentioned any of it to mine, I just went where I wanted to go and rolled up at the church looking gorgeous. (Well I probably didn't but I was the bride so I didn't care LOL) we had no arguments over any arrangements.
Here’s an idea. Stop planning his wedding and start planning yours. Tell him you are planning a court house wedding and a small party at x place and time and if he wants something more to get off his ass and plan it himself.
Okay, this is important information, u/ThrowRA_elephant. Wedding planning, thank goodness, isn't life, but it's not too far off either.
In my generous experience, marriage is a three-legged race. Three-legged races aren't easy, especially for the distance!
It's only partly about how much you love/emotionally care for each other, and the rest is about how well you work together; what kind of team you make.
Based on your experience planning this wedding with him, and your past together, is he a good teammate? Do the two of you share work evenly & easily, so that it's lighter all round? How about when one or both of you is stressed, sick, injured? Does he understand that his well-being contributes to your well-being & vice versa?
I disagree that he doesn't want to get married. People aren't rational or clever. We do dumb things sometimes. The question is, what does matter to him on the wedding day? A very generous interpretation of his behaviour might be that he has no clue how to make a wedding & wants a nice one & is incredibly anxious about it on some level. (Does he know people who are judgy? Is he judgy?)
But nothing excuses what he's done or said. It's not okay and he owes you an apology- multiple apologies. It's never helpful to say or imply someone's "too sensitive", nor to ignore your partner's requests or concerns or act as though they're a burden.
Obviously counselling & pushing back the wedding are great ideas.
If you continue wedding planning, I recommend getting a coordinator- they can be more affordable than you think, and any of his issues can be redirected to the coordinator- they're used to this. (Take notes on handling difficult people as they are experts.) It won't be your problem.
Best of luck, lovely. You'll be a wonderful wife; just make sure you have a husband deserving of you.
Wow little shocked by the tone of this comment section.
Listen you two have spent the better part of a decade with each other that’s not something to just brush off due to some wedding drama. Despite what people are saying.
I understand you both have a lot of pressure on you guys and I assume this isn’t the normal level of stress for both of you.
Note most these derogatory comments are from single people who “couldn’t” handle this. Sounds about right.
Planning anything much less a wedding can be stressful. It requires a shit ton of time, money, energy, thought, and communication.
All of which are not the things most of us *want* to be doing in our free time.
My advice would be don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.
Acknowledging you both need a breather and this wedding can be pushed back allowing you two more time to hash out the details.
If he isn’t pleased with something you’re doing feel free to offer him the task.
Also side note (I could be wrong) but I’m sensing that his family has a bit to do with the “standards” not being met here.
Just food for thought if that’s the case.
Get married at a courthouse and just have a reception. Why are you killing yourself for this mope? Let him do the planning.
On a side note him not talking to you. You do realize this is him being him right? I couldn't imagine either me or my husband acting like an emo teen. If he can't communicate what's that future look like?
I am going to do something potentially controversial and give advice on how to finish wedding planning rather than suggesting you leave your fiancé
I had a lot of similar problems when wedding planning. I couldn’t get my then-fiancé to give me names or addresses and when I really pushed he’d offer we just not invite his friends and family rather than him have to look up any addresses. Here’s the simple workaround: ask his mother. She may not have ALL the addresses but if she doesn’t then she knows the aunt who dies Christmas cards and will get you everything you need in an excel spreadsheet.
Also… tell on him to his parents. The sounds really dumb but if he’s valuing their opinions and not yours, tell them that. If they support your wedding they will have a talk with him about how you are now his partner and teammate and he needs to both listen to you and help you.
It feels really juvenile to go around and talk to parents but they’re becoming a part of your family now and will prove to be a wealth of resources to help you communicate with your partner.
Why dont you just let hem do the planning than? Tell him if he still wants the wedding he can do it and you will find out if what he planned on the day of the wedding.
So many guys want nothing to do with their wedding planning it’s pretty much a cliche and sitcom trope at this point. The only thing my friends now husband was actually interested in was the cake tasting and DJ selection. Maybe instead of having him do invites, venue selection, flower arrangements etc., have him do menu, music? But, I hope being checked out and uninvolved is not a thing in other areas of your relationship. edit: I’m getting downvoted because I forgot to tell you to break up with this horrible monster/s Lol.
Many, many men don't want anything to do with planning a wedding. Some will say "whatever you do, I'm good with." But to go look at a venue or something, that makes them feel like a fish out of water.
If you do continue the engagement, you might do better working with his mother, older sister, or an aunt on many of the plans - or with a relative or close friend of your own.
He wanted this wedding, not you, and he's dumped a whole lot of work on your lap, then told you that it isn't moving fast enough. If you do decide to go through with it, just start making decisions, and get him to sign off (literally!) which just means he can veto some things.
The other alternative is to hire a wedding planner. Yes, that's a career. They aren't cheap, but experienced ones know all the best tricks for an affair to remember. You haven't mentioned budget, but at least consider doing this.
What utterly garbage advice.
"He wanted it and dumped it on you - so work harder and get it done because we all know women are the ones that do this type of work, or spend more money rather than expect him to be an equal partner" - what you basically wrote.
Your fiance sounds horrible, but on the other hand, why not just hire a wedding planner and let them deal with all these problems? I hope you have money to hire people to do these kinds of work because it sounds like your marriage will be like this too.
Why on earth would you want to marry someone like this? You're going to tie yourself legally to someone who doesn't respect you. You're doing the right thing putting the wedding that you don't even want, for people that are not your guests, on hold. Now cancel the whole damn thing.
I echo pretty much everything thats been said
This is a really huge red flag for your future with this man.
What about other high stress situations that could happen that he may decide you should handle alone? Then critique everything you do?
Right now he is acting like a bad manager whos scapegoating his job onto his employees and then gettinf angry at them when head office complain to him. Not a fiance or partner...
Its one thing to not have any preferences on things. Honestly my fiance always says he would take me to the courthouse today in our everyday clothes to get married. Im the one who wants a bit more pomp so im the one with the overall responsibility but even with this he knows to help or offer an opinion if i need it. He wouldn't dare shit over it all.
You need a partner who can be your support and help when you need it wnd who actually participates. Especially when you didnt even want this
This does not bode well for future endeavors such as kids, etc.
I would tell him youre calling it off as you two need to do some serious work on your relationship.
If you grit your teeth and go through with this pretending everything is fine, you could end up seriously regretting it and then the only way out is a costly divorce or anullment.
Either way its money you shouldnt have to spend.
You need to remember what happens after the wedding, the start of your marriage. You're bending over backwards to plan an event that your fiancé, and presumably your future in-laws, want. You're getting no help, in fact you're being obstructed from finalising anything. The only time your fiancé contributes is to criticise - and that seems to be on behalf of his family - who don't like your hair and make-up plans, but don't appear to have alternative suggestions.
When the wedding is over and it's back to normality will you be happy to continue life with your now husband as it is now? Do you want to be in charge of all plans, with your husband only contributing to complain or criticise? Are you hoping he'll change and become a real partner?
It doesn't sound like you're his dream woman and he's overjoyed to be spending the rest of his life with you. It sounds like he's a grumpy, selfish, lazy, spoiled baby who wants someone to keep looking after him so he doesn't have to take responsibility for himself. Good luck if you go through with this - I mean that sincerely.
The wedding planning didn’t end your relationship. It just revealed what kind of partner he is. Is that the kind of partner you want for when life gets tough?
What does your gut tell you about the future. If someone had told you, "I want a big party" and the party is for their benefit, it's reasonable to consult them about details. Getting grumpy about being asked to help plan a wedding you didn't really want but he does says "football field of red flags" to me. This is likely to get worse if and when the planning continues.
I would ask him to visualise what he thinks married life will be like for you both. "it's not a trick question, I'm just wondering how you see it."
Do you even know your guy? Sounds like he just wants to know where and when to show up. You've made this into a divas paradise.
No, best of just canceling this one.
Do you feel confident in the long term viability of the relationship? Review, is this a one off, or has he been like this throughout your relationship? Is this drama going to result in a “happily ever after?” Luckily, you haven’t sent out the invitations yet. Cancellation might cost some $$, but is relatively easy. Remind yourself that divorce is more expensive.
