SparkleKitty

You have every right to be angry, but it's way better to F-up one potential party on one day than to F up the rest of your life by marrying someone who might never be able to be a real partner to you.

dandylion

^^^^^^So true......

dandylion

danri

I appreciate your point of view but I was very much looking forward to my future with this man, and very much in love with him. Isn't it only natural to fall in love with planning your wedding day, and all that it symbolizes as one of the happiest days of your life? My parents divorced when I was 5 so I realize how a marriage will not always last and was so grateful everyday to have found someone like my fiancé. So understandably in the short term I'm extremely sad that this excitement that I've been building for the last 8 months is dead, and my wedding dress is hanging in a closet at my mothers house.

honeypig

Well, maybe I'm a wet blanket, but I feel like there is waaay too much made of that one day in our society. XAH's sister had a TREMENDOUS wedding, spent an incredible amount of money they didn't have, all sorts of drama beforehand, and in less than 2 years her husband was cheating online as well as IRL and they divorced. Long, messy, ugly--and years of custody struggle w/their child caught in the middle. She was definitely someone who was in love w/the wedding and I feel it blinded her to other more important things.

Not saying that is your situation; certainly you had big plans and now they are not working out as you wanted them to. But I would agree strongly w/those saying that your pain now is saving you so much more pain down the road. Feeling let down after 8 months of being excited is a small price to pay for not feeling beaten down, lied to and hopeless 5, 10 or 20 years down the road. You have to feel it in order to get to the other side. You will get to the other side.

dandylion

Yes, danri....it is natural to be sad and disappointed and to grieve when you have suffered a disappointment or the loss of a specific "dream".
I have empathy for how you are feeling.....
I just think that it is just too recent...and you are still raw....
You can't really expect to be past all the pai n, just yet....

all that you want is not lost....it is just not to be at this time.
When it comes and it is right.....it will not be like this....and, you will not be in pain.....

The best p arts of life, for you, are yet to come.....

This is the short-term pain for the long-term gain...

dandylion

FireSprite

Sure it is danri. And like dandy pointed out, you're going to be pretty raw for a while..... this is JUST happening so it is new & fresh.

After a while you may come to see what WE see - nothing has changed your dream. If ANYTHING, you gave it more credibility by holding off for Mr. Right instead of settling for Mr. Right Now.

That doesn't mean that your ex-fiancé can't become the husband of your dreams - but it is up to him to want that for himself first & then to show you how seriously he means it.

I'll bet anything that you'll still have the wedding of your dreams & I know that you'll see that too, once you've had time to grieve & digest all of these changes. The wedding is ONE day, it means nothing in the overall picture of things.

I'm sorry you are hurting!

dandylion

danri.....I was just thinking.....I think that the most serious mistake that a girl can make is to have the right dress....and the wrong guy.....

dandylion

Refiner

Yeah I get it, danri... I guess I just personally don't fit into that mold and emphasize and personally celebrate the real-life, "long-termness" of the relationship and not the over-the-top one day party that costs big bucks. Hell, we got married standing at the end of a dock on a lake at sunset, him in shorts, me in a sundress, with a notary marrying us LOL.

Liveitwell

I'm with you refiner. My ex and I didn't have a lavish over the top wedding - it was nice and simple bc I'm cheap and don't believe in spending money on that stuff. If I ever get married again it will be a simple ceremony in a church (with no flowers or crap like that) and maybe a get together at a local taco joint afterwards! Seriously, weddings are so overrated.

SparkleKitty

My first wedding was an expensive and lavish affair, but my first marriage ended after five years, mostly due to my unresolved self-esteem and codependency issues stemming from growing up an Adult Child of an Alcoholic. It was only years later that I realized I had accepted that proposal out of fear -- I wasn't ready to get married, but I also wasn't able to handle the possible consequences of saying no and hurting someone I loved. I count myself lucky that he and I were able to remain friends while I worked myself out over the next several years.

My second wedding, 12 years after the first, was at a historical park district site followed by a reception at a bar two blocks from our condo. We paid for everything ourselves. I had and continue to have, five and a half years later, no doubts about the life partner I have chosen.

AnvilheadII

for the last 8 months and yet, while YOU were caught up in the wedding planning, what was happening with your husband-to-be??

i too think weddings are HUGELY overrated....its all about commercialism, and trying to be over the top. it's all about planning a few hours of ONE day and people lose sight of the ensuing 50-60 YEARS after that. falling in love with PLANNING the festivities misses the boat and the EVENT becomes bigger and more important than the MARRIAGE.

atalose

I think you can still have your dream wedding and wear your dream dress and have things as you wish, just not with this guy. Once reality truly sets in and you see that any future with him would be like playing Russian roulette with your heart and mind, you’ll be able to fully mourn the loss of this dream of “happily ever after with him” and prepare yourself for someone who can truly give you what you deserve.

Marrying an alcoholic is like a deck of cards. In the beginning all you need is two hearts and a diamond. By the end, you wish you had a club and a spade……. (Unknown author)

danri

Well, I found out in October that my fiancé was an alcoholic when he confessed he had a problem and had to go to rehab. We had been living together for 4 years, together for 5 years at that point. I love weddings and was very much looking forward to ours. We're all different. For me, I wanted to celebrate our love and commitment with all of my favorite people in attendance. I didn't spend 5 years with him just for a white wedding without wanting the 50-60 years to follow.

dandylion

danri.....I think we all get that part....I know that I do.....
You are in good company here...

It hurts really bad.....I don't want to take away your feelings....you are entitled to your feelings.....all feelings are real......

