Part of going through a rare-ish ordeal such as a cancelled wedding is becoming an instant expert on the subject. While I’ll fully admit that the idea of being known as a guru of any sort warms my know-it-all heart, being an expert on endangered engagements isn’t exactly something I aspired to.
However, here I am with all of this sobering knowledge, and more than one friend who has confided in me about a couple who seems headed for the same fate. It seems only natural to start pretending to know what I’m talking about and doling out haphazard advice.
Fortunately, in the past few months I’ve had the pleasure of being involved in weddings for two very happy, very healthy couples. Once I was outside the fog of my own relationship, it was easy to see just how their engagements varied greatly from mine. Though my study has only been as in-depth as comparing my experience to theirs, here are the biggest red flags I’ve identified (though I’m using the term “he” throughout, I can only imagine that these behaviors would be equally as foreboding if exhibited by a she-fiance) :
- Engaged But Uninvolved: There’s a difference between a finace who pats you on the head, smiles at you lovingly and says, “Whatever you think, dear. I’m no good with plans,” and one who simply does nothing to help while sending you mixed signals about whether or not he wants to or ever will. If you’re doing everything and he seems to have no time for working on or even talking about the wedding, there’s probably some denial going on somewhere. If he won’t get his guest list finalized, if he has one wedding task and he just can’t seem to prioritize it, or if he keeps wanting to “talk about it later,” it’s definitely time to make him talk about it. Right now.
- Withdrawing From Your Life: After getting engaged, your fiance’s involvement with your friends and family should not decline. He should be even more present at family functions and in your social life. Afterall, by deciding to marry you he chose to be a part of your family, and ideally should be excited about being one of the gang. When a fiance does anything other than embrace the people who are important to you, it should be a pretty onerous sign.
- Fighting Is On The Rise: There are plenty of things to blame an increase in arguments on during an engagement. Healthy or not, there are a lot of issues that couples never have to confront until marriage and a wedding become a reality. However, your gut can tell the difference between event-planning arguments and fighting about the pending marriage. If you have a hard time trusting your gut (or simply don’t want to), ask yourself, “Will this issue be resolved the day after the ceremony, no matter what happens, or will we still but duking it out as husband and wife?” If a good deal of your arguments have to do with long-term relationship issues, it might be time to reevaluate if the time is really right for such a committment.
- He Doesn’t Get It: You’re following him around your house, throwing wedding questions at him and suddenly something becomes clear - he has no idea how much this all costs; he has no idea how much time you’ve spent on the save the dates; he based his opinion on the invitation wording on his own, made-up criteria; he says “yes” to writing our own vows, but he doesn’t really know what that means. A wedding is project; a marriage is an even bigger one. If you can’t manage to be on the same page during the planning of one event, how will you co-manage your life together?
- Three Is Becoming a Crowd: If there is a factor such as depression, drugs, alcohol or other compulsive behavior involved in your relationship, it must be worked out. Now. It’s hard enough for two people to go through an engagement and come out in (and as) one piece. There is no room for an unchecked issue to run rampant through your marriage. If he isn’t or you aren’t willing to get help now, when the stakes are the highest, there’s very little hope anything but a crash-and-burn situation will eventually result. Don’t be around for this; get out now.
- Everything Will Be Fine After the Wedding. No, it won’t. Be honest with yourself. If your gut is telling you that something is just not right, don’t ignore it. It could come from a place in you who sort of thought wedding planning would be more fun, or that your wedding would be prettier, or bigger, or smaller, or whatever. It might be that you thought you’d be more excited or feel more in love. After you get married is when you’re committed to compromising for the rest of your life, not before.
This list is not absolute in any way. Its just what I found to be true in my life. Hopefully, most people would look at such a list and find nothing in common with it. But if something looks familiar, remember that taking the time to honestly evalute your relationship is not akin to admitting that there is something wrong with it. And if you’re afraid of what you’ll see…well…I think you know where this is going. Take it from someone who spent an embarrassingly long time with her head in the sand: Just look.