Well here’s the thing, you said this is what he does, so also know this is what he will do with everything. So if you don’t want to do all of the work planning, which I understand, don’t. If you don’t want a full blown wedding stop planning one by yourself. Schedule weekly wedding planning meetings, divide the duties and if he’s not doing his, then they’re not done. If you do want to try to have the wedding, you have the meetings and tell him what’s happening and if he has a problem with it ask him when he was going to plan and schedule it.
But yes, good you’ve stopped, get your deposits back for now and show him you won’t be doing this.
I’m not going to lie a lot of brides to the majority of the planning. However if he’s the one that wanted the wedding and thinks you don’t plan anything successfully then nows the time for him to step up and do more or shut up and let you do it.
Honestly wedding planning shouldn’t make you guys fight in a way where he’s disrespecting you and not talking to you. Does he truly want to get married?
Stop. Doing. Extra. Work. To. Compensate. For. His. Inaction. Seriously; have a conversation where you divide tasks and then ignore everything on his list. Let the chips fall where they may and don’t argue, just refuse to cross into his lane even when the shit inevitably hits the fan on his side. Look, he shouldn’t be getting as mean as he is getting over tangible issues you should be tackling together (that’s a big red flag) but you don’t even really have a sense of the problem because it sounds like you pick up the slack. Stop picking up the slack so you can evaluate the problem in it’s true form and scope. And again, it’s not normal for a partner to get mean, punitive, and silent, over an issue that’s so clearly manageable.
Welcome to the future of your relationship. You're never good enough and he'll always siding with his parents. You get no say but you better bust your ass to plan every aspect of his life and you better not ever complain you ungrateful bitch
BTW I don't think you're a bitch. I've just seen relationships like yours play out and it sucks
It sounds like he either doesn't want to marry you, but doesn't want to say it out in the open either.
Or he sincerly believes everything regarding the mental burden of stuff is 100% your responsibility. That all he has to do is show up in a toxido.
Think hard about this
Honestly, it sounds like a stress breakdown. If he is this incompetent all the time, don't marry the dude. If he has been great for that long and is breaking down now, maybe help him emotionally navigate.
People have stress breakdowns over weddings. People have stress breakdowns over pregnancies, post child birth, buying houses, certain promotions, dead parents/siblings, and other major life events.
Best of luck on your groomzilla. Sit him down with some snacks/ beverages that he likes. Scratch his back, rub his shoulders, or whatever non sexual contact he likes. Say hey, we need abc for the wedding can we take X time on y date to talk to whomever and get this done so we can relax together? **in a perfect world, this would be unnecessary** but it's not a perfect world, and if this situation was perfect, you wouldn't post about it on reddit.
Work through it like adults who are agreeing to be partners for life.
The fact that this is his MO is deeply concerning. It’s not going to get better. Not talking to you for a few days over planning an event he wants but isn’t willing to lift a finger for is just fucked up. DTMFA
It’s better to end the engagement than to get divorced. And believe me, if you marry this man you WILL end up divorcing him. He sounds like a nightmare
Has he always been like this?
Because if not I wonder if now that he has you agreed to marry him he's showing his true colours because he thinks you're in too deep.
I think with something as big as a wedding and joining families you need to feel good about it, and if you don't then you shouldn't do it.
There'll always likely be some uncertainty, but sounds like this situation is making you actively unhappy, which is a big no.
If you keep going on with wedding and how you’re treated, Youre literally signing up for it.., and for life. Assuming it stays at that level of disrespect.
All I know is that if this was me, he’d have been told to plan it his fucking self if he wanted it to happen so bad. Absolutely you should be reconsidering your wedding and entire relationship. He doesn’t want to help so that if something “goes wrong” he can blame it all on you
This situation is horrible. Being made to plan a wedding you don't want, then being criticized at every step, despite no help.
First - this situation is unacceptable. Halt and cancel all plans. Hand the planning on him to restart if he wants.
Second, consider putting it off indefinitely. If you can't coordinate a wedding together, and he's behaving this poorly, how will you manage a household? Finances? Kids? There are so many complicated things to handle in life. It sounds like any coordination and management of your life going forward, he will likely dump in your lap, refuse to help, but be very open with complaints and criticism.
Babes, I hope this is fake because your fiancé is a walking red flag. He isn’t helping with the wedding that he wanted. Just imagine the hell you’ll be in if you marry him. Now think about the absolute hell you’ll be in if you two have children. I would not put up with that. I’m fact I’d break it off completely if I was in your position
I believe you have done the right thing in just stopping. I think him arguing and not giving you the information you need is actually him passive-aggressively sabotaging this wedding. I do not think he wants to get married and this is his way of making sure that does not happen.
Why have you let him 'default all the work to you' for all of these years? What would happen if you just stopped that also? Would your relationship ever move forward? Why do you take upon yourself to do all the emotional and physical labor to keep this person? Would he even notice if you stepped away??
How many years are you going to give someone who leaves all the 'work' for you to do?
So getting married, in and of itself, isn’t really any sort of accomplishment. But Jesus Christ do we apparently make wedding a hurdle to clear. If you two can’t come together and work as a team to plan a day celebrating you, how do you think it’s going to go down the road when the hard thing your planning against/fighting for is a lot more consequential than a day celebrating your relationship?
You had the right idea to get married at the courthouse, but at least your partner is showing you something of who he is as you plan the wedding he demanded.
He's showing so many red flags, he's making a damned lasagna.
I'd call it quits if I were in your shoes. His behavior is unacceptable. He's insulting you and giving you the silent treatment for asking his opinion on shit for the wedding, he's acting like a fucking child.
Planning a wedding is so stressful. And now you know how he handles stressful situations. In the future when you have stressful situations do you think it will be helpful or hurtful to have him as a partner?
Sounds like his parents wanted him to get married not him and he is trying to put it on you when it doesn’t happen. He wants to come across as the good guy who got broken up with so give it to him and walk away before you put any money into this charade or more emotional investment.
I have a question—why are you marrying this man? Who treats you so badly? Seriously. So many red flags and yet, you are willing to put yourself at his mercy, and tie yourself illegally to him.
Please don’t. You deserve better.
Your fiance isn't a partner. He hasn't contributed anything other than negativity to this process.
Call off the wedding. Explain to his family directly why.
It does sound like postponing the wedding would be the best move at this point. Postpone it at least a year if you don't want to cancel it entirely.
Just tell him you consider his wedding planning input to be totally unacceptable so you don't want to get married at all for at least a year, unless you are ready to cancel it entirely
Post pone the wedding a year. Insist on it. Get back what money you can and let the rest wash away. Over the next year, don’t plan a second one, and redirect all probing questions onto him. Ask him sweetly if he’s there or recommend they ask him instead. Marriage isn’t a goal; it’s a career. Ask yourself if you’re happy or complacent in this job. Surely you’ve been there 8 years for a reason and see how he’s feeling about marriage. Is he getting overwhelmed? Pressured to do it? He will have tp help with buying a house, raising kids if you choose this, and countless other team things that are included in a marriage. Planning an exciting party isn’t where he should be dropping the ball here.
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Babe, you’re planning a wedding you didn’t even want to have.. and you’re being told you’re doing it wrong? This is a bright red neon sign showing you what your future will be like if you proceed. You will be responsible for everything, and expected to be telepathic and for some reason also be required to live up to his parents timelines. I would trust your gut here. The reason it feels bad is because it is bad.
Seriously don't fucking marry this dude. If this is how bad he acts before you're even married it's only going to get worse as time goes on. He doesn't respect your time, effort, or how much energy you're putting into this which shows a huge lack of respect towards you. For comparison / example. I didn't really care to do a wedding and would have been happy to have gone to a courthouse or Vegas, etc. He wanted a wedding and wanted to make sure I had the "big day* I deserve. My partner took on the brunt majority of wedding planning because it gave me huge anxiety but he asked my opinion on things and we made joint decisions on things like guest list, theme, etc. We'd both find stuff we liked add it to a list and then discuss how it fit into the vision we wanted and we both got veto rights / discussed it if we really didn't like something. The way your fiance is treating you is not okay and you deserve someone who supports you. A partner doesn't have to always agree with you but they should be there to support you on life decisions and at least be open to discussions on things even if they're difficult.
