When Bad Weddings Go Even Worse

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I need to help a friend of mine through a really rough time, and I thought I’d throw the situation to the floor.

An old friend of mine is getting married this Saturday. Her fiance is a jerk–we’ve always known it, and she thought so for the longest time, then things improved somewhat, he proposed, and she accepted.

It turns out that the asshole has not fallen far from the tree, so to speak. His family has done everything possible to de-rail this wedding and make my friend’s life miserable. In fact, my friend said a few days ago that if her fiance did not get a job somewhere else so they could move away from his parents, the marriage would not last six months.

This past weekend, he informed her that he had been offered a good job at Toyota–but had turned it down, because he didn’t want to move away. (He knows how she feels on the subject.)

I heard all this second-hand, so I finally called her up, and it was worse than I suspected. She says that she has not been able to sleep, she has lost ten pounds in a week (she weighed maybe 120 before), and that she is crying pretty much all the time. Everyone–her fiance, her family, his family–is writing it all off as wedding jitters.

The problem is the juggernaut of a wedding they have planned. The sheer inertia of it all is the only thing keeping her from calling it off. She still loves her fiance, I think, but she just can’t live with him if he won’t grow a pair and stand up to his parents.

When I talked to her, I told her that it was OK if she called it off, and that there were at least a few people who wouldn’t blame her in the least. She said that was just what she needed to hear. She’s trying to weigh the fallout that would ensue from calling it off against the possibility of going through with it, hoping it works out, and getting out if it doesn’t.

I guess I just don’t know what else to say to her. I’m seriously worried about her, and what might happen if they go through with this. I can’t help but think that in terms of total heartbreak, she’s cutting her losses tremendously by getting out now.

I’m mostly just unloading, but if anyone has any insight, let me know.

Dr. J

2

The only insight I can contribute is that your friend can have it all blow up now, or (if what you say is anywhere near accurate) have it all blow up in a few months.

A cautionary tale: my 18-year old nephew insisted on marrying his 16 year old girlfriend, as they swore eternal love for each other. They got married, with all the friends and relatives in attendence making bets on how long it would last. No one would even give it a year, and as it turned out, most of us were overly optimistic.

Moral: if it doesn’t feel right, chances are it ain’t right.

3

Any effort, time, and money that she has already invested in the wedding is gone. It’s gone whether she goes through with it or not. Sunk costs, you know? Therefore, that should not be a factor in her decision.

I had “wedding jitters” and “cold feet” before my wedding–but they were way outweighed by excitement and happiness. It doesn’t sound like wedding jitters. It sounds like she doesn’t want to marry him!

She is obivously under a lot of pressure right now, and it is good that she has friends like you. No matter how it might seem to her right now, it’s easier/better/more honest not to marry him at all than to go for a quickie divorce. Any “fallout” from calling the wedding off would be nothing compared to the fallout from a divorce.

Besides, as you say, her friends and family love her, and (hopefully) they’ll support her in her decision.

Good luck to her, and to you!

4

be as supportive as you can. keep telling her that it is easier to cancel a wedding than go through a divorce. even an hour before.

5

Tell her it’s gutsy and smart to do the hard thing and call it off. She’s to be commended for being so serious about the institituion of marriage that she won’t go through a sham wedding just to save a little social embarrassment. She’s going to need a lot of support from people right now, and I appreciate that you’re there to give it to her.

My friend called of his wedding (last minute) a few years ago. It was a pain in the ass; we lost money on the plane tickets; I’d already sent my gift ahead; etc. He had to endure a lot of jokes from his closest friends (especially when he did end up getting married for real to someone else this spring) but the important thing is, he did the right thing, and I’m happy for both him and his former fiancee.

6

I backed out of an engagement once. It was the hardest thing I ever did and the second best thing I ever did. We had to return the rings and everything.

My sister called off a wedding a few weeks befor it happened. Invitations had gone out and people had to cancel travel plans. She dosen’t regret this at all.

It’s tough but it can be done and if the situation is as bad as you describe I suggest you offer to take your friend out of town for a few weeks after she breaks the news.

Offer her some reward for dumping the guy. ‘I’ll give you two hours of spa treatment if you stop this.’ If she considers at all there should be no wedding.

7

Your friend is putting too much dependence on willing to go through with this wedding in hopes of changing the guy after they get married. He ain’t gonna change. If she can’t accept the situation for the way it is right this minute, then she better call off the wedding and spend this weekend out of town somewhere away from friends and family.

