Fiancé cancelled wedding, but still wants me to stay?!?!!?

[TBoneTX 45,294]

The OP hasn't logged on to VJ since January 9. Perhaps we should wait for her return before posting anything more.

^^^

[ExPatty 502]

My fiancé cancelled our wedding a few days ago, and I have no idea what to do.

He says he still loves me and wants to be with me, and that him telling his parents, siblings, and other relatives that the wedding is off is just a "misunderstanding". But how does someone "accidentally" cancel their wedding, without realising that's what they're doing?!?

He has been apathetic about our wedding from the start; like I wasn't able to convince him to do ANYTHING to help organise it -- not even things I truly can't do for him like the guest list (ie working out who he wanted to invite!) Over the last six months, we've had soooo many arguments where I got upset and said, "honey, if you don't help me with [major wedding thing like venue / celebrant / invites], there won't be a wedding"... and not one single one of those things got done. There wasn't anything to cancel, really, because nothing at all was booked, and not even a Save the Date had been sent! (I couldn't get it all done alone from the opposite side of the world, as its a small town where everything is done through word of mouth and prior relationships, and I'm an outsider and don't know who to go to for things, if that makes sense.)

Honestly, we're not even properly engaged. I really wanted to announce our engagement back in Australia so I could have an engagement party with my friends and loved ones at least, since most can't come to a wedding in the US. But he told me we had to wait because when his grandmother died she left her engagement ring to him and insisted it be used when he got engaged. He promised that we'd get engaged for real as soon as we got back to the U.S. so he could honor his grandmother's dying wish, and of course I agreed... but we've been back a month now, and we're still not actually engaged. And that's just one example; he's made so many promises and kept zero so far.

I want to go home to Australia and be done with all his BS, because even though I still love him, I just can't take any more. Plus the trust is gone now, and I don't think that's a good way to start a marriage. But every time I say so, he begs me to stay and tells me we can still have the life we'd planned over here. He wants me to go to the courthouse to get legally married but I don't want a pretend, 'just for the paperwork' marriage, and if he'd told me that's what I was getting into I wouldn't have moved here.

But it's all complicated by the fact that I don't have a life to go back to there now, as I wound up my business, gave up my apartment, got rid of most of my furniture and household items, and shipped the few things I still own (my most treasured possessions) when I left to start my 'new life' here with him. Even my cat is here in the US with me, and Aussie quarantine laws mean I won't be able to move her back home for at least six months, but I have to leave within two months so I won't be here to get her ready to travel. (I know lots of people don't understand being so attached to an animal, but my cat is family and leaving her behind would be heartbreaking for me. And I'm already pretty heartbroken over the wedding.) I don't have any family I can move in with back in Australia, so I'd be starting over back there with nowhere to go and no possessions beside the clothes and gadgets in my suitcase, as the few things I shipped won't arrive in the US for at least 2-3 months, and then it'll be another 3 months or so to ship it back again. Plus transporting me + my stuff + my cat back home again will be another $5-6K, and I just paid that much to move over here!

I gave up my old life to be with him, so going back means starting over again, and I just did that here a month ago. I'm tired, I'm out a lot of money, and I'm heartbroken that he'd cancel our wedding.

I don't know what to do.

I have not read any replies in this thread, but I bet you they are basically saying what I'm going to say:

He does not want to marry you.

You need to move on. I really hope you don't keep wasting time with somebody who is treating you like this. The thing is, without reading anything else, I know people in your own life have told you the same, but you so badly don't want to believe them that you are desperately looking for any evidence to the contrary of what is happening. You already have mountains of it. You need to start heeding it instead of looking for a needle in a haystack.

I understand how hard it was to come to the US. Coming here without much money and the hassle is something many of us have shared, but it it is temporary, far more so if you have to restart than unwinding from a failed marriage some years down the road with kids the result of that marriage.

Edited February 12, 2015 by ExPatty

[coniefl 28]

I know she hasn't logged on for a little over a month, but people telling her not to marry etc is really not our place without knowing all the facts and to give the benefit of the doubt. So I posted this in case she comes back and logs in.

Maybe

1. he has no control over the ring, and his mother/father won't turn it over to him.

2. He has a fear (I do) and getting up in front of a large audience to have a large wedding. A private wedding by a judge is less fearful.

After all he said he still wanted to marry with a court procedure.

3. He feels that he should be the provider and feels uncomfortable with you paying for everything.

Is the thoughts of having a large wedding and promises your assumptions or were they actually discussed?

[TBoneTX 45,294]

I have not read any replies in this thread

Please don't repeat this action.

Please see post directly above yours.

[SK2014 44]

Edited February 13, 2015 by SK2014

[TBoneTX 45,294]

The OP hasn't logged on to VJ since January 9. Perhaps we should wait for her return before posting anything more.