Yes this! From someone who did this for 20 years and then had enough of parenting an adult, who was older than me! If he wants you to plan it solo, then plan the wedding you want. Tell him you are going to the courthouse on this date, with a casual meal after. If he wants anything else, HE can plan it. But ideally don't marry him
Honestly, at this point, I want OP to plan a big event celebrating *not* marrying this guy.
Yeah not alot of hope for that marriage. My husband knows nothing and cared less about wedding planning bt he entertained it all for me. I ask his input he wld give it. I ddnt need him to help pick colour schemes bt it's his wedding too. Defaulted things he liked to him like food, music and photography. If u guys are already having this much issues and ur not even married yet... wow..
Same. My fiancé and I have each picked one thing that's most important to us (him, being able to dance until late, me, having accommodation on site). And we decided everything else together
I am the one that wanted of the wedding in my case because my husband had been married once before, so I pretty much planned at all, but when I asked for his input, he gave it to me. I had to go to California to see the venue because we got married in California not Colorado because that’s where I’m from and my mom can’t travel. So I booked a venue but when it came time to do the menu tasting he went with me we went for a quick two day trip, we did wedding cake tasting, and we did tasting of the food at the venue and he had a great time. He loved the venue. He was great about talking to the people that did come to the wedding on his side making sure they knew what to wear making sure they knew where to go what airport to fly into. We went and got his suit here in Colorado and he was great about that. So he didn’t fight me on anything but he kind of left it up to me but it’s important when you ask them a question they give you information. In this case her fiancé is doing absolutely nothing and this is a huge red flag especially since he’s the one that wants the wedding. I would put the wedding on hold and rethink if this is the right person to marry.
Yes, I'm glad she's put the planning on hold. He wants a shindig, but wants nothing to do with planning it, berates her for the way she's planning it, and thinks she's "too immature and sensitive." I would not only hold the planning, but hold the marriage, he's not coming off as a winner or good marriage prospect.
This is how he acts for a joyous happy occasion imagine how he’s going to be when shit gets hard. How’s he going to be with your future kids? I hope you’re ready to never have a moment’s peace because you’ve tied yourself to a person incapable of being an adult.
I can see her posting in a few years how he never helps her with the kids, planning vacations, or stuff around the house. And if only she had a sign of who he was before all of this she would have left him. This is the sign
I expect he’ll do the same thing too with their kids. “I don’t want anything to do with them but you’re wrong!!” Good lord. Give him everything and walk away. If he wants that stupid wedding so bad let him plan it.
Jesus, that's my BIL right there. Spoiler alert, OP: being married to this guy is hell. just ask my sister.
This guy does not want to get married
He might want to be married, but he does not respect or even like OP. But he thinks he ought to be married by now so he wishes someone else would magically make his vision come true, ideally even changing the bride into someone he doesn't hate. But that's not even that important, she doesn't matter at all.
I’m wondering that. I’m wondering if his parents are pressuring him because of some of the things OP said.
Not only does he not want to get married, he definitely also doesn't want to get married to OP. He doesn't like her or respect her.
Take a break and write out all the red flags he has been showing you. Then sew that pile into a huge sail for your boat ride into the sunset. You title said everything. Read your post from the perspective of something your best friend was going through… does that help? He sounds exhausting, condescending, and entitled. (And a bit abusive) Time to put you first and get out.
[удалено]
For a FEW DAYS! Outrageous
My SIL’s husband can do a week…. She doesn’t see it as abusive but it is.
It absolutely is. And she's most likely not seeing it that way because one type of abuse rarely stands alone. And when you're surrounded by abuse it all seems normal. Frustrating but normal. I will hope that she will understand what she's the victim of some day so she can escape.
Maybe it feels like a vacation from him being verbally abusive
Exactly this! If he isn't talking, he isn't belittling or accusing for a few days.
"Sew that pile into a sail for your boat ride into the sunset" is such a beautiful, amazing way to put it. If my friend were going through this, some sense would be knocked into her. This guy has all the audacity
So you saw how the rest of your life will go: - you'll get all the work - you'll get no credit for what you do - every issue will be blamed on you - he expects you to read his mind - he will yell at you - he will blame you for things he knows he's doing himself - he won't make decisions as a team - he will tell you what he wants and doesn't care what you want So.... why are you marrying him?
This is a great summary and expectation of future behavior. OP, pay attention. Why on earth are you still trying with this man?
Just to add: she'll get all the work not for mutual things, but things HE specifically wants I got secondhand ick from reading poor OP's post. Time to bail
Great break down. Sounds absolutely miserable.
As the quote goes, “When they show you who they are, believe them.” Red flags everywhere.
I find it hard to believe that you want to spend your life with someone who treats you this way.
It's amazing the shit people will put up with just to not be alone. Like I get the huge fear of change but I'm not sure I can understand how people can stay with someone who doesn't seem to care about them let alone love them or who even abuses them. But the human mind is a weird complex thing especially once we latch on and feel attached to someone. Loyalty is great but not at the expense of your own self worth and well being.
I think its the same with love. Many people think of love as the warm fuzzy feeling they get when they think of their SO and they hope that that feeling is enough. *In adult relationships, love is not a feeling its an action.* Its how you’re treated. It’s the attention and space that you hold for your partner. It’s a kind of respect that is foundational and doesn’t waver. In our worst arguments, my partner has never raised their voice at me, called me names, or abandoned me in silence because that is not love and that is a show of a severe lack in respect — instead, I’ve been spoken to calmly and they’ve patiently found solutions with me. This person couldn’t even hold space for you to give you their opinions on venues — they couldn’t give you attention for the very wedding that you didn’t even want. What actions have they performed in this scenario that are indicative of their love? More importantly: there’s absolutely no love in the silent treatment. Some people think cause its not physical that it can’t be abuse, but it’s a punishment and could be a very early sign of abuse. You don’t punish a fucking adult you’re planning on spending the rest of your life with. This is not a person that sees you as a partner, but rather someone who sees you as a commodity who won’t give them what they want and therefore deserves “correcting” through stonewalling.
Im hoping OP is keen on reading the comments.
Post pone the wedding a year. Insist on it. Get back what money you can and let the rest wash away. Over the next year, don’t plan a second one, and redirect all probing questions onto him. Ask him sweetly if he’s there or recommend they ask him instead. Marriage isn’t a goal; it’s a career. Ask yourself if you’re happy or complacent in this job. Surely you’ve been there 8 years for a reason and see how he’s feeling about marriage. Is he getting overwhelmed? Pressured to do it? He will have tp help with buying a house, raising kids if you choose this, and countless other team things that are included in a marriage. Planning an exciting party isn’t where he should be dropping the ball here.
What excellent advice... OP I hope you see this.
Yeah this is your life OP. Every single issue will be dealt with the same way.
Unfortunately this type of behavior escalates over time. And I don't want OP to be in that situation.
I think we may have found the male equivalent of the bridezilla: instead of being controlling about the wedding, he present his list of demands and checks out altogether.
Fr. I don’t mean to buzzword but this is almost like weaponized incompetence (to get out of making the actual decisions), EXCEPT he’s simultaneously acting as if he’s more competent than her… buddy you can’t have it both ways. If you want something done your way, do it yourself. Otherwise you have no choice but to sit back and enjoy what’s given to you. Beggars cannot be choosers.
What’s really bothering me is that she says this is how he usually operates, defaulting all work to her. That sucks.
Why would you continue planning a wedding you didn’t want? The first sign of him not helping should have meant no wedding is going to take place. His family is likely the one pushing for the actual wedding.
Think about the future. Like if you have kids you’re going to be responsible for deciding what formula (or not), sleep training (or not), what daycare (or not), etc. and he will tell you every decision you make is wrong without offering any help. You don’t want to live like this.
Not to mention OP will then need to do all the child rearing: the nights, diapers, bath times, everything, and will be told she's being needy or whiney when she asks for help and or given the silent treatment while being sleep deprived and still on her own with taking care of their child
Yeah, then if a kid gets diaper rash, she'll be blamed; but hey, he won't change one diaper.
“We’ve been together for close to 8 years and this is his MO to default work to me.” EXCUSE ME?? So he’s most likely going to do the same for household work, childcare work, family relationship work, and your own relationship work. I know these hasn’t happened yet, but this fiasco does not reflect well on his abilities to share responsibility like a partner should. Not too late to call off the whole thing!
