Got engaged, but was it the right thing to do?

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Hi, I am currently a second year college student. At the beginning of the year, I met a girl, and before long, she had swept me off my feet. Within 2 months we were engaged. It is now 10 months since then, and I truly do love her. However, I am really starting to feel doubts about being engaged. We fight all the time due to the stresses of school, and have quit enjoying our time together lately. Our families are involved, and they love the idea of our engagement. I’ve been repressing this feeling for a few months now, but it keeps rearing its ugly head. I don’t know if she could get by through college without me, as she is highly dependent on me right now to get through things. I’m worried that if I end it, I’ll be giving up something that has great potential, but then again, I’m also worried that, since I’m having these feelings, it may spell inevitable doom. Do you think I should simply cut it off now? I wanted an older perspective on this, so I posted it here in the parents forum. </p>

<p>Thanks!</p>

2

<p>If you are fighting all the time, you are not ready for marriage. </p>

<p>You don’t have to cut it off – there is an in-between option where you tell the girl that you are sure that you love her (if that’s true) but not sure that you are ready for marriage, and ask how she would feel about ending the <em>engagement</em> and postponing the marriage decision until at least your senior year. Then you can continue a relationship in whatever capacity is appropriate and which you can agree on.</p>

3

<p>That seems completely rational in theory, but actually implementing something like that seems like a different beast entirely. I can’t think of many people, my fiance included, who could take the news of hearing that an engagement (ring and all, with the family involved) is called off, and simply accept that the status has been demoted. I’m making the assumption here, that if I call of the engagement, then the relationship will be, at the very least, on hiatus, and over for good if we weren’t able to work things out in our minds/hearts.</p>

4

<p>I agree with Calmom’s advice.</p>

<p>But maybe, since the families are involved, talk to your family first, so it won’t be a surprise for everybody…</p>

<p>It seems like the current situation will only further build your resentment.</p>

5

<p>jsparrow, you asked for an older perspective. Calmom has given it to you in a nutshell. </p>

<p>What you’ve posted very strongly suggests that you are not ready for this. Just go back and read over your post, looking at some of your word and phrase choices: repressing. rearing its ugly head. highly dependent. inevitable doom.</p>

<p>If ending an engagement seems difficult to you (and it will be, honestly), consider how much worse it would be to end a marriage. </p>

<p>It will be hurtful all around in the short run, because - of course in addition to your and your fiancee’s feelings - no doubt the people who care about you both have been enjoying the thought that the two of you were sure you’d be happy together. But step back and see that they would NOT be happy to see either one of you feeling resentful and trapped. They want the best for you both.</p>

<p>Good luck. You’ll all come out okay if you’re honest about this.</p>

6

<p>jsparrow: it depends on what kind of engagement you have. do you have the kind where you and your family have been planning to choose a date very soon and get married? or do you have the kind of engagement that is a loose promise to get married sometime in the future, but no plans are being set?</p>

<p>If it’s the former, ending the engagement is absolutely what you need to do – and it will probably be a break-up. But if you do really love her, try to work with her to convince her you just want to be on a more stable footing.</p>

<p>If it’s the latter, you could coast for awhile.</p>

<p>The fact that you are posting suggests to me you feel pressure. You need to take this pressure off yourself. Do NOT stay with her because you think she’ll fall apart if you break up. First of all, people often overestimate the extent to which the other person will be devastated. Perhaps you could wait until the school term ends, though.</p>

<p>The way to look at the family involvement is unless you are sure of this when you move forward the family in all likelihood will be “involved” in seeing you divorce after little time. Take your pain early.</p>

<p>And the last three posters have all nailed all the major issues. Talk it through with your family. And if they argue that they want to see you marry someone you have such big doubts about, tell them they would end up seeing you divorce – and you don’t want that.</p>

7

<p>It can be very difficult to break up with a girlfriend or fiance, but when you feel like you are breaking up the friendship of your soon-to-be blended families, it is even worse. Here is the deal: the longer you wait, the harder it will be. The worst thing you can do is get married to a person you are fighting with all of the time. Divorce is a million times harder than breaking off an engagement. Your fiance, your parents, and her parents will all be fine eventually. She will learn how to live independently and can choose for herself if she wants to finish college. You both sound like you could use some time to mature. You might want to drop by the student health center and see a counselor (usually free or covered by the student health plan) who will help you sort out what you want to do and how you want to do it. Four or five hours with a counselor will be very helpful and will allow you to talk this out with a trained professional who is completely impartial. You could even bring the fiance in if that is easier for you. Good luck.</p>

8

<p>A few thoughts:</p>

<p>First your absolutely need to talk to your fiance about how your time together lately has become less than pleasant. It really sounds like the two of you need to work on your communication skills. If you can’t do it now, it won’t be any easier when “real life” stresses (and I’m not negating the stress of college) come along in future years. How will the two of you deal with starting new careers, children (and they are stressful on a marriage), moving, etc. Start by assuring the young woman that you do love her, but you are concerned about the patterns you are establishing now. </p>