It is o.k. to feel angry. Not because we say so...but, because it is a natural stage of the kalidescope of feelings that come with grief of a real loss.....

dandylion

Refiner

Hi again, danri... I have to ask you a couple of questions to get some clarification... If he has such a great job, why is he living in the apt YOU own, has his name on YOUR credit card, going on trips (then getting uninvited) on trips YOU pay for? Why are you worried about not allowing him to come back to your place and him having to endure being cramped at his Mom's? Is your relationship a true partnership?

Bekindalways

Danri, the above is so so sad and you seem to be doing the hard work of grieving. Falling in love is like going crazy but oh-my-gosh is it wonderful. Taking the steps you are taking is beyond brave, beyond strong and in many ways changes the world - at least the world in your immediate vicinity

I have to say, I am really impressed that you keep coming back to this thread as folks are giving you some very hard-to-hear information. You are one tough chick!!!!

I hope you get your white wedding day some day with the right man whoever he is.

. . . however, after reading the comments I asked my father (80 years old and married 55+ years) if his wedding day was the best day of his life. His response: a flat "No."

PS My mother periodically escapes from the locked down alzheimer's unit to find her way back to the octogenarian mentioned above. She is still nuts about him.

PuzzledHeart

danri, my ex-fiance dumped me over the phone (we were living on opposite coasts) the day after our wedding invitations went out and as I read your story I couldn't help but replay in my mind the disappointment, anger, and shame I felt when our relationship ended. I lurched back and forth from love and devotion to despair and anger and only after many months of crying did I find myself getting somewhere remotely approaching acceptance.

This is going to sound very weird, but I'm actually (sort of) glad that I went through that period. Because when my now husband came on the scene, I realized that what I thought was a fantastic relationship with ex was merely scraps. I was ready to settle for way too little.

There is a fundamental difference between you and me. You had the courage to stop the wedding when you saw the truth, and I didn't. I knew we had problems in our relationship, but I just stuck my head in the sand and pretended that everything was going to be OK. You can hold your head up high and say to yourself that you did the absolutely right thing, even though it was probably the very hardest thing you've ever done in your life, while I have to be begrudgingly grateful for my ex's decision to end it.

Still, you're angry about your lost dreams. You're angry at him because you gave him your heart and he exchanged it for booze. I would be pissed off too.

Please remember that what he did reflects nothing on you, but everything on him. You remember the man you loved, but he is also the man who drinks. He is at this moment both men, and you can't let both of them in.

PS. Have you considered doing something nice on the day you were to be married? My family threw a picnic for me. We attempted to find some humor in the situation: we had a roast pig and named it after my ex-fiance. The very next day, I took off for a solo one month trip to Europe and bounced from hostel to hostel. It was fantastic, even as I nursed my broken heart and drained my bank account (Fortunately, I had a job waiting for me afterwards.) Please allow yourself the chance to follow a different dream, not the dream you expected, but still a dream nonetheless.

bluelily

Danri,
I don´t care much about weddings either, but I do have my own particular little-house-on-the-prairie-happily-ever-after dream regarding romantic relationships and how they´re supposed to unfold and look like. And I´m discovering it has nothing to do with what relationships are like in real life.
Obviously, they are difficult, and they force you to grow and evolve in the best of cases. And they are even more difficult when we try to impose our own prince charming scenario on them.

Instead of focusing on how this experience wasn´t what you expected, why not focus on what it was, what it meant to you? What did you learn about yourself, what are your values and non-negotiables?
What are your subconscious beliefs (it could be you believe you aren´t complete without a husband, or that you believe a partner should have certain qualities and characteristics)?

Also, do you subconsciously believe a wonderful wedding is a guarantee for an everlasting, happy relationship? Because, as others have pointed out, it really isn´t.

I agree with Puzzledheart and the others to give yourself permission to follow a different dream. It may end up being something completely unexpected, but wonderful nonetheless.

Kata

Danri,

I'm with Bluelily and the others on this one.

Your anger and sadness means that the grieving process has started. Give yourself permission the feel those feelings fully. Don't bury them. I would aslo suggest that you write those feelings down. It might be helpful to have a record of those feelings down the word. if you get to a point where you remember only the good things, and none of the bad, your resolve might start to slip. If you've written all those feelings, you'll be able to look at what you wrote and maybe strenghten your resolve.

Hugs

FireSprite

I absolutely get this. We had been separated for 2+ years & just moved back in together when my husband admitted he was an alcoholic & sought recovery.

You could have knocked me over with a feather danri, I had NO clue despite the evidence that was right in front of me. I saw it all as a lot of separate issues & couldn't understand how we'd been "working" so hard to reconcile & getting further from it instead. I had no idea that while I was spending our time apart to learn & grow, he had graduated to drinking until blacking out most nights. No. Clue.

Seriously, I was IN SHOCK. He confessed, I know we talked for at least an hour but can't remember much of anything - it was mostly him talking like a Charlie Brown character (WA WA WA WA) while I just sat there listening. He left for an AA meeting & I just sat there. I don't how long I sat there, it felt like days. When the shock wore off, every synapse in my brain fired at the same time & I started connecting a lot of dots, a lot of behaviors, a lot of incidences.

I was overcome next by shame - I felt like SUCH a fool for not seeing it all for what it was.

I understand this too - I remember looking at my AH at one point & seriously thinking, Who ARE You? He had become someone so totally different from the person that I knew & fell in love with. We had been together something like 13/14 yrs at that point & I had to grieve a little for him no longer being the man I thought he was. I had to grieve a little for me no longer being the woman that I thought *I* was, for that matter.