8

My father was a Presbyterian minister. He said of all the weddings he did, one made him feel particularly uncomfortable as it seemed the groom and bride had no business being together–and their families were against the marriage. He worked with couple-to-be for a long time, but they were determined and went through with it.

For the next thirty-five years until the groom passed away, they sent my father a thank-you note on their anniversary. It touched him deeply, and he often used this as an example to me about not rushing to judgement.

My advice is: If they go ahead and get married, be extra supportive even though that won’t be easy. Sometimes, to everyone’s surprise, things work out. On the other hand, I know several “picture-perfect” couples and families who didn’t last a year.

9

When I got married I knew it was a mistake and I knew I shouldn’t go through with it but family pressures and feeling obligated to “do the right thing” made me go through with it. It was a horrible experience and we divorced a little over two years later. If she wants to go through with it and risk getting divorced later down the road, that’s her choice. IMO, getting divorced is harder than calling it off.

I think she has three options.

  1. She can go through with it. This is very risky because she runs the risk of becoming even more unhappy than she already is and more than likely her situation won’t improve.

  2. She can postpone it temporarily and try to hash things out with her fiance and talk to him about what she needs from him and their relationship in order to feel secure about marrying him.

  3. She can call it off completely and break away from him and not try to fix the problems she’s having with the relationship.

I, personally, would choose option 2. Sure, money will be lost and relatives and friends may be upset but that will pass. I really think she needs to have a serious talk with her fiance before Saturday though. Does he know that she’s unable to sleep and losing weight? He must not be a very attentive person if he can’t see she’s unhappy… then again, if she’s not telling him what she’s feeling, how’s he supposed to know? I don’t know. I’m rambling now. Good luck to your friend. Keep us posted.

10

Call it off, call it off, hit the Cancel button, Command-period, Control-Alt-Delete, yank the coil wire out of the distributor cap, do NOT pass go, emergengy exit, run for the hills!

There are a million some-odd good reasons for not getting married, and perhaps a couple valid reasons for doing so. The fact that invitations have been sent and a gown acquired and relatives have already bought candlesticks and silver service pieces is NOT a candidate for the latter category, and if it’s the only pro-marriage motivating force she’s headed for one of many worse disasters she’ll regret for the rest of her life.

11

My best friend got married about a month ago. She was in pretty much the same situation–they reconciled after a long, troubled relationship when he made a few (superficial) overtures at healing the relationship. They got engaged about a year ago…and the relationship has proceeded steadily downward ever since. I believe that she never even allowed herself to question the idea that they would get married because she is one of those people (and comes from a family) that is excessively concerned about social embarrassment.

In the month since the wedding, they have done nothing but bicker and fight. No honeymoon period at all. The husband is back to his old ways…deliberately picking fights without any meaning, etc. In fact, they are currently between apartments, and have chosen to live apart with different friends while they’re homeless, though they had plenty of offers from friends who had room for them to stay together. She is leaving on vacation alone next week; her words to me were, “I don’t care WHAT Jim does with himself while I’m gone.” Aah, so nice to see a young couple in love.

Bottom line: this is what your friend can probably look forward to after she’s married, too.

You might show your friend this thread. I doubt that she has pictured her honeymoon being like my friend’s. All these stories of divorce and misery might jolt her back to reality.

12

Even people in the throes of wedding “jitters” don’t completely lose their sense of judgment - if she is so unhappy that she’s losing weight, not sleeping, etc., then something is wrong.

It always amazes me how people who know better than anyone how messed up someone else is always figure he’ll “straighten up” when he gets married. And not necessarily the bride, but other family members whom you’d think would have better perspective about the guy. Yeesh.

13

I gotta go with a35362 on this one. Normal wedding jitters kill your driving skills on the way to the JOP. Normal wedding jitters keep you wondering “Wow, these are gonna be some big changes. Am I really ready for all this?”

Normal wedding jitters do NOT cause sleeplessness, extended crying jags, and sudden drastic weight loss. This woman is being made extremely unhappy in her situation, her turdspeck fiancé knows why she is unhappy (especially as regards her future in-laws) and is not lifting a finger to do anything about it.

Enlist every friend you and she have in common, sit her down for a crisis intervention, and tell her it’s OK to call it off. And all of you be there to support her for the next couple of months - it’s going to be a rough ride.

She needs to call it off and get out. Now.

Best of luck out there.