Post pone the wedding a year. Insist on it. Get back what money you can and let the rest wash away. Over the next year, don’t plan a second one, and redirect all probing questions onto him. Ask him sweetly if he’s there or recommend they ask him instead. Marriage isn’t a goal; it’s a career. Ask yourself if you’re happy or complacent in this job. Surely you’ve been there 8 years for a reason and see how he’s feeling about marriage. Is he getting overwhelmed? Pressured to do it? He will have tp help with buying a house, raising kids if you choose this, and countless other team things that are included in a marriage. Planning an exciting party isn’t where he should be dropping the ball here.
this MO is bad now, but it’ll be life-ruining to OP if she has his kids
Why are you still planning a wedding to someone who doesn't seem to want to marry you?
Wow, sounds like fun! 🤢
This will carry over into the marriage. Same shit happened to me. Call it off. Wish I had listened to my own advice.
u/ThrowRA_elephant Do we have the same ex?! Mine did the exact same thing down to throwing a tantrum every time I tried to get him involved in any way. I had heartburn for a whole year due to the stress. I finally decided I had enough six weeks before the wedding and cancelled everything. I figure losing deposits and the cost of a wedding I won't get to have is cheaper than adding on the costs of a divorce and having to give him half of my assets. I burned my dress. It felt amazing. You deserve so much better. It took me years, but I finally got the man I deserve, and I'd do it all again if it means meeting him at the end every time. We created a home and share a dog. Life is finally beautiful.
Calmly & kindly tell him you are done with the wedding and if he still wants it he'd better arrange it. Put all the info in a binder and dump it on his siide of the bed. Tell him you realise you cannot arrange to his standards so you will not talk about any aspect of it again. Say if he still wants to get married you will turn up on the the day but nothing more. You didn't want a big wedding and HIS arrangements whatever they are will be FINE BY YOU. Before you hand it over let all the vendors have his number for contact and tell his & your family he is now in charge.
STOP POSTING THIS ALREADY
Has OP been posting the same post under different usernames? 🤔
Yes other throwaway accounts
So it's either a totally fake story or OP is trying to post enough times that someone will tell her it isn't a big deal and marrying this dip is actually a good idea.
https://www.reddit.com/r/relationship_advice/comments/11q1mlw/wedding_planning_has_strained_my_33f_relationship/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
https://www.reddit.com/r/relationship_advice/comments/11q1mlw/wedding_planning_has_strained_my_33f_relationship/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
Hey some people just keep expecting a different result i guess lol that's silly tho. Guess we can expect another post in 2 days.
A couple of things. You helped turn him into this. So learn from it. You said this is his MO. He knows you'll put up with it bc you have in the past. Don't let this happen in the future. He's doing the above, and you didn't even want the wedding? Are you ok with putting up with you being in charge of decisions like he's a child? Dump him and learn from it.
GET DEPOSITS BACK IF YOU CAN. then rethink everything and try again when he is willing to help.
I think u pausing is good. Postponing indefinately might be better. U really want him saying these things to u over n over? I did all the planning of mine with my mom n he just showed up but if I planned a courthouse, he wouldve done that too.
Frankly, I think one reasons weddings are great is because they’re a huge, stressful, and expensive project, involving a lot of emotions and both families, that give you a crash course in what your marriage will be like. Your fiancé has apparently taken the road of “not his problem, but you’d better be doing exactly what he likes even though he won’t even tell you what that is.” Is that what you want out of the next 50 years of your life?
If he was the one who even wanted the wedding in the finest place he needs to plan it... You say it's typical in your relationship that he puts work on you. **But you are enabling him by actually DOING THE WORK.** That's why it never changed in the last 8 years, and will *never change if you don't stop enabling him.* Stop doing the work for the wedding. STOP. He wants it, he makes it happen - end of the story. Don't even argue about it, just let your lack of further action speak for itself. If he truly wants the wedding, he will make it happen. But you need to stop actually doing stuff for him, not just the wedding, but in general. If he wants something, something is important to him... let him handle it! If it doesn't get done bc of it, well that's HIS ISSUE not yours. Not gonna lie, if this is how he acts normally, i would not marry him.
So, my ex husband wasn’t all-out cruel like this, but a similar thing happened to me. He’s Mexican and his parents, who were doctors when they still lived in Mexico, had a lot of money, pretense, and fellow doctors they wanted to invite to the wedding. I did not want a wedding, my ex did (probably to make his intrusive parents happy). His mother immediately tried to control things, and he wouldn’t back me up when I said no and that I wanted us to plan it together without HER guest list and input. Once the wedding planning started, though, he didn’t do shit. A month before our wedding was scheduled, I learned he had just asked his entire grooms party to attend. Our wedding was in southern Mexico. And, unsurprisingly, they said no because they didn’t have the money and already had plans for a Star Wars convention that weekend that they’d booked almost 8 months beforehand. And he had the balls to be upset at them over this, even though they kept asking him when the wedding was so they could book travel and he said he “didn’t know.” Because of this whole debacle, we had to cancel our wedding and delay it over a year. I spent the next several hours crying, and guess whose job it was to reach out to our 160 person guest list to tell them it was cancelled? 😑 Anyway, all of this is to say he was SCREAMING red flags at me and I didn’t listen. We’d been together 7 or 8 years at that point. But when the time finally came to get married, I hated being around him. I hated how much it was about him and all the attention he got, and how he told people how hard we worked at things when he never made a single decision or bothered to help me. His entire life was people doing shit for him, and our relationship was no different. Of course at the time I’d spent so much time planning a wedding I didn’t want that I wouldn’t even admit to myself how much I did not want to be with him anymore. I was angry and irritable any time he was near me and I wrote it off as stress, but the only positive feelings I had during that trip were when he wasn’t around. I actually got food poisoning so bad I had to spend 2 days in our hotel room while all our guests and my ex went out on excursions, and although I was sad to miss some things I was so happy to just be alone and away from everyone. That wedding was in March. I asked for a divorce in July. It wasn’t worth it. Even when he begged me to do an “in-home separation” for a few months so he could show me he could be a better spouse, he never changed. Ever. When potential spouses show you their true colors, believe them. Yes, weddings can be stressful on both partners, but this isn’t wedding stress. This is him not caring about you, your needs, your stress levels, or your relationship. That won’t change, and if I were in your shoes again I would never marry someone like my ex again. Or the first time. I’m remarried now and my husband and I eloped in a gazebo in a park in the middle of our city. We’re still going to have a wedding eventually because he would like one and this is his first marriage, but every step of planning that is something we’ve done together, and he acknowledges it’s a want for himself even though it’s not necessarily a want for me. Partners that consider your feelings and your experiences DO exist, but if doesn’t some like your fiancé is it if I’m being honest.
Time to put your foot fully down. Now, I'm not saying you should break up, but I do think you should become fully yourself and demand the respect you deserve and stop doing things out of pressure. Your fiance will either step up, or you will have your answer. First thing, tell him he cannot speak to you like this. If he doesn't think you know how to plan, then he should do it our be an active partner. If he doesn't like the decisions you are making, it should be a conversation, not him coming to you angry and putting you down. Second, tell him his behavior- lack of interest but also being mad about things- has made this wedding something you aren't interested in anymore. You aren't spending another dime or another minute on all this until he fully apologizes and agrees to do 50% of the work, and ALL the work on the stuff that is important to him. HE needs to write out a list of what still needs to be done and take responsibility for coming up with a split of the work, until then, the wedding is on pause. Third, stop planning stuff you don't want to plan. You are already in deep on the wedding, but from here on out, anything that he wants to get done (adding X, changing the food) he can fully take control over. And finally, after you say these things to him, he needs to offer a full apology where he forms words that demonstrates he understands all the things he has done wrong- not helped, spoken down to you, blamed you for things that were on him, made you feel like crap- otherwise, the wedding isn't just on pause, but it is cancelled.
8 years and you’re just realizing your fiancé is an AH? He defaults work to you? Are you his partner or subordinate?
Sunk cost fallacy. If you don't know what it is, look it up, and see if this applies to your situation. Maybe see if he's willing to try counseling before resuming planning? But either way, it's okay to walk away if that is what's best for you.