<p>Perhaps your college has some sort of counseling available that might assist the two of you (or just you.) If you are religious, perhaps your church, temple, (fill in the appropriate blank here) has someone that counsels engaged couples. </p>

<p>I’m also concerned that she is so dependent upon you. That’s not healthy. It also sounds like the relationship is a bit unbalanced. Are you getting what you need from her? After 24 years of marriage I am dependent upon my spouse for many things, but if he wasn’t around I would survive. While he contributes to who I am and is my best listener and biggest cheerleader, I’m not dependent upon him for my success or self worth. He just helps if that makes sense. </p>

<p>Give it some time. If the two of you can grow as individuals and together during these young years, you will be fine. If not, then it’s really best not to get married despite your love.</p>

9

<p>In a nutshell…if you are asking then you know the answer.</p>

<p>I do not mean to be heartless or rude, but it is true, do you want to marry her or do you want to be married? Only you can answer it.</p>

<p>It is normal in a relationship at your age to have 2nd thoughts, but it isn’t normal to desire other peoples opinion.</p>

10

<p>Listen to your heart and your gut. You are very young. Do not stay engaged or get married because your families will be upset if you break up. You can’t live YOUR life for your family. I have a friend who just got divorced after 22 years of marriage, the last 12 of which were miserable. Got married straight out of college, in part because both families were so thrilled with the relationship.</p>

<p>Your girlfriend being dependent on you is another warning bell. Putting the engagement on hold- or breaking it off- doesn’t mean you can’t be there to help her “through things,” but if she really needs help perhaps your college has some counseling services. You cannot solve her problems for her, although you can be there for support. It’s not healthy for either of you to enter adulthood without some sense of being self-sufficient.</p>

11

<p>Okay, going to be real frank here, I hope I don’t offend you.</p>

<p>It is massively hard to sustain being engaged for 3 years. It is the natural desire for a relationship between a man and woman to push quickly toward fulfillment in marriage once the commitment is made. A long engagement tends to lead to frustration, taking things physically further than you mean to, and a stressful relationship. Personally, I think an engagement needs to last about 6-8 months max. If you’re not ready to marry in that time (and you sure ought not to be with two more years of school to go!!!) you probably ought not to be engaged.</p>

<p>I know, you already are :-(</p>

<p>As I see it, you have two options. If you think you don’t want to marry her eventually, you need to respectfully and gently end it. Dragging it out is not kind, it just allows her heart to get more and more wrapped up in you and sets her up for a harder fall. An abject, falling-on-your-sword apology for being such a cad (sorry :slight_smile: can really help you get through this without a scene. I find that if you fall on your own sword, people are much less likely to want to push one into you :-)</p>

<p>The second option is if you really think you will probably marry her one day, but the intensity of the relationship is wearing you out for now. Just talk to her and ask her all about how she thinks your relationship is going - give her plenty of room to talk. You need to tell her that though you love her and look forward to the future, the intensity of the relationship is making it very hard to do what it takes to prepare for the career that means so much for that future. It maybe that she feels the same way (that you need to turn things down a notch), but is embarrassed. If so, you can both save face by keeping a united (!) front - telling friends and family that <em>we</em> have decided <em>we</em> need to concentrate on our schoolwork and it was getting very hard, so we’ve decided to scale things down a few notches (postponing the engagement) while you are in school - and utterly refusing to discuss it further with anyone.</p>

<p>I think it is especially hard on a girl when an engagement ends because she has publically been “claimed” by wearing that ring and feels like everyone will think she is a terrible reject if she shows up without it. You can save her a great deal of pain and embarassment if, however it ends, you allow her to save face.</p>

<p>I too think you need to discuss this with your parents (in person, if possible).</p>

12

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<p>This sounds ominous…and doesn’t sound like the kind of relationship I’d want to carry on through till death do we part.</p>

13

<p>Honestly, it sounds to me like you’d be better off breaking the engagement. If you don’t want to do that I think your best alternative is to try to get some sort of couples therapy so that you can have a relationship that works better.</p>

14

<p>make a clean break…that in between stuff rarely works, and it is so easy to get sucked into the old patterns</p>

<p>Obviouslly both parties are not ready for marriage and not for the same reasons </p>

<p>Do not worry about your parents, her parents, friends or whoever else is into this engagement thing- their feelings are not important to the decision you need to make</p>

<p>IF you break off the engagement, they will be just fine, and if you are holding onto a relationship/engagement even partly, 1% becuase of them, then that is too much invested in their feelings</p>

<p>You need to have a heart to heart with your fiance, and if you can’t do that, no way should you stay engaged</p>

<p>huguenot’s post was very good</p>

15

<p>But…for the love of heaven…if you do break it off, do it right. That means: in person, face to face and in private. Not on the phone, the answering machine, by email, or through text messaging. And a lot of people choose to have life-altering conversations in public in the vain hope that this will somehow prevent the other party from making a scene. All that happens is you wind up having a big scene with an audience and ruining everybody’s dinner. You’re going to hurt this girl. Face up to that fact and be as gentle and kind as you can possibly be. Don’t dismiss her distress. Give her as much time as <em>she</em> needs and don’t give her the old ‘well, I gotta go’ line, running out the door because you’re afraid of strong emotion. This may very well be a total shock to her because you have no way of knowing what’s going on in her head. She may think the two of you are just going through a rough patch without a clue that you are thinking of breaking it all off. This is probably going to be the hardest thing you have ever done…be a mensch. </p>