14

I hate to be blunt but tell her to call it off. Any expenses incurred so far are as NOTHING compared to the heartache that would come later. And what if she got pregnant? She would have to have contact with that awful-sounding family for the next eighteen years, until the kid grew up. Let her know that you will support her no matter what, but you especially will stand up for her if she has the guts to call it off. I found out after I divorced that some friends of ours had been friendly with my ex only for my sake, and they wished they had known him before the wedding so they could have advised me differently.

15

Let’s see, she’s going into the marriage weighing the options if things go wrong. What, exactly, does she think marriage is? Marriages go wrong with the couple going into it madly in love and willing to work hard to make it work; if she’s going into it with contingency plans to bail out of it in six months, she has absolutely no business getting married in the first place. Unless someone has physically tied her up and forced her not to call it off, she has no reason for letting it go any further (except cowardice, and that’s no reason). I know two sayings that seem appropriate here; “Marry in haste, repent in leisure”, and “It’s better to be alone than wish you were.”
Sorry, don’t mean to rant at you, Doctor J. I believe marriage is a very solemn vow, and I don’t like to break any vow that I make.

16

First of all, I definitely agree–fully support her in calling it off. If it feels wrong, the chances are next to ZIP that it will ever feel right. One anecdotal case: my middle sister married after a speedy courtship and engagement. Two weeks after the ceremony, she knew, knew, that she had made an enormous mistake. Embarrassed, she stayed in that mistake and made her life exponentially more miserably until wising up 9 years later.

Another friend became engaged under severe family pressure (his) despite the fact he had no job, and had NEVER had any kind of permanent job (he was 31). She kept thinking it would be better once they were married. Wrong. The marriage was anulled in less than 6 months (he was mentally ill, turned out, and was therefore incapable of entering into the contract/legal agreement that is marriage).

Advice for the future: get premarital counseling not when there’s a ring and a date and the world knows. By then, the pressure is so immense, odds are neither member of the couple are going to pay as much attention to the warning signs, and will want to turn a blind eye and just get it over with to please everyone.

It will be a mess for her, but painful as it will be, it will spare her from a whole new dimension of hurt.

17

Please, please get her out of there.

The son of one of my parents’ neighbors was in a similar situation. He was young, horny, and apparently the gal he married would make a nymphomaniac look like Marilyn Quayle.

A week before the wedding he confided in my mom that he would call it all off, “but Mom and Dad and her parents have spent so much money, and her parents will hate me forever 'cos they’re so psycho,” etc.

So he went through with it. The wife, of course, immediately got pregnant (ostensibly they’d been relying on the pill), and now he wants to stay married for the sake of the baby. He just might do it, but at the cost of a loveless, hollow marriage to a woman he can no longer stand.

That’s a pretty heavy burden, and one your friend can avoid.

18

One of my best friends and his four brothers have a “wedding pact.” Whenever one of them gets married, the others ride to the ceremony with him and give him the following talk:

“We like ___. We really do. But if there is any reason why you think you may not want to get married today, tell us now. One of us will take you to the airport, the rest of us will go to the church and break the news, and we can all be on a plane to Mexico by sundown. You can have some time to think about things. You don’t HAVE to do this, and we will still love you and make it okay.”

Sounds like you and your friend need a pact. She should call it off. If she still wants to marry the guy six months from now, after some counseling and serious talks about what they want the marriage to be, she can. But she is exhibiting signs of SEVERE unhappiness that aren’t going to magically go away during a ceremony. Weddings have become so overblown and expensive, but that’s no reason to marry someone who can’t say no to his awful family.

19

She sounded a lot better today–she and her fiance had a long talk last night, and she says that she thinks he finally understands where she is coming from. She feels much better about the wedding now than she has for the last month.

I remain underwhelmed, as do all of her other friends. We’re getting together with her tomorrow–not really an “intervention”, but just a few hours in a friendly environment where everyone is on her side. (I don’t think I mentioned it, but her family is a bunch of raging nutcases as well.)

I still hope, with everything within me, that she calls it off. I don’t think she will. I’ll still go to the wedding, but I’m going to have a hard time keeping my mouth shut–I could cart about a small vanload of people away from this thing and then nuke the entire area, and I’d be doing humanity a huge favor.

Geez.

Jonathan

20

I take Xanax to control the kind of anxiety your friend is experiencing right now. Impending nuptuals should not send a person into that kind of a tailspin. No freaking way.

I’m glad she’s feeling better. Really, I am. But I think Rachelle’s suggestion Number 2, about postponing, is a darn good one. Maybe you could suggest that to her. Those two need to do a lot more talking. The fact that he’s starting to understand is good. But maybe he’ll start understanding enough to know that this marriage is NOT a good idea right now. Maybe later.