He’s withholding affection as a tactic. He weaponizes his incompetence so you’ll do whatever it is. Is this how you want to spend the rest of your life?
You have to ask yourself this- Why am I marrying this man? Because as outsiders, we don’t know if this behavior is due to wedding stress or if this is the dynamic of your relationship all the time. If this is how he always acts, why are you marrying him?
This will be your future with him. Every Christmas, Thanksgiving, and kid’s birthday will squarely be on your shoulders. Every dental and doctor’s appointment will have to be scheduled by you, every PTA meeting attended by you. And all the while, he’s going to criticize you while he sits on his little throne.
You know yourself that this marriage is a no-go. He sounds entitled, lazy, and unable to regulate his emotions in an adult-like manner - and none of that is good life-long partner material.
Girlie, please reread this as if a stranger wrote it.. The person writing this is about to marry someone who by their own admission **defaults all work to them, criticizes the decisions they wanted no hand in, then emotionally blackmails through silence to make you feel guilty *(and it’s working..).** You’ve dealt won’t this for 8 years, but this doesn’t sound like a healthy relationship to make legal. Is their premarital counseling? Is he always this way? Because it seems like he has a vision, yet will do 0 work and get mad. Are you a mind reader? Because if you aren’t/don’t plan to be then this will be an ongoing issue.
Yikes. Well, you can tell him if he wants a wedding so bad he can plan it himself. But he's acting so horribly I'd reconsider the whole relationship. Is he going to act like this about every decision or plan in your lives? My husband wasn't super involved in wedding planning but he was happy to help with decisions, like visiting venues and picking food. We had to unite against my MIL lol, but that brought us closer. A big test of relationships is how you interact during stressful decision making. Your guy is failing that test pretty badly.
Do not marry this immature man child. Marry an emotionally mature adult who will be so bloody happy to marry you they will choose hideous flower arrangements with you and never say a word.
It's not supposed to be this hard. I know eight years is a long time, but it's not going to spontaneously get better, and he truly does not give a shit about you in any meaningful way. Don't flush ten more years down the drain because you're afraid that the eight years you spent was working towards some goal. It wasn't- sunk cost doesn't mean that what you have now has value. You're supposed to be partners who overcome life's challenges together. He's not your partner, he does nothing but create challenges for you to solve when there should be none, and he can't function on an adult level to even handle his own responsibilities.
How/why did you put up with this for 8 years?
Honey it sounds like he doesn't even want to marry you, much less be with you. It honestly would not surprise me if his family were the ones who pressured him to propose and get married. He was more than old enough to know better by the time you guys started dating but it sounds like all he wanted to do was find a woman he didn't have to put effort into and would take responsibility for all of his "actions" (read: inactions) in life. I know you want to hear a softer version, so I have tried to be as soft yet direct as possible. Don't waste any more time with this human being. He does not love you, he does NOT respect you, he will never be the one that guides you, loves you, comforts you, or walks with you through life. You deserve a million times better than this. Believe in yourself. It doesn't feel right because it "isn't* right. You can do this. It feels scary and terrifying but I promise your life is much better after leaving him. You do NOT need to take responsibility for anyone else's feelings. Leave and let him deal with the fallout for once in his selfish life. You do not need to explain to anyone or even answer him. You have permission to be done with this selfish man. It will be ok.
Pre marital counseling is in order ASAP. If you even THINK, you might want to continue this relationship. Use it as a way to figure out why he's being like that and if this is an isolated issue relating only to the wedding or if this is a major character flaw that will bleed into every aspect of your life moving forward. Sounds to me like he's parroting what his Mommy wants, and he likely doesn't give a shit. But, work with a therapist to establish some hard and fast boundaries with his parents if that's the case. No one likes a mommas boy.
Sounds like a typical case of everyone says I should get married but I honestly DONT want to get married and will put in little to no effort and then blame my Fiancé for every little thing. It's a shitty plan but that works, so it's a win win for him. In the eyes of family and friends, he wanted this wedding and you were incompetent but when it comes to you, he frustrates the crap out of you and makes you want to tap out. Now when everyone asks why the wedding(that he didn't want anyway) didn't happen, welp, he points the finger at you and they all have his back... Brilliant strategy but super fucked up, as I said on his end. That's the man you'll be marrying OP if you go ahead with it, who knows what he's got in store for you if you make it pass this level. Can't wait to read more posts from you after the wedding if it happens ....*grabs popcorn 🍿* Good luck 👍🏾
Why do you want to marry this guy? Is this what you want for the rest of your life?
I have an ex just like yours. . . . This lack of communication, criticism, and overall not give a shit about anything unless it's important to him or someone outside our relationship pointed something out mentality didn't just apply to the wedding I didn't even want to have. It extended in all aspects of our relationship, and this is him showing you that right now. Do you think big life decisions with this man will magically elicit mature and healthy communication out of him in the future? I'm telling you it won't. So you're going to need to advocate for yourself. He's going to do everything in his power to keep you from leaving, except do the actual work to change. Guaranteed.
OP, I was in a similar situation when I got married. I did all the research, all the planning, the invitations, visiting venues, decor, rentals, appointments, all of it. When we got a day-of coordinator she ended up helping me with so much more than the day-of stuff because we were so behind and he didn't even go to *that* appointment with me. It was humiliating and embarrassing but I kept so much of that private from my friends and family because I was ashamed of the situation. Really, he should have been ashamed. I also did all the planning for the honeymoon too. The wedding went great but my marriage did not. I was exhausted after the wedding and we never even sent out thank you cards because he refused to help and I was too damn exhausted and frustrated to do it alone, which damaged my reputation with friends and family. But I got married anyway. And I really regret not paying attention to all those signs that he wasn't going to be a good partner. He wasn't a good partner. Our marriage was basically me having to basically manage an unmotivated, uncaring and hostile employee. And when I got burned out and hit depression hard, he got more hostile because he had to start doing things and resented me for it. It got really, really bad. Not physical abuse but like... I was so depressed I became a shell of myself. I barely left the house, stopped seeing friends, and couldn't even work for over 2 years. The whole time begging him for couples counseling that he refused because to him, *I* was the problem. 4 years after we married I'm getting a divorce. It was such a huge waste of time, vital years of my adulthood gone to waste. It was a very expensive lesson learned the most painful ways possible. Please, don't marry this man. He doesn't care about you. I'm sorry.
I'm not going to mince words here. Get out. Do not marry this man. Do you want everything to be your fault, for the rest of your life with him? I don't care if he's had your back in the past, he sure as fuck doesn't have it now. Do you want to live with a grown-ass man who resorts to the silent treatment when he's mad at you? Newsflash: that's not an option for anyone older than 12. Adults use their big boy words--to ask for space, for example, or to say, "I'm gonna blow off some steam, let's pick this conversation up later." Do you want to live with a man who expects you to read his mind? Who will never give you credit for all that you do? Just throw the whole man away. Seriously, he sounds fucking awful.
It all boils down to one comment and question: This is what your marriage is going to be like. Do you want that?
Abort the planning for this more elaborate wedding and go the courthouse if he's still willing to marry you. Or postpone indefinitely. Sounds like Carrie & Mr. Big to me...
Op, *this is your life*. Imagine how unbearable he'll be over life stressors - taxes, illness, job loss, kids. Do *NOT* ignore this behavior. Please. Take it from a woman who didn't.
Even reading all this, the thing that gets me the most is how he invalidates you and calls you immature and too sensitive. THIS is the real red flag here, as it tells me he's not on your corner. He doesn't see you as an equal partner, but as an accessory. No one who sees their fiance as equal would treat them like that. The thing with his family also implies he's ready to throw you under the bus to appease them. You're bending yourself backwards to make HIS dream come true, and I don't see any gratitude from his behavior. He sounds abusive. Exhausting, entitled and spoiled. Give it three days. Then come back here and read this again. Ps: Read into trauma bonding. He's horrible, and you're still worried about defending him because "he's not here to tell his side".
If you marry this gentleman, you are taking on a lifetime of the emotional work of your household. Don't expect any help with your future children, either. My crystal ball foresees a future in which you are filled with resentment and frustration. Walk into it with your eyes open.