For the third time, see above ^^^

[FLAussie 5]

I've waited a while to post an update, because I really wanted to have good news to share, though can't really say I do.

I'm still in the USA. A little while after I last posted, he took a day off work to drive over to see his aunt to get his grandmother's engagement ring. So he did finally actually propose to me, and we patched things up. He promised that we'd have a real wedding, we'd just have to do the legal one first so I could stay long enough to have a proper wedding.

A friend of his mom's is a JP and agreed to sign the marriage papers without doing a real wedding. We've put in the AOS paperwork, and he paid the fee as a sign of good faith, since I already paid so much to move over here to be with him. So I'm here legally; no matter how messy my personal life is, I'm not about to mess with USCIS.

We rescheduled the wedding for a few months' time. Obviously it would just be a religious/social wedding, since the legal wedding is done, and he said it would be better because I could give people back in Australia enough notice that they might be able to attend. That was a couple of months ago.

There's really no difference between now and the last time around, though: he still has no interest or inclination to help organise a wedding. And I've been hesitant to really jump into wedding planning again, since I wasted so much time and effort (and so many tears) trying to organise this wedding once already. So nothing is happening. We had six months to get everything ready for the new wedding date; a third of that time is gone now, and not one thing is organised.

I haven't given up on the relationship, because there are good things about it as well. I don't doubt that he loves me; he just won't do anything about actually marrying me. I don't really get what his problem is. I've talked to him about it about a million times now, and he never has much to say about it. He says the only reason he hasn't gotten into helping with the wedding this time, is that he's just started a new job and is really busy. Which is true, but his apathy about the wedding didn't start when he started the new job, and he still finds time for leisure stuff like TV and funny cat pics, though I know he needs some downtime after work.

So I'm pretty sure now that we'll never have a religiously-valid marriage (which matters to me, and matters to his family, but not to him), and we'll never take marriage vows or make a public commitment to each other. Which makes me sad, but there's nothing more I can do to convince him to make good on his various promises.

I try to concentrate on other things instead, like making some sort of life for myself over here. I spend most of my time sitting around alone at his parents' house atm, which isn't great for my sanity. So I'm trying to use the time to get fit, and get stuff like moving money over from Australia sorted out. I find it better to think about stuff I can actually do something about, instead of getting upset about his wedding-related cold-feet (or whatever it is) any more. Seems like the best I can do for now...

[Darnell 8,478]

jp marriage date prior to I-94 expiration? if yes, super ! if no, need to add in I-130 into the doc set.

[FLAussie 5]

2. He has a fear (I do) and getting up in front of a large audience to have a large wedding. A private wedding by a judge is less fearful.

After all he said he still wanted to marry with a court procedure.

3. He feels that he should be the provider and feels uncomfortable with you paying for everything.

Is the thoughts of having a large wedding and promises your assumptions or were they actually discussed?

Just to answer these points:

2. He's a performer and is regularly on stage in front of big groups. If he has stage fright, he's done a good job of hiding it so far. But good point; I know it is an issue for many people.

3. Yes, he's said things a couple of times about how he'll be a good provider. My usual response: "What is this, the 1950s?!?" I've been paying my own way since I was 15, and I'm not about to stop. Plus I was in a financially abusive relationship before (where a partner uses control of joint finances as a way to control their partner's behavior, by making it impossible to get money to do anything they don't want you to do) and I don't want to put myself in that position ever again.

When we've talked about money stuff, he's always said he's OK about me doing most of the budgeting and financial planning because I'm a maths geek and he's not, so all the numbers make a lot more sense to me. But yeah, his family are quite old-fashioned and he does seem to have picked up some 'manly provider' ideals from them... I'll have a talk to him and find out if it's a problem that I was going to pay for most of the wedding, with his parents picking up the rest. We agreed to it back in Australia, when he was the one having issues with getting steady work due to visa status; now over here he's got a good steady job and I'm not allowed to work here so I have very little income. He keeps offering to pay for things and I mostly won't let him; maybe he has more issue with that than he lets on. I'll ask.

As for having a large wedding: he has 10 sets of aunts and uncles, over 30 first cousins (many with partners and kids of their own now), plus parents, grandparents, great-aunts and great-uncles, 3 siblings, 5 nieces and nephews so far... There's never been any choice for either of us, but to have a fairly large wedding. All his family gatherings are enormous; it seemed like that was just normal to him.

[FLAussie 5]

jp marriage date prior to I-94 expiration? if yes, super ! if no, need to add in I-130 into the doc set.

Yes, prior to the I-94 expiration.

I've done my best to keep the paperwork in order, despite the personal upheaval, because unless/until I'm certain the relationship is completely over I'm going to stay on the right side of USCIS so we have the option of being together.

