Calling Off The Wedding When You Have Real Doubts Is Always The Right Choice

Perhaps it’s because breakups are usually sad, life-altering occurrences, but as any person on the other side of a breakup will tell you, it was often for the best. Breaking up with your boyfriend is one thing, but what about a fiancé? You’re steps away from making the biggest commitment of your lives, but for whatever reason, you don’t go through with it. After surveying two close friends who made this tough decision in their own engagements, their perspectives showed me that calling off the wedding when you have real doubts is always the right choice.

His Values Didn’t Align with Hers

I met Drew* through mutual friends a few years ago and liked him immediately. He’s a likable guy, and though we don’t see each other often, he’s one of those people who you can talk to easily even if it’s been a long time since you last hung out.

Several years ago, Drew was engaged to his college sweetheart. They’d met their freshman year and gotten engaged upon graduation, which seemed like the next logical step. Drew had a fantastic job lined up, and so did she. For all intents and purposes, their life was unfolding just as it should.

Though he agreed to talk to me for this piece, Drew is still a little tight-lipped about the situation, and understandably so. The relationship ended, but not without heartbreak. “There were several things which didn’t add up, and for a while I wanted to ignore them,” he admits. For one, they moved in together before they got married, and neither of them had ever lived with a significant other before. “I didn’t realize at the time that was a huge step on its own. I just thought it’s what everyone did.”

Additionally, they had extremely different thoughts when it came to having kids in the future. She wanted to wait a while before having one or two, and he wanted to start right away and have as many as possible. They talked about it considerably and could never seem to come to a compromise or even see things from the other person’s perspective. Not only that, but Drew’s fiancée and his friends and family really didn’t get along, so much so that she would ask him to not see his friends or hang out with his family. For him, that’s when he knew it wouldn’t work out. After a lot of self-reflection and examination of the relationship, he ended things.

Your exes aren’t necessarily bad people, they’re just not the right person for you.

“It was really tough, but I wish her the best. Sometimes you have to realize that your exes aren’t necessarily bad people, they’re just not the right person for you,” he said. And the story has a happy ending! Drew is now married to his beautiful and talented wife, and they have two kids and several dogs.

She Didn’t Feel It Was Right

I adore my co-worker Carla*. We’ve worked together for over a year now, and whenever I need a laugh or a brutally honest opinion, I know I can always go to her.

Carla has now been married to her sweet husband for over a decade, and I love getting drinks or going to dinner with them. They’re a perfect match for each other in humor and temperament, and a great example to me of a married couple who still knows how to keep things exciting and fun.

Long before she was married though, Carla was engaged to a guy from her hometown. They didn’t date long before he popped the question and she said yes. “It was over almost as quickly as it began, though,” she says. They’d dated for just a few months, and though she was over 30 and definitely ready to settle down and have a family, she still called off the engagement not long after he proposed.

“Something never felt truly right. I cared for him and was excited about the possibility of us getting married, but I don’t know if it’s because I truly loved him or because I was really ready to get married.” As it turns out, he had the same feelings and when she called things off, they were able to part amicably.

Have the courage and the faith to end things and believe there’s a better fit out there for you.

I think what Carla did takes guts. For women, it can be devastating to desperately want a home and a marriage and feel like it’s never going to happen. The temptation to settle in this particular relationship was a strong one, but she still had the courage and the faith to end things and believe there was a better fit out there for her, even though she wasn’t 100% sure that there was.

In the End, the Hard Decision Is Always the Right One

Breaking up with someone you really love is a hard choice to make, especially when you’re not even sure what’s waiting for you on the other side. In fact, it might even feel like you’re throwing your whole future away. But rest assured, if it’s really meant to be, you’ll find your way back to each other.

Your values might not align, or your intuition might tell you there’s something else out there. Whatever the case, if you think ending things before making the big jump to marriage is the right thing to do, it probably is.

Ending an engagement is hard enough, especially when you’ve put time and money into it, but what’s even worse would be to go through with a marriage when you have real doubts about it. Not voicing those doubts automatically starts your marriage off in a spirit of distrust. If you don’t feel comfortable enough with your spouse to be truly honest with them, why did you marry them in the first place?

Sadly, half of all marriages now end in divorce. It’s hard to say how many hearts could have been spared this kind of emotional turmoil (and expense) had the marriage never taken place.

Closing Thoughts

No matter what your grandmother will say or what his parents will think, they’re not the ones getting married. Whatever the circumstances, don’t let doubt eat away at you and don’t think it’ll go away by not acknowledging it. Whatever the future might hold, it is always, always better to end things before a marriage takes place if you have real doubts.

*Names have been changed for privacy.

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