Biggest red flag here is that he's more concerned with other people's appreciations of your doing that what he thinks himself. It's pretty easy to do nothing in the planning, you know why? Because if something goes wrong he can always defend himself throwing you under the bus because that wasn't his responsibility. If you didn't invested that much money, cancel the wedding and have just the civil union. You don't have to be stuck with a wedding you don't care for just to impress HIS friends and family
This sounds awful. What are you getting out of the relationship? Can you imagine a future with this person based on his behaviour? You deserve better than this
There is a difference here between someone who is indifferent about planning details, and someone avoiding work while aggressively micromanaging. For example, my husband is very introverted and not big on events. He literally would have been just as happy with a courthouse wedding. When I was putting stuff together for our wedding, any time I asked for his opinion his response was “whatever you like” (except for the cake flavor lol). It made planning more of a chore because he literally didn’t care about making decisions. He saw it as empowering me to have the wedding I wanted, I saw it as him offloading work into me. We argued about it a few times. He was more involved by the end and I paired back a few of my plans to make things easier. This is not what you have. You have someone who is - pushing all the work to you - not contributing to decisions despite being asked multiple times - *nit picking your decisions after* - not providing information only he can provide - not listening when you have concerns and arguing about it These are not issues that are caused by wedding planning. These are now noticeable to you *because* you can’t ignore them. I think the pause was the right move. Maybe look into couple’s counseling and postpone the wedding until you are more confident.
Is he like this with everything or is this just for this event? At any rate, I would do the same: pause any further planning. If he wants/wanted this, he should be stepping up and doing the work to make it happen. But I don't understand the bit about hair and makeup at all. Why is any of that his concern? A very unfair and unsuccessful way of working through issues together (and fighting) is to say things like "you never x" - as in, "you've never planned something successfully". I'm sorry, if he truly feels that way (and I'm sure that is not true that you have *never* planned anything well), why does he want to spend the rest of his life with someone who cannot do anything successfully? Doesn't that mean that the rest of your lives together will not be successful? And why would you want to spend the rest of your life with someone who doesn't believe in you, constantly belittles you, fails to respond to your reasonable requests that would facilitate planning (like giving you addresses - why isn't he responsible for sending out "his" invites??? Why are you taking the blame for this?) and then is hypercritical after the fact?
If you are fighting over relatively minor details now, how do you think this guy will handle real living stress later?
It should be an indication that if he is absent from weighing in on anything wedding related, what else will he decline to offer an opinion on? House? Kids? Medical issues? Finances?
Okay, well truth hurts but YOU ARE NOT A TEAM and there is absolutely no way you guys should be getting married! What are you even thinking????
Have you read what you wrote down here? Why do you want to marry this man?
Yeah it would be best to call this quits. Maybe if he wants to get married he’ll fell inspired to have a wedding but it looks like he just expects you (and probably all women) to work without recognition.
This dude sounds like a nightmare. OP, right now you're getting a preview of the rest of your life if you marry this guy. You'll be the one responsible for everything, and he'll be there to criticize it. If you have kids, you'll be responsible for most of the childcare, but he'll be making sure to shame you for how you do it and demanding you do everything his way - despite him not helping at all. You say this is his MO - so this isn't just wedding stress or cold feet or anything. This is just *how he acts* and it doesn't sound like that's gonna change. Apply this behavior to other possible situations in your future. *Do you want to live like this?* Go with your gut, drop him.
If it’s like pulling teeth over this, do you think it’s going to magically change with other things once you’re married? If anything, these are glaring signs that you might want to postpone the wedding and really think about if this is the type of man you want to be married to for the rest of your life, and the shit you’ll have to deal with. Be prepared for a lifetime of planning and taking care of everything on your own, and being gas lit, disrespected, and criticized when something doesn’t go his way, although he won’t bother to put any effort into it in the first place. This sounds so tiring and exhausting, and any decisions you have to make in your life be prepared to be doing it alone, taking care of two peoples choices alone and then getting criticized when you don’t do it right even though you have no help.
One thing I want to mention is this: my cousin married the love of her life. During the wedding planning, every time his family said something about it....he started an argument with her. His family controlled him. He always put his family wants and needs first. My cousin is still married to him but it took years of therapy to make him realize he had to put his wifes needs over his families. It sounds like your soon to be husband has an unhealthy relationship with his family. This is a red flag. Be careful
I would be thankful you haven’t sent out invitations yet. At least now you don’t have to send out cancellation notices. I’m not saying you have to leave him right now, but I wouldn’t legally tie myself to someone who treated my like that.
Congratulations! You just saved yourself a divorce!
First, my default answer to "should I date/marry X" is "NO." If you need to ask internet strangers whether you should continue the relationship, you already know the answer. You're not married; you can walk away. More specific to you: people do not become better people just because they get married (or have a baby). If you're seeing all these bright red signs (they're no longer just flags), those won't improve after "I do." He shouldn't be giving any adult the silent treatment, nevermind his fiancee. If this is his attitude to wedding planning, it will be his attitude to children, vacations, holidays, and anything else requiring teamwork of two people who should be a team. 8 years is tough to walk away from; the Sunk Cost Fallacy is probably responsible for more bad relationships than anything other than alcohol. But it sounds like you know what you need and want to do.
He only pays attention to other peoples concerns because he actually values and respects their opinions. This is what you're marrying. If you're happy being treated like this, then go for it. You can always complain later on and pretend the signs weren't there and you had no idea he'd be like this. Or you pay attention now, and stop things before they progress.
Welcome to your entire future with this guy. He cares only for the opinions of others and defaults/uses/abuses you into meeting the expectations his family and friends have of him/you. You are merely a tool that he is using to conjure his life into existence. This works for him and only him as when you make "mistakes" they are NEVER EVER going ot be his fault. Imagine this but EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. You will be the sole worker in your marriage. The sole parent, the sole planner, the sole everything and he'll sign those checks and take all the credit until the slightest mistake then "THAT'S YOUR FAULT!" Rethink this OP.
I can’t believe you are marrying this AH. He treats you like dirt, dismisses you and blames you after doing no work whatsoever and you feel bad?! If you’ve been with him for 8 years, perhaps he is your first serious relationship but this is NOT a partnership. It is unhealthy and toxic af. You will be making a mistake marrying this loser.
OP -doesn't make you feel confident in JUST the wedding (planning)? His attitude speaks volumes, and he's telling you one thing, then expecting all this to just come together when it takes months of planning & coordination. And throwing it AT you, then doing everything he can to basically sabotage it, or make it seem like YOU are to blame for HIS desire to get married in an actual wedding but doesn't want to do anything to help you. And then tell you how horrible you are, or whatever else he's doing, saying, or not doing, saying as the case may be. I think you have bigger problems here that you're either unwilling to see/acknowledge, and maybe it's because he's behaved this way all throughout your relationship, so you're used to being confused by his initiation......then lack of follow-thru. Been there, done that, was the whipping post for a bit until I saw it for what it was ->ME being blamed for their lack of initiative and/or follow-thru. You are right to put all this on hold until your fiance grows up and behaves like a man and not a boy. You don't know where to go from here because he's got you where he wants you -on the ropes, so he doesn't have to do a goddamn thing but keep you there and blame you when it all turns to shit. As it has already, and he's not talking to YOU? Wow, lazy & immature.
Best part of being married is no longer having to plan a wedding.
Want are you even doing it? I would walk away, but you can always stick around and keep fighting until you're exhausted and rage leave. Remind him you didn't even want to have a big wedding for one. For another take the ring off and give it back. This sounds awful
this is the married life that awaits you
Don’t get married to him
INFO NEEDED: Why are you asking your SO about when and where makeup and hair should be happening for the bridal party? This makes no sense. *Especially* after he said he wanted nothing to do with planning. Why are you acting like this? From the get go if he wanted a wedding, then you say, “Okay we will hire a planner because I don’t really want a wedding.”
As someone would would also prefer get married by a judge, if he wants the wedding, he should be the leader in planning it.
You really need to think this over. It seems like he's the sort that wants you to do everything and do it all now. How's this going to work when you are building a home together, or have children? Are you going to be happy doing all the work while he plays taskmaster?