[Darnell 8,478]

hoping for a good result for you two. honestly, it seems (to me) that he needs to sit down with some 'father figure' and get his head unscrewed, fixed, and screwed back in. i really hope he graduates into manhood, and soon.

[Ontarkie 14,225]

I planned two weddings and both men never were too much into the planning stuff.

I would just tell say hey you want this or this for supper, do you want a live music or a DJ?

What kind of cake you want? That sorta thing sometimes I got an answer.

I just told him we are doing it this way and you will shut up and like it if you don't tell me what you want.

Heck some guys are like that for everything in life it does not mean the don't want that stuff though.

Edited March 26, 2015 by Ontarkie

[*Snowdrop* 604]

You may just be expecting him to react to the planning of a wedding in the same way as you. And it might simply not be his thing - that doesn't mean he doesn't want the ceremony.

Like an above poster my husband was not at all interested in the little details over the planning months - he just kept saying in a sort of jokey voice "Isn't my job just to turn up to the ceremony"

In the end I stopped expecting him to help and just gave him the occasional really focused job to do - or let him know what I had planned or ordered. Asking whether we should have roses or dahlias just led to the most frustrating "I don't mind, you decide" conversations that I just gave up giving him an input into those things.

However on the day itself he was thrilled by all the things I had planned and still talks about it today - nearly eight years later.

We had a wonderful day with our families and it was great - but if I had waited for him to get interested enough to help decide food choices, napkin colors etc - we would still not be married.

One small warning: when you have a partner who can't or won't make the effort to really get into the details of something you are interested in it usually happens more than once. So you also have to be prepared to deal with the same scenario again - for example - what colour to paint the living room, what type of crib to buy, what to serve for Christmas Dinner.

[2far 185]

I agree with the previous 2 ladies. Expecting him to get excited about wedding planning is just setting yourself up for disappointment. Especially, since there has been a lot of tension created around this issue before. I'm sure that any mention of a wedding at this point makes him cringe. It's clear that the wedding is important to you, but not to him.

So plan the wedding you want! He will show up, and he will enjoy it, and you and the families will love it. But you are the one that has to step up and make all the decision on this. Which if you really think about it, is kind of perfect! Thsi way he can't make any decisions that you don't approve of. Just do it your way, and come back and let us know how fabulous it was!

[Ilovemyman 147]

You comolained that he isnt exited about the wedding, remember a big wedding doesnt ensure a good marriage.

You look more interested in the wedding than in the marriage, a wedding isnt important.

The important thing is that the marriage work.

Sorry, but you look an artificial person, enhoy your wedding and i hope that your marrige last.

I've waited a while to post an update, because I really wanted to have good news to share, though can't really say I do.

I'm still in the USA. A little while after I last posted, he took a day off work to drive over to see his aunt to get his grandmother's engagement ring. So he did finally actually propose to me, and we patched things up. He promised that we'd have a real wedding, we'd just have to do the legal one first so I could stay long enough to have a proper wedding.

A friend of his mom's is a JP and agreed to sign the marriage papers without doing a real wedding. We've put in the AOS paperwork, and he paid the fee as a sign of good faith, since I already paid so much to move over here to be with him. So I'm here legally; no matter how messy my personal life is, I'm not about to mess with USCIS.

We rescheduled the wedding for a few months' time. Obviously it would just be a religious/social wedding, since the legal wedding is done, and he said it would be better because I could give people back in Australia enough notice that they might be able to attend. That was a couple of months ago.

There's really no difference between now and the last time around, though: he still has no interest or inclination to help organise a wedding. And I've been hesitant to really jump into wedding planning again, since I wasted so much time and effort (and so many tears) trying to organise this wedding once already. So nothing is happening. We had six months to get everything ready for the new wedding date; a third of that time is gone now, and not one thing is organised.

I haven't given up on the relationship, because there are good things about it as well. I don't doubt that he loves me; he just won't do anything about actually marrying me. I don't really get what his problem is. I've talked to him about it about a million times now, and he never has much to say about it. He says the only reason he hasn't gotten into helping with the wedding this time, is that he's just started a new job and is really busy. Which is true, but his apathy about the wedding didn't start when he started the new job, and he still finds time for leisure stuff like TV and funny cat pics, though I know he needs some downtime after work.

So I'm pretty sure now that we'll never have a religiously-valid marriage (which matters to me, and matters to his family, but not to him), and we'll never take marriage vows or make a public commitment to each other. Which makes me sad, but there's nothing more I can do to convince him to make good on his various promises.

I try to concentrate on other things instead, like making some sort of life for myself over here. I spend most of my time sitting around alone at his parents' house atm, which isn't great for my sanity. So I'm trying to use the time to get fit, and get stuff like moving money over from Australia sorted out. I find it better to think about stuff I can actually do something about, instead of getting upset about his wedding-related cold-feet (or whatever it is) any more. Seems like the best I can do for now...