<p>I can tell you this: whatever script you are practicing for this scene will fall apart after the first line. She won’t say any of things you think she’s going to say.</p>

16

<p>". We fight all the time due to the stresses of school, and have quit enjoying our time together lately. "</p>

<p>If things are this bad with the stresses of school, they would be even much worse with the stresses that occur after one graduates, including stresses of jobs and raising a family.</p>

<p>This is red flag #1 that this relationship is one to end, not one to keep hanging onto.</p>

<p>" I don’t know if she could get by through college without me, as she is highly dependent on me right now to get through things. "</p>

<p>Red flag #2: Emotionally healthy people who are ready for commitments (including committed dating) don’t need to lean on their partner to get through life. People mature enough and confident enough for marriage and committed relationships can stand on their own two feet.</p>

<p>Saying this as someone who used to be the kind of girl you describe. I needed therapy, not a boyfriend, and certainly not a spouse. I thought I was nothing without a boyfriend, not a sign of a person who’s ready for a relationship. </p>

<p>"Our families are involved, and they love the idea of our engagement. "</p>

<p>Red flag #3. Sounds like your families are overly involved in your lives. Many families would not be delighted that their college soph kids were engaged. The families would be concerned because they would fear that their students were too young, hadn’t known each other long enough to make such a commitment, and were substituting a relationship for diving into the world of college – including extracurriculars and various activities that one can pursue to find out more about oneself and the world.</p>

<p>I see no evidence that this relationship is a good one. I think you should break it off – face to face. Break it off means exactly that – no. “we’ll be friends” stuff. That does not work after a relationship unless the couple is apart typically for at least 6 months so that the one who didn’t want to break up can get over the other. Otherwise, continuing as “friends” just gives false hope to the one who didn’t want to end the relationship.</p>

<p>Have the guts, too, to stand up to your family and hers. Better to end an engagement than to be either in a miserable marriage with kids or ending a miserable marriage with kids.</p>

<p>If sex is involved, you don’t owe her marriage just because you had sex with her. The majority of people in this country have sex before marriage, and end up marrying someone else. It’s also easy to mistake lust for love, so that also may be what is clouding your judgment about whether to continue a relationship that sounds unpleasant and painful.</p>

17

<p>If you are having sex, make sure you are protected. The worse possible thing to happen would be for her to get pregnant at this time.</p>

<p>Us ‘older’ folks may seem preachy when we say ‘you have your whole life ahead of you’, and when you’re 20 you might not have a grasp on that, but trust me, when you are 40+, you will get it.</p>

<p>I think if most people put off marriage until they were 25+ (or so), there would be less divorce. </p>

<p>As a point of reference, I (currently 46 yo) speak as someone who got married at 19 (to get away from my parents), divorced and remarried the same person (yes I was that dumb). I was finally single permanently at age 26. I had my son at 28 yo (by a totally different guy who has never met his son). </p>

<p>Keep it simple, don’t tie yourself down now.</p>

18

<p>If you’re having sex with her stop because it’s clear that this relationship is going nowhere, and you’ll be risking having a child with someone whom you don’t want to be permanently tied down to.</p>

<p>If you decide not to follow this advice, take responsibility for using the birth control. Don’t depend on her because she has every reason to want a birth control “failure.”</p>

<p>If she gets pregnant, you’ll be a daddy for the rest of your life, and even if you don’t marry her, your life will be tied in with hers forever.</p>

19

<p>My s had a similar relationship with his girfriend. They dated for 2 1/2 yrs (long distance) during his college years. she is older than he. She is adorable and very sweet, but is the dependent type. The need to be needed can feel very nice, but it can get old. It is important for each of you to be able to stand on your own two feet. It doesnt mean that your fiancee can’t change and become more independent, but if you are feeling too responsible for too much of the stability of the relationship, that can wear on you.
Can you readjust the relationship? Date without being engaged? Would that work or be too awkward? For my s, he didn’t feel it was right to continue to date when he wasn’t ready for a committment that she was hoping for, so they are now just friends. You are young, and you have plenty of time to make these big decisions. Youshould liten to that voice inside your head. It is the voice of reason. Good luck.</p>

20

<p>And do not worry about what anyone will think, your friends may well be relieved, and as for your parents, they would rather you be happy than in a bad relationship…they don’t know all the stress, etc you are in, and they don’t need to know all the details, but they should not be more invested in the relationship than you are</p>

<p>so, you can tell them as much or as little as you want to, but the final decision is yours, they will either be glad you made such an adult decision to slow down or they will be sad, but they can get over it</p>

<p>just act like a gentleman, don’t badmouth the girl, and exit with grace</p>