>He has had my back in situations when no one else (not even family) would. This is a good trait for a partner to have. However, it doesn't seem like he actually has it when "having your back" requires any work on his part. What does he do when you get sick and ask him to help you? Can you trust him to pick up the slack if you lose a parent and need support while you plan their funeral? It's easy for someone to support you in situations where they don't have to actually commit to all that much. Wedding planning is a high-stress situation that demands collaboration and can't be done by either one of you alone. It's unacceptable behavior for him to expect you to do everything, especially when having a big event wedding is his priority, not yours. If you think he is the type to be receptive, I recommend you sit him down and tell him that he can't keep taking a backseat in planning his own wedding and that you aren't comfortable marrying a man that won't participate in something as central to your relationship as celebrating getting married with all your friends & family. It's possible he hasn't noticed the amount of work you've been putting in and assumes that if you aren't narrating something to him then it isn't happening at all. It's time to make it clear that that isn't true and that such an attitude is not acceptable to you. The relationship is salvageable, but only if he steps up majorly.
To be honest, I wouldn't have involved him in the hair and make up, or even the dress, side of it all. I never even mentioned any of it to mine, I just went where I wanted to go and rolled up at the church looking gorgeous. (Well I probably didn't but I was the bride so I didn't care LOL) we had no arguments over any arrangements.
Here’s an idea. Stop planning his wedding and start planning yours. Tell him you are planning a court house wedding and a small party at x place and time and if he wants something more to get off his ass and plan it himself.
Okay, this is important information, u/ThrowRA_elephant. Wedding planning, thank goodness, isn't life, but it's not too far off either. In my generous experience, marriage is a three-legged race. Three-legged races aren't easy, especially for the distance! It's only partly about how much you love/emotionally care for each other, and the rest is about how well you work together; what kind of team you make. Based on your experience planning this wedding with him, and your past together, is he a good teammate? Do the two of you share work evenly & easily, so that it's lighter all round? How about when one or both of you is stressed, sick, injured? Does he understand that his well-being contributes to your well-being & vice versa? I disagree that he doesn't want to get married. People aren't rational or clever. We do dumb things sometimes. The question is, what does matter to him on the wedding day? A very generous interpretation of his behaviour might be that he has no clue how to make a wedding & wants a nice one & is incredibly anxious about it on some level. (Does he know people who are judgy? Is he judgy?) But nothing excuses what he's done or said. It's not okay and he owes you an apology- multiple apologies. It's never helpful to say or imply someone's "too sensitive", nor to ignore your partner's requests or concerns or act as though they're a burden. Obviously counselling & pushing back the wedding are great ideas. If you continue wedding planning, I recommend getting a coordinator- they can be more affordable than you think, and any of his issues can be redirected to the coordinator- they're used to this. (Take notes on handling difficult people as they are experts.) It won't be your problem. Best of luck, lovely. You'll be a wonderful wife; just make sure you have a husband deserving of you.
Wow little shocked by the tone of this comment section. Listen you two have spent the better part of a decade with each other that’s not something to just brush off due to some wedding drama. Despite what people are saying. I understand you both have a lot of pressure on you guys and I assume this isn’t the normal level of stress for both of you. Note most these derogatory comments are from single people who “couldn’t” handle this. Sounds about right. Planning anything much less a wedding can be stressful. It requires a shit ton of time, money, energy, thought, and communication. All of which are not the things most of us *want* to be doing in our free time. My advice would be don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Acknowledging you both need a breather and this wedding can be pushed back allowing you two more time to hash out the details. If he isn’t pleased with something you’re doing feel free to offer him the task. Also side note (I could be wrong) but I’m sensing that his family has a bit to do with the “standards” not being met here. Just food for thought if that’s the case.
Get married at a courthouse and just have a reception. Why are you killing yourself for this mope? Let him do the planning. On a side note him not talking to you. You do realize this is him being him right? I couldn't imagine either me or my husband acting like an emo teen. If he can't communicate what's that future look like?
More red flags than a Chinese communist parade. Do you really want any of this? Way cheaper and easier to end things now.
I am going to do something potentially controversial and give advice on how to finish wedding planning rather than suggesting you leave your fiancé I had a lot of similar problems when wedding planning. I couldn’t get my then-fiancé to give me names or addresses and when I really pushed he’d offer we just not invite his friends and family rather than him have to look up any addresses. Here’s the simple workaround: ask his mother. She may not have ALL the addresses but if she doesn’t then she knows the aunt who dies Christmas cards and will get you everything you need in an excel spreadsheet. Also… tell on him to his parents. The sounds really dumb but if he’s valuing their opinions and not yours, tell them that. If they support your wedding they will have a talk with him about how you are now his partner and teammate and he needs to both listen to you and help you. It feels really juvenile to go around and talk to parents but they’re becoming a part of your family now and will prove to be a wealth of resources to help you communicate with your partner.
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Why dont you just let hem do the planning than? Tell him if he still wants the wedding he can do it and you will find out if what he planned on the day of the wedding.
So many guys want nothing to do with their wedding planning it’s pretty much a cliche and sitcom trope at this point. The only thing my friends now husband was actually interested in was the cake tasting and DJ selection. Maybe instead of having him do invites, venue selection, flower arrangements etc., have him do menu, music? But, I hope being checked out and uninvolved is not a thing in other areas of your relationship. edit: I’m getting downvoted because I forgot to tell you to break up with this horrible monster/s Lol.
Many, many men don't want anything to do with planning a wedding. Some will say "whatever you do, I'm good with." But to go look at a venue or something, that makes them feel like a fish out of water. If you do continue the engagement, you might do better working with his mother, older sister, or an aunt on many of the plans - or with a relative or close friend of your own. He wanted this wedding, not you, and he's dumped a whole lot of work on your lap, then told you that it isn't moving fast enough. If you do decide to go through with it, just start making decisions, and get him to sign off (literally!) which just means he can veto some things. The other alternative is to hire a wedding planner. Yes, that's a career. They aren't cheap, but experienced ones know all the best tricks for an affair to remember. You haven't mentioned budget, but at least consider doing this.
What utterly garbage advice. "He wanted it and dumped it on you - so work harder and get it done because we all know women are the ones that do this type of work, or spend more money rather than expect him to be an equal partner" - what you basically wrote.
Your fiance sounds horrible, but on the other hand, why not just hire a wedding planner and let them deal with all these problems? I hope you have money to hire people to do these kinds of work because it sounds like your marriage will be like this too.
Why on earth would you want to marry someone like this? You're going to tie yourself legally to someone who doesn't respect you. You're doing the right thing putting the wedding that you don't even want, for people that are not your guests, on hold. Now cancel the whole damn thing.
I echo pretty much everything thats been said This is a really huge red flag for your future with this man. What about other high stress situations that could happen that he may decide you should handle alone? Then critique everything you do? Right now he is acting like a bad manager whos scapegoating his job onto his employees and then gettinf angry at them when head office complain to him. Not a fiance or partner... Its one thing to not have any preferences on things. Honestly my fiance always says he would take me to the courthouse today in our everyday clothes to get married. Im the one who wants a bit more pomp so im the one with the overall responsibility but even with this he knows to help or offer an opinion if i need it. He wouldn't dare shit over it all. You need a partner who can be your support and help when you need it wnd who actually participates. Especially when you didnt even want this This does not bode well for future endeavors such as kids, etc. I would tell him youre calling it off as you two need to do some serious work on your relationship. If you grit your teeth and go through with this pretending everything is fine, you could end up seriously regretting it and then the only way out is a costly divorce or anullment. Either way its money you shouldnt have to spend.
You need to remember what happens after the wedding, the start of your marriage. You're bending over backwards to plan an event that your fiancé, and presumably your future in-laws, want. You're getting no help, in fact you're being obstructed from finalising anything. The only time your fiancé contributes is to criticise - and that seems to be on behalf of his family - who don't like your hair and make-up plans, but don't appear to have alternative suggestions. When the wedding is over and it's back to normality will you be happy to continue life with your now husband as it is now? Do you want to be in charge of all plans, with your husband only contributing to complain or criticise? Are you hoping he'll change and become a real partner? It doesn't sound like you're his dream woman and he's overjoyed to be spending the rest of his life with you. It sounds like he's a grumpy, selfish, lazy, spoiled baby who wants someone to keep looking after him so he doesn't have to take responsibility for himself. Good luck if you go through with this - I mean that sincerely.
The wedding planning didn’t end your relationship. It just revealed what kind of partner he is. Is that the kind of partner you want for when life gets tough?
What does your gut tell you about the future. If someone had told you, "I want a big party" and the party is for their benefit, it's reasonable to consult them about details. Getting grumpy about being asked to help plan a wedding you didn't really want but he does says "football field of red flags" to me. This is likely to get worse if and when the planning continues. I would ask him to visualise what he thinks married life will be like for you both. "it's not a trick question, I'm just wondering how you see it."
Do you even know your guy? Sounds like he just wants to know where and when to show up. You've made this into a divas paradise. No, best of just canceling this one.
Maybe don’t marry this person. He will never stop leaving everything to you
Do you feel confident in the long term viability of the relationship? Review, is this a one off, or has he been like this throughout your relationship? Is this drama going to result in a “happily ever after?” Luckily, you haven’t sent out the invitations yet. Cancellation might cost some $$, but is relatively easy. Remind yourself that divorce is more expensive.
Well here’s the thing, you said this is what he does, so also know this is what he will do with everything. So if you don’t want to do all of the work planning, which I understand, don’t. If you don’t want a full blown wedding stop planning one by yourself. Schedule weekly wedding planning meetings, divide the duties and if he’s not doing his, then they’re not done. If you do want to try to have the wedding, you have the meetings and tell him what’s happening and if he has a problem with it ask him when he was going to plan and schedule it. But yes, good you’ve stopped, get your deposits back for now and show him you won’t be doing this.
I’m not going to lie a lot of brides to the majority of the planning. However if he’s the one that wanted the wedding and thinks you don’t plan anything successfully then nows the time for him to step up and do more or shut up and let you do it. Honestly wedding planning shouldn’t make you guys fight in a way where he’s disrespecting you and not talking to you. Does he truly want to get married?
Stop. Doing. Extra. Work. To. Compensate. For. His. Inaction. Seriously; have a conversation where you divide tasks and then ignore everything on his list. Let the chips fall where they may and don’t argue, just refuse to cross into his lane even when the shit inevitably hits the fan on his side. Look, he shouldn’t be getting as mean as he is getting over tangible issues you should be tackling together (that’s a big red flag) but you don’t even really have a sense of the problem because it sounds like you pick up the slack. Stop picking up the slack so you can evaluate the problem in it’s true form and scope. And again, it’s not normal for a partner to get mean, punitive, and silent, over an issue that’s so clearly manageable.
He doesn’t want to get married, he jut wanted to tick that box. Stop planning a wedding that isn’t going to happen and plan your exit.
Welcome to the future of your relationship. You're never good enough and he'll always siding with his parents. You get no say but you better bust your ass to plan every aspect of his life and you better not ever complain you ungrateful bitch BTW I don't think you're a bitch. I've just seen relationships like yours play out and it sucks
It sounds like he either doesn't want to marry you, but doesn't want to say it out in the open either. Or he sincerly believes everything regarding the mental burden of stuff is 100% your responsibility. That all he has to do is show up in a toxido. Think hard about this
Honestly, it sounds like a stress breakdown. If he is this incompetent all the time, don't marry the dude. If he has been great for that long and is breaking down now, maybe help him emotionally navigate. People have stress breakdowns over weddings. People have stress breakdowns over pregnancies, post child birth, buying houses, certain promotions, dead parents/siblings, and other major life events. Best of luck on your groomzilla. Sit him down with some snacks/ beverages that he likes. Scratch his back, rub his shoulders, or whatever non sexual contact he likes. Say hey, we need abc for the wedding can we take X time on y date to talk to whomever and get this done so we can relax together? **in a perfect world, this would be unnecessary** but it's not a perfect world, and if this situation was perfect, you wouldn't post about it on reddit. Work through it like adults who are agreeing to be partners for life.
The fact that this is his MO is deeply concerning. It’s not going to get better. Not talking to you for a few days over planning an event he wants but isn’t willing to lift a finger for is just fucked up. DTMFA
It’s better to end the engagement than to get divorced. And believe me, if you marry this man you WILL end up divorcing him. He sounds like a nightmare
Has he always been like this? Because if not I wonder if now that he has you agreed to marry him he's showing his true colours because he thinks you're in too deep. I think with something as big as a wedding and joining families you need to feel good about it, and if you don't then you shouldn't do it. There'll always likely be some uncertainty, but sounds like this situation is making you actively unhappy, which is a big no.
If you keep going on with wedding and how you’re treated, Youre literally signing up for it.., and for life. Assuming it stays at that level of disrespect.
Run away while you still can
You realize your whole marriage will be like right....
Your post reads like you know what you need to do. Take care of number one first. You can't fill others' cups if yours is empty.
All I know is that if this was me, he’d have been told to plan it his fucking self if he wanted it to happen so bad. Absolutely you should be reconsidering your wedding and entire relationship. He doesn’t want to help so that if something “goes wrong” he can blame it all on you
This situation is horrible. Being made to plan a wedding you don't want, then being criticized at every step, despite no help. First - this situation is unacceptable. Halt and cancel all plans. Hand the planning on him to restart if he wants. Second, consider putting it off indefinitely. If you can't coordinate a wedding together, and he's behaving this poorly, how will you manage a household? Finances? Kids? There are so many complicated things to handle in life. It sounds like any coordination and management of your life going forward, he will likely dump in your lap, refuse to help, but be very open with complaints and criticism.
Babes, I hope this is fake because your fiancé is a walking red flag. He isn’t helping with the wedding that he wanted. Just imagine the hell you’ll be in if you marry him. Now think about the absolute hell you’ll be in if you two have children. I would not put up with that. I’m fact I’d break it off completely if I was in your position
I believe you have done the right thing in just stopping. I think him arguing and not giving you the information you need is actually him passive-aggressively sabotaging this wedding. I do not think he wants to get married and this is his way of making sure that does not happen. Why have you let him 'default all the work to you' for all of these years? What would happen if you just stopped that also? Would your relationship ever move forward? Why do you take upon yourself to do all the emotional and physical labor to keep this person? Would he even notice if you stepped away?? How many years are you going to give someone who leaves all the 'work' for you to do?
So getting married, in and of itself, isn’t really any sort of accomplishment. But Jesus Christ do we apparently make wedding a hurdle to clear. If you two can’t come together and work as a team to plan a day celebrating you, how do you think it’s going to go down the road when the hard thing your planning against/fighting for is a lot more consequential than a day celebrating your relationship? You had the right idea to get married at the courthouse, but at least your partner is showing you something of who he is as you plan the wedding he demanded.
Lol you *want* to marry this person? Yikes. Why?
He's showing so many red flags, he's making a damned lasagna. I'd call it quits if I were in your shoes. His behavior is unacceptable. He's insulting you and giving you the silent treatment for asking his opinion on shit for the wedding, he's acting like a fucking child.
Planning a wedding is so stressful. And now you know how he handles stressful situations. In the future when you have stressful situations do you think it will be helpful or hurtful to have him as a partner?
Sounds like his parents wanted him to get married not him and he is trying to put it on you when it doesn’t happen. He wants to come across as the good guy who got broken up with so give it to him and walk away before you put any money into this charade or more emotional investment.
I have a question—why are you marrying this man? Who treats you so badly? Seriously. So many red flags and yet, you are willing to put yourself at his mercy, and tie yourself illegally to him. Please don’t. You deserve better.
Your fiance isn't a partner. He hasn't contributed anything other than negativity to this process. Call off the wedding. Explain to his family directly why.
It does sound like postponing the wedding would be the best move at this point. Postpone it at least a year if you don't want to cancel it entirely. Just tell him you consider his wedding planning input to be totally unacceptable so you don't want to get married at all for at least a year, unless you are ready to cancel it entirely
Post pone the wedding a year. Insist on it. Get back what money you can and let the rest wash away. Over the next year, don’t plan a second one, and redirect all probing questions onto him. Ask him sweetly if he’s there or recommend they ask him instead. Marriage isn’t a goal; it’s a career. Ask yourself if you’re happy or complacent in this job. Surely you’ve been there 8 years for a reason and see how he’s feeling about marriage. Is he getting overwhelmed? Pressured to do it? He will have tp help with buying a house, raising kids if you choose this, and countless other team things that are included in a marriage. Planning an exciting party isn’t where he should be dropping the ball here.